No death, no burial. No burial, no ceremony. It\u2019s that simple. Except that it is not. Burials spin the wheels of what I call the village economy. Everybody gets to line their pockets. I\u2019ve seen men paying for levies which village elders said their father\u2019s owed before dying. There\u2019s no way to confirm that. Dead men don\u2019t talk. Yet, unless those levies get paid, the man won\u2019t be lowered to the ground. They pay up, fuming away back to the city, swearing never to let those uncles smell a Kobo of their money ever again.<\/p>\n
This year, a friend of mine lost his father. At first, I thought he was taking it too hard. But much to my surprise, I found it wasn\u2019t much about his 91 year old father passing, than about the many financial requests by village elders, levies to pay, groups to settle, etc. Burials have a special way or relocating city money down to the village.<\/p>\n