First funeral

This last week I went to my first funeral since coming to Tanzania. The deceased was one of my students. Some have said that she died of malaria (while most of the time it is little more of a nuisance than the flu, it can enter the brain and can become deadly, but that is rare). One thing that struck me was how quick they progressed to the funeral. Thecla (pronounced Tekla) died either Tuesday night or Wednesday morning, and the funeral was held on Thursday.
I packed into the college's Land Cruiser with my Headmaster, five other teachers, and ten students (plus the driver). We went up into the mountains to the village she was from (a two hour trip over some sketchy roads). At the village the local women were dressed in their very colorful Kangas and the men in pants and collared shirts. There was a group from the church singing hymns while the women cried. The funeral service was held outside where the local priest read some passages from the Bible, sang some hymns, and prayed. Then the whole group went up on the mountainside and laid the coffin in the ground, the priest said some more benedictions, and then they covered the coffin with soil. Very fast. Arguments even broke out between men who were eager to help bury the coffin.
I have only included the pictures in the email and not on my blog.
Most of my teachers and other Tanzanians prefer to live in towns and cities. I argue that village life is quite appealing as well. One of their principle arguments is the access to health care in the towns and cities, but in this case it did no good - Thecla died in the hospital. She was a good student who scored rather high marks on my first test and she is sorely missed by her classmates. But in a country where the life expectancy is a meager 45 years, grief and death are a part of everyday life.