08/18/2026
Our latest blog
Blog 15, August 2026
Funerals
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: there are too many funerals in Malawi. We've made long standing friendships with people, and we get word they have suddenly passed with no explanation.
One of the first people Dan ever met was a tiny little 50 something housekeeper at the hostel he stayed at in Blantyre named Edie. She was spry, used to run for school, ran to give you hugs. We knew her since before we got married. Last Dan saw her he ran into her at the grocery store for a monthly restock in Blantyre, and the next month we came and asked if she was working so we could come say hi and give her a hug. She was gone. "Ah, sorry, she has died. I don't know why." We both about collapsed, and cried for the next few hours.
In Malawi the police are transferred all over the country, to keep their people circulating and to circumvent corruption. There was a senior officer who had come to live in our trading center named Yatuta. His wife had moved with him, and we'd built up a rapport with him over the years he'd been here. We would stop and chat with him anytime we saw him, and he had just had twin daughters we were going to come and see once his wife was feeling better. One day we came back from town and stopped at the police checkpoint to say hi, "Where's Yatuta?" "Oh, he has passed." He had gotten sick, went to hospital, and died overnight. His wife moved back to town with his babies the same month.
People just die, for no reason, no good reason anyway. "Ah, I think I have malaria. I need to go for treatment." And the next day they're just gone. A funeral is always held the day after they've passed, so the body doesn't have time to decay. They were here, you were going to come visit them the next Tuesday, and when you show up for tea they were buried on Friday.
When you last saw them Wednesday, it hits you like a Mac truck.
The Bible talks about the wailers hired for funerals in Jesus's day. I'd always thought that was silly. Who can just cry on demand? They have them here. They are loud, half of it sounds fake, but it makes for a very desolate atmosphere. Women fall on each other's shoulders and wail, carry their babies on their back and pat them to keep them from fussing but wail themselves, and go in and out of the house of the deceased throwing their arms in the air and talking about what a wonderful person they were in loud, choked voices. It's chilling. Surreal.
Hospitals don't really help much. Not when someone has died. There's no autopsy. There's typically no cold storage for the body. An ambulance might go and pick up the deceased to take them home to their village, but that is generous calling them an ambulance. Villagers cannot afford an ambulance in a free healthcare system. It's a hundred thousand kwachas, because they have to pay for fuel. Minimum wage for the month covers half of that, and most villagers don't have jobs.
There were three funerals these last two weeks related to people we know, and two fairly close to home. It hits different when it's a young mom with a toddler. When you just saw them at the well laughing and doing laundry last week. When they invited you over two days ago to show you their two room mud brick house because they are proud to have you come and see them. It hits hard. And it hurts.
You'd think we'd get jaded after all these years. Maybe we are a little. But Alise still cries for every single one. Can't say Dan is much better. Every life is precious.
