Hello dear friends.

I figured I would write a bit about what's happened over the last few days. As I said in the vet forum, my beloved aunt lost her husband last Wednesday, and it came as a huge shock to everyone. You see, I have a HUGE extended family on my mother's side (eleven siblings, most of which married young, had several children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and even great-great-grandchildren in a couple of cases) and there are several members of it who are much older and sicker than this uncle (let's call him uncle for the purpose of this blog. And really, he was more like an uncle to me than my father's brothers ever were) and he was the last person I imagine I would hear those news about. Granted, he was not young by any stretch. I think he turned 70 last February, though I'm not sure. But then again, that's just one year older than my own father, and my father-in-law turned 70 in February as well. Also, he had a chronic disease that affects his muscles, but he's had it for twenty years and was always on medication for it. He had his ups and down, and in the end it was his lungs that gave in.

My aunt is a very sweet woman, so helpful and kind. She doesn't deserve all the shit that's been dealt to her in life. First she lost her eldest son. Then her second daughter was abandoned by her husband and forced to move back in with a daughter who later turned out to have diabetes (she's 11 or 12, now). Then her eldest daughter got married and lost her husband just 11 months after her wedding, and last year she was diagnosed with breast cancer (in remission now, thankfully.) All this shit takes its toll on a person, and on a family as a whole, and yet these are the most cheerful and helpful people I know. You can't sit with them in a room without laughing your asses off.

Now allow me to bitch about Algerian funerary traditions because they really suck. Well, not all of them, but I'll get to that. So on the day of his passing my father picked me and my mother up from work and we drove to the other side of the city (they live in the middle of nowhere, an hour drive from my work and from our home) to be with my family. It was all kinds of awful, a lot of crying, a lot of people, etc. So when a person dies here, the body has to be at their home. If the person dies at the hospital or is somehow placed in a morgue, you retrieve the body immediately. If they die at home, hurray! The body has to be placed at the center of a large room, on the ground (well, the floor is covered by carpets, blankets and stuff) and to be covered by sheets. Doesn't mean you can't uncover it, unfortunately. People can take off the sheet to look at and touch the body as much as they want, which I find a bit repulsive, but that's just me, eh. It's usually surrounded by women. I don't know why it's women and not men; I guess we are better mourners? Anyway, a lot of people come to pay their respects; relatives, friends, neighbours, friends of relatives, neighbours of friends, coworkers, former coworkers, etc. And obviously, those people (or at least a greater part of them) have to be fed. Because what's a good Algerian "celebration" of death if food isn't involved. So here I am, standing there, crying my eyes out when one of my aunt comes and gestures to me "it's time, come on." Time for peeling onions, cutting meat and sorting out spices, yes. That's what us Algerian women do, whatever the occasion. We cook for people. So that's another thing I find repulsive. Why can't you come to offer your condolences and then leave? Why do you have to stay and make the bereaved family go through such big expenses (they really aren't wealthy people.)

But it gets worse. During that evening the body is washed following Islamic rites, and then it's wrapped in a shroud and you're not supposed to look at it again. It's then placed back at the same place and people just sit and you have to keep the lights on at all time, for some reason. The burial was set for the next day at noon. And that's another thing I'm not sure I like about those traditions. The person dies and is buried almost immediately. I understand that it's because the bodies are kept in houses and can decay very quickly, and I'm not sure how I'd feel about having a loved one's body stored in a morgue for weeks, like it's the case in other place, but.. I don't know, it's a bit brutal for me. Like one day he's dead, the next he's under ground, you don't even get enough time to comprehend the situation or at least get used to it. Some might argue that it's better this way, better to face the situation heads-on, that it's just a body, that the person is gone. I don't know, my body is still part of me, even if my brain and heart stop working. It doesn't suddenly become a plastic carcass than can be discarded. But I guess if you're religious it makes sense? Didn't make sense to me even when I was religious.

So anyway, they took the body to the graveyard at noon, buried it in an occupied grave because the graveyard where most of my family is buried is full up. The only way to bury people there is to open up graves of other relatives, with the consent of their living heirs, of course. So they opened up the grave of my mother's uncle (who died when I was 6 or 7), moved his skull and bones aside (I'm surprised nobody around me finds it horrifying) and put my uncle in there. After they (the men, women don't attend burials) came back to the deceased's house, obviously they had to be fed. More cooking for the women, more money spent on meat, vegetables and all sorts of things.

But that's nothing compared to the third day's feast. In Islamic tradition (I think. Never bothered with checking if it were recommended by scripture) the official mourning period is three days following the funeral. During those days, the house remains open to visitors who can come in day and night to offer condolences (and eat lolololol) so there is very little rest to be had. To "celebrate" the ending of the mourning period, a big dinner "party" is held. That in itself is not really an Islamic tradition as far as I know, more like a cultural one. So obviously all the women of the family get up super early to cook huge amounts of food and guests start arriving at around 6 pm, and there are several table services. So that's where I was yesterday. I had dish-washing duty with my younger sisters (because no one else will do it) and it almost drove me crazy. After each service the people who do the waiting start bringing in piles upon piles of dirty bowls, plates, spoons, etc., that you have to wash, rinse and dry very quickly because a new service is about to start. My back felt like it was about to break. Still does, actually. There were almost 200 guests.

I think you've all figured out by now that Algerians don't believe in caterers.

So, the day after this dinner event is actually the third day of mourning, and relatives gather at the graveyard to say prayers over the tomb, I guess. I haven't been to a graveyard in many, many years (except in Finland, but that's a completely different setting and experience), and I'm not sure how they work. After that, everyone goes home and the family is left alone to mourn and be super depressed because one day your house is full of people, and the next it's just you and silence.

At least I got to talk a bit to my cousins last night, before leaving, and it was actually a fun bit of conversation. They can still laugh and joke, at least. We're suppose to visit with them sometime next week. Hope it doesn't fall through.

This blog post was supposed to be about a few other things beside this death business, but it's too long already, so I'll write more later.

Sorry for the morbidity of it all.