So Monday afternoon around 5, we received a call that Maribel's husband had been killed. We were of course shocked and saddened. He was only 30 years old. Than, about 10 minutes later, Magda calls Bry and asks for help. Apparently, Maribel was on her way home with the casket and we had to go to her house and break her door down and "prepare". I didn't fully understand what was going on, but it seemed urgent so I agreed. You see, the custom here is to have the open casket on display in the family's home for around 3 days. During these 3 days, the entire town, family, passersby...pretty much the entire world, comes by the house and gawks at the body. The family is expected to provided food and refreshments for all these people. And this also lasts throughout the night! So....Aaron and I ran to the nearest corner store to buy plastic plates, etc., coffee, sweet bread...pretty much anything we could find to feed a million people. Then we went around and gathered flowers from our trees to make some floral arrangements. Aaron helped load all our chairs from the Kingdom Hal into a truck and, of coarse, don't forget a long table to lay the casket on! The we headed to Maribel's house. Aaron and Mario broke the locks to get into the house, while Magda and I started cooking like madwomen. Right as we were finished setting everything up, the pickup truck arrived with the casket and about 20 people hanging off the back, including Maribel and her little girl Mayrin. It was a sad moment, but when you are totally in shock of how strange a situation is, its so surreal that we didn't have time to be sad. The family carried the casket in and placed it right in the front patio. Immediately opened the lid and everyone gathered to stare at the body. Needless to say, we stayed far away from that table!
But wait! Thats not all...then the family informs us that Franklin actually died on Saturday night, but they couldn't contact Maribel until tonight, Monday. And the body isn't "prepared" or anything...so...we have to get him buried by 10am the next morning because he's already starting to decompose! So we spent the entire night attending to the passersby, making food and coffee and making arrangements for a short bible talk in the morning at 9am. At one point, the family began to talk about lifting the body out of the casket to put ice underneath him to preserve him more! Then, since the caskets are basically cardboard, they decided against that. I guess they didn't want the body falling through the bottom as they carried him out! :) Then they wanted to take our large, metal food serving trays to place under the body to catch the water! The final decision was to put the trays with ice under the casket, on the table, and hope that the cold air floated up and cooled the body. Do you think that really worked in 95 degree heat?
We got home in the early morning hours with enough time to shower and sleep a couple of hours, then it was back over to Maribel's. 6 men were selected from the family and friends to go dig the grave site at around 6am. All the sisters from our congregation arrived to start cooking a full breakfast and lunch for the guests. There were roughly about 100 people there, so you can imagine the amount of work. At times it was really hard for us not to lash out...for example, most of the attendees were simply people passing by the road that saw what was happening. They would enter, gawk at the body, point at it and make comments, then enter the kitchen and get a plate of food and then leave...not even paying their respects to the family. The locals didn't seem bothered by it, so we assume its part of the culture. Guess some things we will never fully adapt to.
Mario gave a very beautiful talk. Was very encouraging and comforting. Then Aaron helped carry the casket to a nearby pickup truck. (We will spare you all the details of Aaron's close encounter with the casket!) Everyone walked behind the truck to the nearby cemetery. They lower the casket into the hole, open the lid again so that everyone can say their last goodbyes...and then fill the hole in. Then its BACK to the house for more food and drinks. We finally were able to go home around 3pm to shower and rest. Then it was back again around 6pm to spend some time with Maribel and her daughter alone. Thankfully most the guests had finally left and we could visit with the girls. We remembered all the good times we had with Franklin...like the time that we taught him how to play "Spoons", a loud, sometimes violent, card game! Maribel said that he always talked about that night.
It was a crazy week for us and we had alot of new experiences. We sometimes do not understand the culture here, sometimes we even find it strange or funny...but we never forget that there are probably lots of customs that American's have that foreigners probably find strange. It all depends on your viewpoint :)
Aaron told me yesterday that if I die here in Honduras, he's going to punish me by having a traditional Honduran, open-casket, funeral! Hahaha, that gives me plenty of incentive not to drop dead here!
