Funeral #2

May 5, 2004

On my way to campus on Wednesday morning, I ran into my friend, Koumakh Ndour, as he was leaving his residence adjacent to the school. Koumakh is the director of ENEA, Ecole Nationale Economique Applique, where we share our campus under a rental agreement arranged in 1998. He has been very helpful to us and has really become my trusted friend and ally. He holds a master’s degree from Texas Tech, is a devout Muslim, and seems to be someone who incorporates religious values into his personal and professional life. Koumakh was dressed in a white boubou and was accompanied by his wife. He was wearing dark sunglasses, protection for his failing eyes. I was aware that he had been on a modified work schedule for the past couple of weeks, due to problems with his eyesight. I finally had spoken to him by phone the day before and got the story on that.

He has suffered from cataracts and perhaps other undiagnosed problems with his eyes for some time. He had even had treatment in the US in the past. This latest flare up has caused him severe pain and reduced vision. He is being treated daily at a local hospital and exploring options with his health insurance company for treatment in the US. I had urged him to do so and offered to help in any way I could. My guess is that he suffers from glaucoma or some other sort of pressure to his eyes. I doubt that local medical care will do much to restore his eyesight.

So after greeting him, he informed me that he is on his way to the home of the librarian for ENEA, who passed away suddenly the day before. He tells me that she had not been sick at all, a healthy woman about 45 years old. The cause of death was a heart attack, while waiting to deposit her paycheck at the bank. It was quite a shock to the ENEA community and the funeral was that afternoon. I express my condolences and got details of the funeral.

A group of employees from Suffolk is organized to attend the funeral. Although I don’t know the deceased librarian, I decide that out of respect for Koumakh and good relations with ENEA, I will attend the funeral. This is a Muslim funeral, and I am told that typically it is a very brief affair (remembering the Christian funeral a couple of months ago that lasted a very long time). We arrange to meet at the parking area of the campus at 3 PM to drive there. I arrive a 3, and after about fifteen minutes a group of employees is assembled to drive there. Barbosa mans the mini-bus to drive us. I have no idea where we are going, but am prepared for whatever, my usual frame of reference here.

We drive into the city through a lot of traffic (the usual) to some sort of funeral home attached to the hospital where the body is. There are rows and rows of benches outdoors, covered by a corrugated roof. The area is packed with men, in an assortment of traditional and Western clothes. We enter and move to the back of the area. Several people I know from ENEA immediately get up to offer me their place on a bench. I try to refuse, but they will hear nothing of it. We sit for about an hour, with nothing happening. I notice on the other side of the area is a small group of women sitting on the ground. Obviously seating for the women is non-existent, not even a consideration, a typically Muslim type of occurrence. In the middle of the courtyard is a gray minivan. Eventually we all rise as a casket is carried out of a building and put in the back of the minivan. We all head back to our vehicles and proceed to the cemetery, or so I assume.

We drive out of the city to Yoff, a Lebou (a Muslim sect) community beyond Dakar a bit past the airport. We arrive, after an hour of navigating traffic, to a Muslim cemetery. We are gathering at an outside chapel/mosque, just waiting and standing in the afternoon sun. After about thirty minutes the men all begin to line up in very straight rows. I remain towards the back with Dramane and Ousmane Sy. The Iman (Muslim religious leader) begins to speak in Wolof. I think this is some sort of religious service, and eventually realize that it is. I know because the speaking is interspersed with Arabic phrases, mostly praising Allah, which I recognize. All the men know the service. It continues for about an hour. I, and the other non-pious, stand awkwardly in the back. There are no women present.

Before the service began, Manga and Dramane take me over to the cemetery office to show me a small marble plaque that has been prepared there with Dramane’s recently deceased mother’s name, birth and death dates, and an Arabic inscription about being a loving mother on it. I find out that Dramane had asked Manga to arrange for this, as he was going to travel to Mali on Thursday afternoon for a ceremony 40 days after his mother’s death. I liken this to an unveiling and end of mourning period ceremony. Dramane tells me he will be back on Sunday night, so will only miss one day of work.

Now to the irony that seems to be a theme I have been wrestling with all week – what is the correlation between religious piousness and moral behavior. I have noted that many people I have encountered, especially in Senegal, live a very pious life (primarily Muslim, but also some Christian) and yet behave quite unethically on a day-to-day basis. And I have also notice the reverse.

The latest example occurred just this week. It involved Ousmane Sy, our chief of security. He is a former military man whose job is to supervise our crew of about 14 untrained security guards. These guards sit outside the entrances to the campus, the faculty residence, the student residences, etc., “guarding” us. They are unarmed, not very alert, incredibly low paid, and often nowhere to be found. Mr. Sy walks around all day watching them, schedules there hours, reporting to me any problems with them (in the form of poorly written memos with his stamp on them), making sure I see that he is being alert, telling me other irregularities he sees, and generally sucking up to me. He makes a point of being sure I know how invaluable he is to me personally and to the campus. I have found him to be quite annoyingly ingratiating.

For the last couple of weeks, employees, mostly security guards, have been coming to me with written requests for salary advances, to be repaid over several months. There is always some sort of medical reason with the family for these requests. These employees are very low paid (around $100 per month), have no reserves, and most rely on loans for anything beyond day-to-day subsistence. I am generally willing and able to approve these types of things, a very minor “fringe benefit”, as I see it. I am quite amazed at the number of request all of a sudden. I ask Dramane to make some inquiries. He reports to me that a couple of guards have reluctantly admitted that Sy had put them up to asking for the advances, then lending the money to him. They feel pressured and don’t expect ever to be repaid by him. Mr. Sy has already borrowed a lot from us, has a wife and four kids, and a girlfriend that he wants to take as a second wife. He is a very religious man - prayers, Koran, the works.

I am outraged, but not shocked. I assure the guards who shared this information that they will be protected from any repercussions. I consult with our “labor advisor”, someone we have hired to assist us to be compliant with the highly complicated and restrictive Senegalese labor laws. He cites the code articles that have been violated, tells us we have to put a stop this immediately, and suggests that we give Mr. Sy a very clear written warning the this is using his position of authority for personal gain, it must stop, if it happens again he will be terminated. I draft such a memo in English and have it also translated into French. I ask Dramane to sit with me and Sy, to do the translating. Mr. Sy is summoned. He removes his security guard cap in my presence and Dramane hands him the letter and tells him what I have written. Mr. Sy immediately acknowledges his behavior and understands that it must stop. I am quite upset and let him know I feel personal betrayal and have lost trust in him. That apparently goes right by him. He leaves the meeting and later continues to be as ingratiating to me as he was before. In fact, for some reason he has decided I need his “protection” at the funeral. If you can imagine a man whom you are distrustful and angry with tagging along next to you, almost bumping into you as he does what he thinks is his job to regain your faith in him. It just made me more annoyed with him.

So here is my example of a man who portrays himself as devoutly religious and yet behaves in an entirely unethical way. Contrast that first to Koumakh Ndour, who I believe is both devoutly religious in practice and lives his life following the tenets of those beliefs. Second, contrast that to Manga, actually Mohamed Manga, one of our campus drivers. He is Muslim (although I have very recently found that his mother was Christian). He is not religious at all – he drinks alcohol, eats pork, doesn’t pray, etc. And yet he is one of the most decent people I have ever known. In a country where the driver of the car is king and the pedestrian is doomed to subservience because he doesn’t have funds for a car, Manga actually stops for pedestrians, allows cars to cut in during heavy traffic, things I have never seen anyone else do. He is the “big brother” to many of the other employees. For example, he found out that one of the employees was having an affair and the wife was very upset. He “stole” the guy’s cell phone, so the girlfriend couldn’t contact him any more and the affair thus died. The guy was convinced that the phone had been lost and I am the only one who knows of the intervention. I can cite many other examples of good deeds Manga has done, without looking for anything in return and not even letting anyone know he has done them.

I won’t go into Dramane’s story any further, other than to use him as an example of one who is neither religious nor exhibits moral behavior in his personal life. He did move mountains to fund and assist his elderly parents to make the Haj, the once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage to Mecca that every Muslim is supposed to do. The ordeal actually was accomplished weeks before his mother’s death. Those who have made the Haj go to a good place after death.

So back to the funeral –

I am struck by who is standing in the line with all the other Muslims in prayer, and who is hanging back with me, an unfaithful one. I am surrounded by Ousmane Sy (the religious one) and Dramane. Manga, surprisingly to me, is in the line quite absorbed in the prayers being given to Allah. When the ritual calls for raising arms into the air, he only raises his a little, but in rhythm with the others. It’s as if he is say, God, you know I don’t honor all the daily requirements of prayer, but you also know that I live my life in a way that gives me the right to honor you. I am quite struck.

The service at the outdoor mosque ends and everyone walks through the gates to the cemetery. Again, I hang back with a few of the others while everyone, a lot of people, surround the open grave. The iman is at it again. A very long service. The minivan with the casket drives up and some men carry the coffin to the grave. I can’t really see, but it appears that the shrouded body is removed from the coffin and placed in the grave. The coffin is returned to the van, which departs. Two gravediggers walk among the crowd with a hat in their hands, collecting coins. Everyone puts a coin in a hat, so I assume it is considered good luck or something. I expected something like this, so have coins at the ready. Manga takes me by the arm and walks me to another part of the cemetery to show me the mausoleum of the former President of Cameroon. Why is he buried in Dakar, I ask. Because he came here in exile after a coup removed him from office. Sad to die in a foreign country, I suppose.

From here we all return to our cars for the next leg of the funeral, at the residence to pay condolences to the husband. I want to go to this, to meet the husband and tell him how sorry I am, on behalf of myself and Suffolk. I also want to express condolences to Koumakh, whom I haven’t seen there. We all drive from Yoff to a neighborhood of NGor. Lots of people walk from the main road to a small side street, where a canopy has been erected outside the residence. We all stand in the late afternoon sun waiting for something. Finally the iman goes at it again. More prayers and talk in Wolof. Then a series of people also begin to speak, one of them Mr. Ndour. I don’t understand him, as it is also in Wolof, but can assume it is a eulogy on behalf on ENEA. It is now close to 7 PM and I am feeling quite weak and tired of all the mass of humanity around me. The service ends and everyone pushes to the area where the husband is. Sy suggests we just leave, but I really want to see the husband, I have been through all this and want to give my condolences. I push my way to the front. Someone who knows me and speaks some English introduces me to the husband. I take his hand and look him in the eye and tell him in French how sorry I am for his loss. He sincerely looks appreciative that I have come.

Now we walk back to the vehicle, drive back to campus and I grab my afternoon’s pile of work that never got done to get home for dinner. The work can wait until the evening or tomorrow. If there expectations of completing things at any specific times, there needs to be a diminution of those expectations. One of the lessons of living in Africa, often an important life lesson.

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