Burials Are Money Consuming and Stressful

The stress of a wedding and burial ceremony in my state can most times be stressful that you can't wait for the event to come to an end but the most stressful out of the two is the burial ceremonies.

I think it is only the Hausas that do not go through the burial stress like every other culture goes through because they believe the dead are supposed to be laid to rest immediately and not kept till the day everyone wishes.

Like every other culture, we the Akwa Ibomite have our ways of burying our deceased as a state and as a local government area, and for some reason, those ways must be followed to avoid some unnecessary problems.

It is necessary that during such occasion, you have to settle the villagers and also

This weekend, a friend was having a burial of her maternal mother and I was asked to come to assist them since I was closer to her parent too.

I went with them to the village on Friday evening with my friend since we both had to attend our church rehearsals and her parents had to leave before us, so they can start parking things down to the venue.

When we got there, everyone was there trying to get things done while her mom gave us our duty to do. Which has to do with killing a chicken and frying it for the next day's event.

While we fried the chicken, as custom, the village women of that community gathered in a designated place and began getting money, powder, and food items as their customs demanded.

I felt sorry for the deceased family because these women came in two sections and got everything they wanted without pitying this family.

It was late, so most of us had to go and rest for the next day. The next morning, cooking was done by diverse women. While some prepared the jollof rice, some people made fufu, while some sat down to package the rice and fufu.

Since that day was Environmental sanitation, the family had to wait till 10 am, before they went to the mutuary to carry their deceased corps.

The burial started very late because of the delay in bringing the corpse. The laying in state was done and the burial proper began.

Choirs who were invited did wonderful renditions, praises were sung as the deceased family danced to it and the Pastor gave a sermon.

At the end of the sermon, the corpse was taken to the grave dug for it. There was difficulty at first when they tried laying it down because the grave was too deep but after much trial, they succeeded in laying the corpse down with a longer wrapper with four men on by the side.

After the family was given chance to say their last farewell to the deceased, able men were asked to cover the grave with sands while their visitors were entertained with a lot of food and drinks to their satisfaction.