A Potential Darwin Award
We finally have power, after not having it all weekend. It is supremely frustrating to be part of one town that is an island of darkness in a sea of power—the streetlight a stone’s throw from our house had power while we didn’t. Long may it last.
Get ready for an incredibly bizarre and disturbing story with shades of the Darwin Awards painted all over it. The brother of a patient of Dr. Addae’s (got that?) died several weeks ago. As is custom, the funeral was to take place last weekend. When they went to get the body from the morgue for the viewing and funeral rites, they discovered that there had been a mix-up and the man had been buried about six weeks earlier!
I guess the proper response would have been to have a funeral without a body, but that would be highly unusual. What this family did instead was exhume the body that had been in the ground for six weeks. They then dressed it and left it lying in the house for two days for the viewing and then re-buried it. Viewings here mean close contact with the corpse and lots of weeping over the body. This is fine if it has been kept in a mortuary, but not if it has been buried for six weeks! I can’t even begin to imagine how disgusting that is.
Apart from being disgusting, it is totally unhygienic. The man’s sister, who is about 70 years old, fell ill on Sunday because of this. She went into a coma and Dr. Addae went to see her this morning. Apparently she’s had some form of stroke and pneumonia. Hopefully she will recover.
I was unsure how to react when I heard the story, but the human capacity for dark humour is amazing: while lamenting the situation, Dr. Addae started laughing and so did I. It is a ridiculous story and goes to show the overwhelming lack of education about basic hygiene that many people here suffer from. SIX WEEKS IN THE GROUND!!!
Sweet dreams, y’all.
Get ready for an incredibly bizarre and disturbing story with shades of the Darwin Awards painted all over it. The brother of a patient of Dr. Addae’s (got that?) died several weeks ago. As is custom, the funeral was to take place last weekend. When they went to get the body from the morgue for the viewing and funeral rites, they discovered that there had been a mix-up and the man had been buried about six weeks earlier!
I guess the proper response would have been to have a funeral without a body, but that would be highly unusual. What this family did instead was exhume the body that had been in the ground for six weeks. They then dressed it and left it lying in the house for two days for the viewing and then re-buried it. Viewings here mean close contact with the corpse and lots of weeping over the body. This is fine if it has been kept in a mortuary, but not if it has been buried for six weeks! I can’t even begin to imagine how disgusting that is.
Apart from being disgusting, it is totally unhygienic. The man’s sister, who is about 70 years old, fell ill on Sunday because of this. She went into a coma and Dr. Addae went to see her this morning. Apparently she’s had some form of stroke and pneumonia. Hopefully she will recover.
I was unsure how to react when I heard the story, but the human capacity for dark humour is amazing: while lamenting the situation, Dr. Addae started laughing and so did I. It is a ridiculous story and goes to show the overwhelming lack of education about basic hygiene that many people here suffer from. SIX WEEKS IN THE GROUND!!!
Sweet dreams, y’all.
posted by Tony at 2:36 p.m.
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