Dear Family and Friends,

Here in Tanzania, death is much more present in daily life than it is back in the United States. Not only is the death rate higher and younger, but the families are bigger and more interconnected, so we always have some connection to the deceased. It also affects people in more ways than grief -- at home, at work, at school... I'll try to take an honest look at some of the ways in which death has crossed my path in the past few months.

A week and a half ago, I stopped by Maggie's house and got some shocking news: Another Peace Corps Volunteer here in Tanzania has died. Just like Natalie's, Wyatt Pillsbury's death was unexpected and out of nowhere. He was on Zanzibar with another volunteer. They had been drinking, and he went to bed and didn't wake up. She found him the next morning. I can't imagine what she must be going through now -- she's in Washington DC getting psychological counselling.

I personally didn't know him that well. He was part of the newest group, an Environment PCV from way down south, so I didn't have cause to see him often. On the other hand, I saw him twice in June. Early in June, after a party in Morogoro, he ended up crashing next to me on a mattress. The thought that it could have been me finding him the next morning keeps running across my mind. I also saw him when I was down in Njombe, which is the town closest his site. My brain hasn't fully wrapped itself around the idea that I will never see him again; it may take a while.

Sadly, speaking of death, it seems to be on the rise among my Tanzanian neighbors. I don't know if the AIDS epidemic is finally showing itself, or if I'm just noticing things more, but there has been a marked rise in the number of funerals in Monduli in my three years here. It used to be there was a sizeable funeral in Monduli every few weeks to a month. Now it seems at least every week there is one, if not two. Some signs are surer than others: Maggie describes to me how the wife of one of her fellow teachers recently died from a series of illnesses from which she couldn't seem to recover, and now he is often sick and can't make it to school.

In addition to this being a great human tragedy, I'm going to risk sounding callous and say that it is also a major economic issue as well. Not only are many of the people who are dying the most productive members of the community (aged 25-40)... but when many of my colleagues go to a funeral every two weeks or so, in a culture in which there are no substitute teachers or temp workers, things just naturally slow down. Students don't get taught. Shops are just closed all day. Government papers don't get pushed and signed. One parent dies, and they call their daughter home from secondary school so she can help out at home. Again, it may sound cold to say it, but improving their economy is the only way those who are left living can survive. AIDS is not only burying the dead, it's eating away at the living.

Fortunately, Tanzanians have a way of not dwelling too long on sadness. If I were a permanent member of a culture in which people suffer and die all the time, I wouldn't survive myself if I was unable emotionally to deal with grief.

One common way Africans do this is the 'Arobaini', Swahili for 'forty'. I thought it was strictly a Maasai thing, but apparently almost all other tribes in Tanzania do it as well. As much as the different tribal religions differ (and as much as they've been supplanted by Christianity and Islam), one common theme is the belief that after someone dies, the spirit kind of hangs around earth for a while before making the final ascent to God.

So, forty days after the funeral there is a party, all fun and frivolity, to say goodbye to the deceased and to wish him well on his way (Yes, I say 'him' here because these events are almost exclusively for the deaths of significant male members of the community). It's a way of saying "it's time to be happy again -- he's on the way to a better life!" It's also the last time for anybody with any extended issues with the deceased to voice them -- if he owed somebody money, this is the last time to claim it; if someone owed him, this is the last time for the family to collect. After that, what's done is done and it's a closed book.

So, sometime in May, I went to the funeral of Abraham Mollel, the grandfather of my next-door neighbor who is another teacher at my school and a good friend. As I hinted above, there are enough deaths that a community can't possibly hold a funeral for everyone, so they choose the most important people in the community and have a very big funeral for them. Abraham Mollel was allegedly over 100 years old and had a high position on the council of Maasai elders for the Monduli area. So, it was time for a funeral.

The funeral really wasn't all that culturally exciting; it was a purely Lutheran affair involving a sermon and hymns and the like. He was buried on a hill nearby to his home, next to his wives, most of whom had passed on years before. (If you haven't figured it out, the Maasai culture is polygamous, even among many who have 'Christian' affiliations.)

So now, jump ahead to, well, just this past Saturday. It had been forty days (and then some!) since the funeral, so it was time to wish Abraham Mollel on his way... and I was invited to come along. I expected more in terms of additional eulogies and singing; instead it was just more of a get-together of all the local family members (~100+ folks or so), enjoying each other's company... but in a much more traditional Maasai way than the funeral. So, since I've written very little up to now about Maasai culture, I'll describe my experiences there in great detail, for the sake of you all who are out there experiencing Tanzania vicariously though me.

First, though: In Part (a) of this series of letters, I issued a warning to vegetarians about the chicken-killing paragraph. If you ignored that warning and later regretted it, I strongly advise you to skip the remainder of this message, which involves more slaughtering and other, far more visceral things.

Mr. Mollel (my neighbor) and I left around 7 AM from the school and trekked an hour or two across the bush towards his family home, stopping by to 'pick up' other folks along the way. We were all bundled up in the traditional Maasai 'rubeiga', the red blankets they wrap themselves in to keep off the cold of the northern highlands.

[I know it's hard for you to imagine it in the middle of July, but here in the (just barely) southern hemisphere, a mile above sea level, it's really cold -- it's 1:30 PM as I'm writing this, and my fingers are numb enough that I have to stop typing every once in a while to rub my hands together. A few days ago, I saw my breath -- in my bed in the morning. An October-style cold is far more penetrating when you have no heater in your house]

We left so early because (Teacher) Mollel was a grandson of Abraham Mollel and needed to be there before the rest of the crowd came. Also, he recently had a serious problem two months ago when a large number of cows were stolen from his family home. The thieves had been caught, but the cows could not be returned until the council of elders sat and decided what to do about the situation. Since they were all coming in for the Arobaini, they would sit that morning and discuss the situation.

I may have mentioned in the past that as pastoralist herders, the Maasai have very ancient and important traditions surrounding cows. Having cows is more important than having money or wives. In some of the recent drought times, the father of the family would let his children starve to death before slaughtering a cow to feed his family. Therefore, it is only for very special occasions that a cow is slaughtered.

When we got there, it was just about time to slaughter the cow for the event. They had rounded up the cows from out in the field and corralled them, choosing the biggest, fattest bull for the honor. They brought him down to a low place down the hill, away from the boma (the cluster of round thatched mud huts in which each family lives).

They tied the bull's feet together and lay him down on the ground. Then, one of the old men took a very sharp, long knife, and drove it down into the base of his skull, cutting the spinal cord. They said that this was very quick way of killing the animal, but it seemed to take them a while to get the knife in, and eventually one of the younger, stronger men had to take over and drive it the rest of the way. Still and all, it took a minute or two for the bull to stop kicking.

Why didn't they just cut his throat like most other slaughter, you might ask? Surely that's a faster (and easier) way of doing the job? Well, perhaps. But that would preclude the next very important activity. After the bull finally died, they cut the skin at the neck long-ways, from the chin to the chest. They then pull the lower half of the skin away from the rest of the body, forming a kind of pocket out of the skin of the neck. Then they find the carotid artery and cut it. The blood runs into this pocket and slowly fills it.

In the meantime, the elders step up with a big cup and fill it by dipping it into this pocket. They take the fresh, still-hot blood and... bottoms up! The blood chug is usually followed by a manly Maasai-style grunting. Each man gets to take his turn after the older men have had theirs. Which brings us to the inevitable question -- and the answer is yes, had some. I must confess I didn't have the stomach to pound down an entire cup (about one pint) but I did take a good-sized gulp of hot, fresh, salty blood, steaming in the chilly Monduli morning, much to the delight of my new warrior friends.

After that, they they skinned the bull and started dividing him up. There's no tarp involved; it's all done on the dusty ground, so the skin acts like a tarp; there's a little room to move around without getting dirt all over the meat. They also threw down some fresh, leafy branches pulled off a nearby tree so as to keep the end product off the ground.

They do not divide up the bull in quite the way we do in the States, into large, thick sections. Instead, thin sheets were sliced off the animal's body. They were then mounted on sticks, spreading them wide and flat, looking a little like a shield or an artist's canvas. The sticks on which the meat was mounted were then jammed in the ground near the open fresh-wood fire. After a while, the fire was surrounded on all sides with these funny-looking shields. It looked like a little pow-wow -- the meat came to meet! (Groan) Anyway, in this way the meat was richly smoked and developed a nice flavor and tenderness.

The entire animal took quite some time to cook. In the meantime, I'm hanging out with my Maasai friends, trying to learn some more of the language than the basic greetings I already know. It was odd for me, after being here almost three years... I am not accustomed to not understanding what's going on. My Swahili is good enough that I can not only normally follow a conversation, but can participate pretty actively in it. However, Maasai is not a Bantu language, and there is almost no shared vocabulary, verb forms, or syntactic patterns... So I was mostly lost listening to the conversation that people were shouting across to each other.

Still, one can be a male in any culture and understand when a fellow male is getting razzed, or cheered for, or scolded. Even if I didn't get the meaning of the words, I got the spirit of the thing. When I had a question, most of the young 'murrani' (warriors) were happy to provide a Swahili translation (a good number of the elders don't speak Swahili).

We had been nibbling away at the meat all morning and early afternoon as it was coming off the fire, but that was just to cut the hunger. Finally the elders came down from their meeting and announced that it was time for the official eating to begin.

Maasai culture is very stratified by age, and every seven years there is a new age class with its own special name. All the boys who are circumcised within that seven year stretch are known by the name associated with their age class, regardless of their actual age. It all depends on when you became a true warrior. (When you are circumcised around age 14, you spend six months living in the wild and eventually kill a lion with the other boys who were circumcised at the same time as you.)

So when the meal officially begins, each age class groups off by itself, away from all the others. There were about eight or nine different groups of men of all ages scattered all over the hillside, each with their own share of the prize. (By the way, the women are off in their own place back at the boma, far out of sight of where we are. In their culture, men and women should not see each other when they are eating.)

According to Maasai tradition, every single part of the cow has its own purpose, and is meant for a different age group. For example: The ribs are reserved for the Engigwana, the eldest members of the tribe. The rear legs are for the Ole Payan, all the age groups who are old enough no longer to be warriors (above age 35-40 or so). Of the front legs, one goes to the Murrani and the other goes to the women. The backbone is also for the women. The liver is divided in two, half for the men and half for the women. And so on.

One other little detail... In this case, there was one very honored body part reserved for the eldest men who were the brothers of the deceased: The Heart. I had the privilege of being invited by one of these men to join them in this meal, which was shared not even in the groups, but back at the boma in the deceased's own hut. If you're curious (and if you're still reading at this point, I know you are) it's a little like liver but much more smooth and flavorful.

But, I'm jumping around a bit. The heart-eating actually took place almost an hour before we were officially divided up into the age groups. When we divided up, I was with the 'Landiis' age group, the current younger full-warrior class. The way the meat was generally eaten was this: We all squat in a circle. One murrani holds a large strip of meat in his hand. Another one holds the bottom end of the meat in one hand and a large knife in the other. The one with the knife saws off a bite-sized chunk and hands it to whomever, and then slices off another and proceeds around the circle until the meat is all gone, trying to make sure everyone gets the same number of pieces. This is all done with such dexterity that, even though there are a dozen men in the group, I am still getting meat almost faster than I can chew and swallow it.

After the bulk of the meat was consumed (some was reserved for latecomers), we came back together in the large group, and it was time to share another 'delicacy'. More delicious blood!

Not all of the bull's blood was consumed back at the beginning... about half of it was set aside in a big pot, mixed with salt so it wouldn't curdle. A few hours later, after much of the meat had been consumed, some of the more tender bits of meat were fried up in a big, wide pot, and then the blood was slowly poured in -- in effect, frying or scalding it more than boiling it. After it had cooked for a while, it was ready for us. Large mugs were again dipped, but this time, instead of a few people chugging it, it was generally passed around from person to person in small groups.

Generally, that is, except for me. I was standing more or less alone with my one other teacher friend, when the man who I took to be the head of the council of elders came up with a full, steaming mug and a stern look on his face. He mumbled something I didn't understand, and handed it to me. My teacher friend explained: Apparently, because I was clearly a guest, and because I had made such a good impression on the elder family members earlier by greeting them respectfully even though I'm a white guy, they decided to honor me with my very own cup of boiling hot, slightly coagulated blood with chunks of meat floating in it!

I was, of course, at the same time honored and a little apprehensive. I wanted to respect them by drinking it all, but I was worried that it might not all stay down... and that wouldn't be very respectful at all! The other problem was that it was really very hot, and even in the staff room at school I'm known for taking a long time to drink my tea because my mouth is a little sensitive in that respect.

So I sipped at it as best I could, and I shared it a bit with my teacher friend with whom I was standing. As it got cooler, I could take nice big gulps of the stuff... it was a bit like gravy, though I knew that the thickness was due to mild curdling and not flour. I was happy when I finished the cup and was able to much on the remaining meat at the bottom. It does make quite a nice baste, it's just that I'm used to having the proportions a little bit different.

By this time, a large number of people had filtered in from town and the surrounding country. So, we all went back to the boma and gathered in different huts, some for family, and some for friends from various relationships with the family. I was with a bunch of the young non-warrior men, just folks my age who had come in from town. We then shared some rice and potatoes and corn (the first non-bull-related thing I'd consumed all day) and chatted in Swahili, much to my relief.

It was nice being able to participate in conversations again. You will be amused at our topic: The US credit-rating system. Since few people have collateral here and most people have no formal registration with any organizations, there are basically no loans or payment plans of any kind here. Everything, including cars and homes, must be paid up front, in cash, all at once. The other folks were fascinated to hear about the American system and about all the checks and balances that are in place to make life very difficult for people who default on their payments.

After that conversation broke up, people were mostly just milling around outside, and I went and talked with different folks, sharing a little of a fermented honey-beverage, and generally having a good time. After an hour or so of that, though, it was getting towards dusk, and Mollel wanted to try to make it home before it got dark. So we gathered our group together and struck off again across the bush, back to Monduli town. We arrived right around sundown... and boy, did I sleep well that night.

Oh, I know you have one last question -- yes, I did get plenty of pictures, which have yet to be developed. It was very cloudy all day, so I'm a little worried the snaps will be grainy, but hopefully the key shots will turn out OK, and I will have them up on the web in no time!

So, I guess all I can say is that for these folks, this connection between life and death is very real, and they have very real ways of dealing with it. The old man dies, we take the life of another animal in his honor and drink its still-living blood. As strange (and as revolting) as it may seem to us, there's a cycle in there somewhere that's being respected... one that we miss out on too much in our own culture.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Here's one for the living,
Ethan

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