The Funeral Part 2

Mounds of dirt cover the fields, space only wide enough to walk through, wild flowers and weeds choke out the names of those buried, freshly decorated and dug graves wither in the sunlight as men stop digging long enough for families to bury their loved ones.  The cemetery just outside the city limits is debated to be one of the largest in the country, I do not know how accurate that is but this is what everyone tells me.  As we walked and drove through the gridded cemetery we pass new quadrants full of those who had been buried just this month.  Families come and go visiting the graves of their relatives, stopping to visit and have a picnic.  Graves are covered in flowers, candy, candles and other things that the family leaves for their loved ones.  This is a cultural norm to go and visit the grave and have a picnic. There is a special day during the year that is dedicated to going to the cemetery and visiting the grave and cleaning up the area around the grave (if the family does not take care of the grave and the area around it then no one will and the weeds and wild flowers will over take the area).

A place stretching over a vast amount of square kilometers (I do not know the actual count, just that it is large and you can get lost driving around the cemetery) holds the remains of those lost to age, disease, alcohol and drugs, murders, plane crashes and club fires (these last two have special memorials for those killed in the plane crash and club fire).  Like the funeral I attended months ago the process of burial seemed more business like then an actual funeral, as families come and the men digging graves beside their family members grave stop long enough for the family to place the coffin in the ground and say some words. Then as the family leaves the men get back to digging, or if the grave site is a few graves away the men will continue to dig different graves.

The memorial dedicated to those who died in the plane crash

 Tombstones also range in intricacy as some are just simple wooden crosses with the name and date on them, other are made out of marble with just a name and date, and other are made out of marble with a picture of the person on them (some are engraved with a life size photo of the person).  We spent a good amount of time driving around this cemetery and we only saw the tombstones of those who had died in the past 20 years.  A whole other section across the main road holds those buried before 1990.

As you read through this and view the photos, remember to stop and pray for those living in the city who do not yet know their creator.