A different kind of Burial

It has been a while since I wrote an article. There is a lot going on in my life and I want to share this with you. My uncle passed away on July 23. It was just 16 months after the death of my sister. It was a hard time for my family, especially my mom because she lost a daughter and her brother.

Although we knew he would not live long it was a shock for all of us because his health went down hill within 2 weeks. He had cancer, the problem with my uncle was that he did not had a funeral insurance. The family was very stressed out because of it.

If you do not have an funeral insurance it means that the family needs to cover all expences that is why we did not accept the heritage, to make matters worse he was in a lot of debt.

My aunt called with the local government who are responsible for these kind of matters and explained that the familiy was not capable of paying for my uncle's funeral. In the end the government covered all expenses for the cremation.

In my culture when someone passes away there is a whole ritual that follows. When a loved one passes away we need to wear something like a scarf on our heads for 6 weeks. This goes only for the women closely related to the deseased. It is a way to show respect for the deceased. The first two weeks you need to wear something white, after 3 weeks somemthing black and after 5 weeks something brown.

There are also special rituals for treating the body. The corpse has to undergo a balming before it can be presented to the mourners.
The family is instructed to bring bags of old clothes, some personal belongings and a white cloth. The old clothes are put in the casket to fill up the casket, the belongings are also put in the casket much like what the Egyptians did.

After the body has been balmed and ready to be presented to the mourners, the family will be called in one by one to say their goodbyes.
The deceased will be brought to the hall of the funeral center so that friends and family can pay their last respect. Here people will sing because the loss of a loved one is very devastating and song is something to ease the pain.

We also have a special ritual to carry the casket from the funeral center to the grave. It is something similar to the burials in New Orleans. The casket is carried by pallbearer and accompanied by music and song. We believe that the moves made by the pallbearers represent the deceased doing his final dance towards the end.

A typical Surinam Burial

En route to the burial

Paying the last respects