One of the ladies in our church died today. Death is handled a little differently in Cameroon than it is in America. After the lady died, it was up to the family to transport the body to the morgue. As in America, those in the church with pick-ups must always be ready when someone in the church is in need; so our co-worker took her truck to the hospital to transport the body.
When we got to the morgue, we first had to wait until the man that runs the morgue got there. Then someone went to the pharmacy to buy the formaldehyde. It was then discovered that the cooler at the morgue was full; so there were several options: 1) move the bodies closer together to make room for one more; 2) move a small body to the floor to make room for the new body; 3) leave the new body on the floor until space opens up tomorrow; and 4) take the body directly to the house. In the end, they decided to leave her body on the floor and put it in the cooler tomorrow when one of the other bodies is taken.
People often wait a long time before the funeral to allow family member to travel in from out of town (I guess that would explain why the morgue was full). Next Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings, the church will go to the family's house to sing, pray, read the Bible, etc. Next Friday the family will pick up the body from the morgue and take it to their house. The funeral and burial will be on Saturday.
No comments:
Post a Comment