“What is it?” I asked. A few of you responded with your answers, but no one got it right. It’s a cemetery, of course! The mounds are where the bodies are buried. I was out there for the funeral of the big brother (in Jula there is no word for “brother” – you have to specify whether it’s a big brother or a little brother) of someone in my church. Since they didn’t have a lot of money to spend, the funeral was the same day that he died. Quite a few people from church went to the morgue for the body being put into the car to bring it to the cemetery (I’m pretty sure there’s a word in English for that car, but I haven’t been able to think of it). Then we hopped on our “motos” (generic word for motorcycles and motor scooters and mopeds) and followed it to the cemetery. After the short ceremony (I didn’t know there could be a short ceremony in My Country!) he was buried. For the burial the body was taken out of the casket and out of the grass mat, but a sheet was left wrapped around it. Then he was buried and we left. I think that the mounds in the picture are because the ground had been so well packed down but after the bodies were lowered into the holes the dirt was just dumped back on top and not packed down. Not enough was added to make such large mounds otherwise. A few of you had thought that it may be a garden. I wouldn’t want to dig up what is under those mounds!
hearse
I think the funeral vehicle is a hearse.
You certainly are encountering lots of different cultural practices! Are the burials on top of one another?
I’m sadden about the practices our country is encountering. The government is changing the same sex marriage laws. I listened to a reporter in Dakar, she said that in her country it is punishable by death. Our country certainly needs to put God back in place.