Ntenga Funeral

I was scheduled to teach in Ntenga on Tuesday, but when we came to the yard where I usually teach, no one was there. We saw some women who would have been in my class standing in the road near the well.

So, George, Phalles, and I walked over to where they were standing. I learned that they were on their way to a friend's funeral. They told me that one of the women in the village gave birth at home that morning, but when she began to hemorrhage, she was taken to the clinic. The baby lived, but the mother bled to death. I asked if there were other children in the family, and one woman pointed to four young children who were standing around her skirt. She said that there are ten children in all, the youngest of which is two years old. The other children were still in school and didn't even know that their mother had died. In Malawi, traditionally, when a person dies, their funeral is held on the same day.

As we were standing there talking with the women, we saw a man in the distance meandering down the road toward us talking, apparently to himself. When he reached the place in the road where we were standing, he approached one of the women who was standing a little distance from the others. We were shocked to see him began push her around and to hit her in her her arms. The woman lowered her eyes and took his verbal and physical assaults. Then, when he asked her something, she answered softly, turning her eyes away. None of the other women said a word. 

George walked near the man and said, "These women are going to the funeral." Then he told the women that we were going the same way and that we would be walking with them. When George spoke, the man turned his attention away from the woman he was abusing, allowing her to join the other women on their way to the funeral.

At that time, the man walked over to the road's edge where Phalles, our interpreter, was standing, and began to push her around. George told the man that he should never hit a woman. The man, suddenly in a cheery disposition and smiling, approached George, shook his hand, and introduced himself. Afterward, we rejoined the women. 

Then glancing back, we saw the man approaching several children who were collecting water the village well. Long before the man reached the well, all of the children dispersed and stood some distance away, safely out of the man's reach. 

Along the way, Phalles said, "You know that woman was not that man's wife." I thought, "If that man is publicly abusive to a woman who is not his wife, then what must he be at home to his own wife and children?" Then Phalles told us that it was drugs that made the man crazy.