The Grave With the Green Bowl

Hello once again.
it has been a good few days. I am now in a coffee shop using wireless Internet in a large mall similar to that of Marketmall. I have said this many times before, and I'm sure I will say it again; this country is one of contradictions. I feel like I am at home in Calgary. However, when I leave I will drive for 25 minutes and be in a community of 250,000 black South Africans who are living in Poverty; in a lot of cases, extreme poverty.
Lynn and Jayme Chotowetz, the founders of Forward Education have just left for a holiday with some family and won't be back until mid August. Therefore, I, along with another Calgarian, Laura Pope, are running the show. Now the work begins. I am really excited to start this and get deep into the work. Laura is also leaving for Swaziland on Monday for a week so I will be running a lot of stuff on my own. This week will be interesting.
On Friday, I drove one of our students, Stanley, around the community to visit some other youth. We were going to inform them of a church service in Nelspruit (the nearest city) that we wanted them to attend that would also include a brie (bbq). As Stanley and I were walking away from the last visit, Stanley loosely informed my that the girl we had visited may not be able to attend because someone in her family had passed away and the funeral was on Saturday. I was a bit taken a back because there was sense from our visit that anything was wrong. Stanley said he would probably attend to show some support to the girl's family.
The next morning, Stanley and I got up early to go to the funeral. As it turned out, three more of our students wanted to attend as well. We were all running a little late, and as we were driving down the dirt road, the funeral procession past us. I quickly turned around and followed the cars to the cemetery. A bus full of people was also in front of us. When we arrived at the cemetery, everyone started singing. Everyone gathered around the grave site as the casket was lowered into the plot. The pastor said some prayers and everyone continued singing. I then thought it was time to go, however, everyone stayed as men started to fill in the grave. This took about 20 minutes and everyone stayed and continued to sing until this was complete. A couple men then put cinder blocks around the dirt to enclose the grave as an older women used some branches to sweep up the left over dirt. The pastor and women from the church then sung a song as they all dances around the grave site. Then, someone put a tree branch in the grave site. Stanley said that it was most likely a branch from the deceased favorite tree. People were then given the opportunity to speak about the person who had passed. To end, someone put a large green wash based and a cup into the top of the plot. Stanley had explained that those were belongings of the deceased. A final prayer was said, and then everyone left. People then went back to the families home for a meal, however we did not stay.
Later that evening I was chatting with Carolyn Snyman who said that her first African funeral lasted 11 hours; luckily I can hopefully ease my self into that experience.
As the youth and I drove away I asked on of the youth, Gugu, who had passed. She said it was the girls uncle and he was probably fairly old (what ever old means). I then thought about the lack of emotion displayed at the funeral and wondered why I had not noticed very many displays of grieving. As we were driving up the dusty road, I looked ahead and noticed another funeral taking place. It then hit me; death so prevalent here that I think it has almost become a Saturday event. Death is always around these people and perhaps, emotion has lost some meaning.
However, I will never forget the grave with the green bowl.