Because They're Burning Bricks

Posted By Sika on July 15, 2009

Foreigners are often put off by the way many Malawians act when they are grieving the death of a loved one. It seems overly florid and put on: Many volunteers have the experience of a family in mourning being totally quiet until a witness is present, who then watches them bursting into tears and wailing to the heavens about their loss.

But in Malawi, the only acceptable circumstances for being teary in public are if you’re a very small child or are grieving the death of a loved one. Crying for any other reason is often seen as somehow inappropriate and almost vulgar.

So then, of course public displays of grief seem theatrical. They aren’t natural expressions of the underpinning sorrow. They are displays. For the public. Real grief is private. Public grief serves a different purpose altogether.

It has always annoyed me that some people take the obvious falsity of the wailing to mean there’s nothing real in the grief at all, but I’ve never before been able to figure out why I felt they were being such obtuse boneheads.

Categories: Malawi
Tags: death, grief