Rachel came out of her hut to find M-I, her neighbor, looking very sad. She told Rachel that a little girl had died and she was going to the wake. Rachel went along–to her second wake in Madagascar [the first was in her training village in March].

People leave a contribution to help with funeral costs, and Rachel would have liked to leave more, but found that she could only leave 500 ariary ($1?) since that was the maximum anyone else had left: at the door, the amounts of donations were being carefully noted down on a piece of paper, together with the donor’s name!

The little girl who had died was laid out, cocooned in white cloth with a piece of mosquito netting over her face, on a table, her worn little clothes neatly folded at her feet. Rachel said that only women were there and that they were sitting, singing hymns in Malagasy, but no one was crying. [T thinks perhaps it is the custom not to mourn for small children because they are not considered to have a soul at that point in their lives.] Rachel sat down and sang as well, finding that it was very peaceful and somehow not too sad.

After a while, some men came in with a box to bury the little girl in. Open box, no lid; not exactly a coffin. The women objected to her body being put down in the bare wood box, so someone searched around and found an old cloth to cover the bottom of the box with.

Funeral customs vary greatly in Madagascar, depending on the location. Rachel says that in her area, the dead are buried for about 2 years, then the bones are recovered, cleaned up, and placed in the family tomb. Then they are taken out and honored occasionally in a ceremony called a “famadiana�.