my goodness time flies... a week since I was last here

Busy week
Skill centre knitting going well. the different parts for the baby jacket are being knit, hopefully this week the assembling will take place, I went looking for darning needles to sew the jacket seams but alas ... no needles. so have to use a crochet hook, we have those.
Funeral yesterday, most are held on Saturday.
The deceased, Sister Martha Kwarkai Boakye Agyeman was the step mother to May (Fr. Eramus' wife). she had passed away on November 11, 2018

The funeral rituals take  three days, I was at the Saturday church service. It was held in court yard of her home, there were over 35 clergy and pastors ( she was an Anglican but has worshiped for years in the Apostles Continuation Church International, Sunyani Central,)

The ritual had singing and drumming while people arrived. The MC had prayers, welcome, introduction of all clergy, special burial songs, the file past when everyone present filed past the body (she was laid out in the living room of the home, on a four poster brass bed, dressed in something like the above dress, the room walls were covered with white sheer cloth with twinkle lights flashing behind the fabric, chairs lined the walls where family was sitting, the casket was on the veranda covered with a purple velvet pall from St. Matthew on the Plains Burlington, next were the tributes by the children, grandchildren, siblings and a friend, the head pastor of her church gave a sermon (only 15 minutes) then a song with offertory, and then doxology, that took from 830 till noon.

then body was put in the casket, casket carried on the shoulders of 6 men, and taken to the coach to go to the cemetery, I did not go to the cemetery but came back to the house and ate lunch, next off to a high school soccer field where the pointy tents had been put up and the family received guests all afternoon , each guest or groups of guests are announced over the PA system along with the donation that they have made to the family.

During the afternoon this little one chanced a look at the white woman

then looked away as if I was never there, at least she did not scream as some do

so one sits during the afternoon session, chatting,

 it felt to me like we were birds on a fence, just sitting

in late afternoon the friends/relatives of May and Eramus were taken to one of the rooms of the high school, given food as we sat around tables that had been put together. I got back to the house around 530pm, long day
The deceased was the wife of a chief so there were two chiefs in attendance all afternoon, I understand the chief now is who followed her husband, when he assumed the throne tradition is  that he also assumed responsibility for the former chief's family as his own.