Today I drove in my first funeral procession...

... I mean me actually driving, I've been in a funeral procession before. It was in Zambia, I drove the third car, a truck. I had three Zambian women in my backseat. And I had around ten women and children in the bed of my truck.

But let me start at the beginning. Annie and I arrived at the church where the funeral was being held mid-ceremony. It was a windy and chilly morning, very extreme and bare. The church was pieced together. It was a sparse wooden frame with cardboard squares nailed to it. We walked inside where about 100 Zambians were attending the funeral of a woman who was reported to have been 92 years old. The singing was beautiful and every time the wind blew the make shift wooden windows flapped open and shut.

After the funeral everyone piled into the cars to start the procession to the cemetery. It was a long drive, all the women in all the cars sang most of the way. The woman we were burying was a grandmother at the Chikumbuso school where I work. We drove along the outskirts of Lusaka. We drove and drove until we came over a ridge to a valley. At the far end of the valley were twin hills. In the valley was a massive burial ground, tens of funerals, and thousands of mourners. It was, for lack of a better word, apocalyptic.

We made our way through the crowded country road and found a place for our procession to park. We all walked over to a burial plot and began the final ceremony. It was nice, the choir was magnificent. The deceased was old, everyone was calm. However, the multitude of services around us, offered a variety of emotions, sounds, and attitudes, too numerous too mention. Everything from hysterics (sorry, gender biased word) to dances.

In front of me as I watched our ceremony lay miles of burial mounds all only inches apart, with people wandering about throughout.

At the end of the ceremony Annie and I were asked to say a few words about the deceased on behalf of all the woman at Chikumbuso. I had never met the woman to my recollection, neither had Annie. But I said how happy we were to have everyone here, and what a wonderful woman she had been, and how she left behind a community which I was sure would miss her. Annie added a lovely unitarian prayer.

I walked away somewhat fazed by the whole the experience, and did not react to the points and shouts of Mizungu directed at my white skin. I know it was an amazing and special experience, though I do not believe that I should have said the last words for at 92 year old Zambian's funeral. It makes me wonder who will speak at my funeral.

This post was written by Rick, a public policy student at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and SWB's president.