The 'Bikkah' The Bizzare Sudanese Funeral

Shortly after the passing of my haboba, my 16 year old cousin was calling me continuously. For the first time in many months I’d forgotten to make my phone Silent before I slept. It was ringing and ringing and I became very irritated because as a broadcaster, I have to be up by 5am every morning and I have to be in a good mood. 

Our house is divided, the top floor is sectioned off with its own staircase and door, and we live there. The bottom floor is where my haboba lived and so, during the summer holidays all of her children and grandchildren would come and stay with us to see haboba.

I got out of bed, and walked towards my charger and then the ringing stopped, just in case it rang again I decided to take my phone and rest it besides me not once thinking of calling her back –she was on her school holiday break and I knew that her and the other kids stay up all night and pretty much mess around until they got tired, I figured it would be something trivial like ‘I forgot my blanket upstairs’.

It rang again, this time I answered.

‘Hind, Open the staircase door’ Came a forceful voice from my cousin

‘Aseel, Get Lost’ ‘Came an irritated voice from me.

‘Haboba died. I need to tell your mum’.

Silence...

At that moment I didn't know how I felt about haboba, my main focus was on my mother who had been suffering throughout the entire course of my haboba's illness. How would she take the news? What should I do to make it easier?

Aseel and I walked up to where my parents were sleeping, I sat down next to my mother and noticed that the story had changed.

‘Haboba is really sick! You need to call aunty in the hospital’

I darted her a strange look before realizing that she was simply just too afraid to say it. She whispered to me,  'should I tell her'!?!?

I held my mother in my arms and nodded.

My mother’s response was shock and prayer, she asked God to make her mother from those who make it to heaven and then took her phone and started calling her siblings. What came after that was something very new to me. Sudanese Culture is a mixture of African and Arab heritage as well as Islamic traditions. The way that they deal with anything is always a combination of these, but more predominantly than Islam, the African and Arab heritage show themselves.

‘Bait al Bikkah’ which literally means, ‘the house in which we cry’ is the place where people must go to give their condolences to the family.The people who host the ‘Bikkah’ are the deceased’s spouse, siblings, children and grandchildren, these are the people to whom you must give your condolences.

Now, the way that you give your condolences is very interesting, you make a prayer, before hugging and crying into the arms of the person who has had a loss, then they too must cry. Crying, even if fake is seen as a sign of respect.

We left our house at 4:00am to go to my uncle’s house, which became 'bait al bikka' for the next three days. As I entered I felt that there was so much sorrow, yet there were only 13 people.  Crying hysterically and yelling and screaming. My haboba’s younger sister was crying and weeping, she was chanting 'why did u leave me I needed you still, you were my mother and my sister why why'. She said this repeatedly and paced up and down the room, her sorrow was infectious and made everyone more and more miserable. I kept thinking that she's known haboba for at least 40 years longer than me and that the pain i feel is probably nothing compared to hers. She reminded me of the things my haboba used to do for me, like hide me away when my mother wanted to punish me, or give me sweets from the secret stash in her cupboard when I was good.  I felt pain and loss, and many people were hugging me and crying.

After hours and hours of people constantly crying I couldn't take it anymore; my tears fell dry and my head started aching. By the time it was 11am, the Sudanese bikkah ritual finally began and although my back and feet were aching, I was grateful for it. We were expected to provide guests with water, food, tea and coffee continuously.

 There were so many people, the men and then women were divided and we had to cater to all of them. Some people were very astonishing to me because even though this was a funeral, they were very happy to ask us to return their tea if it was too heavy or light for another cup. Although this was aggravating I made sure I didn't get aggravated because I know that to haboba would have wanted her guests to be honored,  even if they weren't honorable.

There were many fascinating mentalities at the Bikkah, Although we were expected to provide food, there was also a social convention which meant that the guests shouldn't eat - and if they eat they should eat 'sadly'. We, as the people of the bikkah need to persuade people to eat as well as provide them with food and only then is it OK for them to eat. 

I found this fascinating and couldn't help but try to figure out the root of this way of thinking. The guests should fake cry, and fake not wanting to eat and you have to persuade them... you have to convince them to do something that you yourself don't want to do... It's almost like a game but the outcome is that you end up reassuring yourself that eating is OK. It also seems that the whole point of having a bikkah is to keep you so occupied that you no longer have time to grieve. You are just busy, all the time, and for the most part that’s exactly what happened.

I was also taken aback by the number of cousins around my age whom were helping us who we had never known before. We formed very close bonds as we worked together providing food and drinks, we laughed together and some even stayed the night. The next couple of days were the same, the crying affected me less and less and it got much less anyway. But when all was done, and the bikkah was over reality kicked in.

I couldn't really accept that my grandmother wasn’t just in the bathroom or in her room, I still experience moments of great sadness that creep in from time to time but overall, I think the bikkah is an interesting idea, and it really does help occupy you. 

What My Grandmother Taught Me Before She Left

My maternal grandmother passed away on the 9^th of June, 2014 at 3:30am.

As a young child I stayed with my grandma or as we call her in Sudan ‘Haboba’ (meaning the loving one) for a period of six months while my parents were away with my sister who at the time needed surgery abroad. My unmarried twenty something year old uncle lived with her and my young married aunt came to take care of us. I didn't get attached to my aunt because I was five and frankly, she couldn't cook.

My grandma used to wake up at the crack of dawn, pray and then she would go to the kitchen and make something called ‘Kisra’. This is the traditional Sudanese alternative to bread – it looks like a very thin pancake and tastes very salty and bitter. I've always hated it but haboba used to make really nice curry with it which disguised its taste, so I ate it. She also used to tell me that it was up to me, but if I didn't eat it I would stay young forever and my hair would never be long (the things I feared the most in life)

At around 1pm she would take a nap, she had a cat who took naps with her and I remember really wanting to take naps too, but because I couldn’t I would climb behind her and lay there with my eyes closed for as long as I could, (probably a couple of minutes) and then entertain myself with the nearest object until she woke up. At night time I used to get very irritable (when I was sleepy) and she would calm me by telling me a story about the sheep whose sister ate all the grass of a farmer who wasn't her keeper and refused to return home because it was my favorite story - she did this until i fell asleep.

My Haboba had 3 rules.

       You had to look nice always, your hair, nails, outfit – you must be presentable by 5pm at the latest.

       You have to tidy your house/room/wardrobe daily (even if its tidy)

            You have to eat. (I later learned that saying ‘I’m hungry was a scapegoat for any situation)

Everything was very routine and predictable, things were very organized, she never swore, rarely raised her voice and was the only person who could tell anyone what to do.

Shorty before she passed away by around a couple of months she started to mix up peoples identities and forget things, sometimes it was really funny because she would be gossiping about my mother, with my mother thinking she was talking to my aunt. But other times it was a little painful because when someone who used to love you so much doesn't really recognize you, you can’t help but feel a loss.

My Haboba couldn’t read or write, everything in her life was very routine, and it seemed to be that her most major concerns were the three points above, as well as where I was, who I was with, what I was doing and when I would be back home - but it wasn’t until I grew up that I realized there was much more to her than what I had previously believed.

My first encounter with her intelligence was when we were faced with a very awkward family situation – her ability to completely conceal any negative implications from the children, who were the centre of it all was impeccable. She ensured the smooth going of all situations and always knew exactly how to act. Always.

She also knew very well how to gracefully deal with liars, cheats, people who have wronged her and most of all, what impressed me the most was her approach towards men.

When it came to anyone, regardless of their intentions, if they came to her house, she would make sure they were fed, entertained and welcomed. She had one friend who was a thief and it got to the point where we all knew, even she knew that her friend comes to our house, steals from her and then leaves – my grandmother knew this, but if anyone of us pointed it out she always asked us. ‘Did you SEE her steal anything?’ – then she followed it with ‘Then let her be and do not talk nonsense’

I had great trouble with this concept at first because my haboba did not like thieves. She was very anti-theft. If someone asked for anything she would give it to them, but theft was a red line for her – she used to brag about how my grandfather would chase away thieves and was very brave, but with this particular lady she was very forgiving.

Although she knew the woman was stealing, she nonetheless fed her, joked with her and asked her to stay as long as she pleased. I later realized that the woman had an illness, she couldn’t help it, no matter how much you give her, she needed to steal something, even if you gave her $50, she would rather steal $5. My grandmother had realized this long before I had.

When it came to men her approach was very different, although never educated, she knew her value well. She was very strong willed and would do her best to honor and respect a good man, as long as he knew his place – but she had no fear or being alone or losing a man and she never needed one, my grandfather passed away shortly after my mother’s wedding and although she cared and respected him deeply her greatest fear after his death wasn't that she would be alone, it was that her youngest son, at the time 10 would lose out of having a father figure.

In Sudan it is a common ritual that every evening just after sun-set (magrib prayer time) the entire family surrounds haboba and has tea. This is the time we talk about our day, visitors come over to drink tea and basically it’s the time when everyone is in one place. At one sitting my sister brought up the topic of a woman who had undergone plastic surgery because of her husband’s preferences – to which my haboba astonished me.

 ‘Change my being for a man?’ Why on earth would I change what god has given me to impress a man? If he doesn’t like me the way I am then he can go and look somewhere else’.

I was very astonished to hear her say this because she was raised in a generation where men pretty much ruled – or was that just what I thought? Is that the generation I was raised in?

My haboba knew very well her value, she was very grounded and she was very well educated in the way you should behave and act. There was a lot of depth and wisdom behind her sometimes bizarre decisions and I will always remember the lessons she taught me.

When it came to her funeral however, I experienced a new way of thinking that I never thought possible.

TBC…

Should Mentally Disabled People ‘mix’ with Normal People?

If you haven’t already – I would strongly advise you to watch this TED talk. It’s about a woman who was told her entire life that she would never amount to more than a person with a mental disability…

So she fixed her brain.

TED Talk:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0td5aw1KXA

Let me first start by saying that a mental disability is a very broad term. It describes a person who lacks something mentally that others in their society have. There are many different types and it ranges from mild to severe, however some people can go their entire lives not ever knowing or ever being diagnosed.

The reason for this is that we use comparative methods to diagnose mental disability. In a society where learning to read and write is not necessary, a person with numerical or verbal difficulties would never be identified, however as the world becomes more and more advanced it seems that more and more people are becoming marginalized because they are different.

The other day I was teaching my cousin for her sociology exam and we covered ‘school and education’ as a module. It was very interesting to me because I was learning as well as teaching – I didn’t realize that as well as learning subjects we were actually being taught behavioral lessons such as discipline, respecting those who know more than us (people in authority) and social skills such as patience and tolerance.  This was a strong part of the non-examined curriculum which I had never really acknowledged. Although in principle this would mean that children with mental disabilities would be treated well by other children, this is not usually the case.

When we think about these things from the viewpoint of someone like my sister, someone who has mild Williams Syndrome, the entire institution of a normal school will just highlight her weaknesses and never find her strengths – and that’s exactly what it did.

Going to schools for people with special needs where teachers are qualified and empathetic is a much better environment for someone who has a mental disability – it shows them that they are different, not disadvantaged. I feel that now that we have these institutions, we need to take it to the next step and find out through personality tests and psychological experiments what it is that these people excel at individually.

When someone cannot walk, staircases make them feel disabled – however if we make ramps available they will no longer ‘be’ disabled. I believe that everyone has a strength, and it is time for us to stop focusing on what they cannot do, and find out what they excel at – simply placing them in an environment where they will most definitely be ‘inadequate’ is the first thing we need to stop doing.