Shirt on the Roof

Culture is a funny thing.  You can grow up in a place where it makes perfect sense for everyone to own one or two or three cars.  In America that seems like a perfectly acceptable thing. In fact, it even makes you better in some ways.  It shows that you can afford to have an excess of these things. On the other hand, it is totally culturally acceptable in other places to buy all of your meat at an outdoor market.  In America, you would probably walk past an outdoor butcher and think about how gross it is (I do) and proceed to the nearest grocery store, but not here.


I learned the other day about a cultural practice that really got me going.  This is the first one that I was really shocked by.  I know that there are things that happen here that I don't agree with and that is probably just because I grew up somewhere totally different, but this one was a shock to me.  The person who was telling me about it just thought it was funny that I got so upset, but I don't really think it's funny. Basically, the idea is that if you are some guy and your neighbor dies and you really thought his wife was the bees knees, you could inherit her. I think inherit is the wrong word, but that's what the teller of the story said.  I think a better word might be acquire. All you have to do is throw your shirt onto the roof of this dead man's house while at the funeral.  AT THE FUNERAL, PEOPLE!!! Seriously!?!?! I am not kidding you.  I was totally thrown by this.  I felt so feminist in this moment that I felt like burning a bra right there... but I restrained myself.


Let me also say that I get it. I get that women in village culture, especially if they had a husband who did all of the money earning, would have a really hard time supporting themselves after their spouses death.  I get that culturally it is then the village's responsibility to help support her and the easiest way to do that is to have her remarry.  But come on! The person telling me this said that sometimes there are many men who come to the funeral with shirts over their shoulders and they walk around the house trying to find the best way to toss it up there. Whatever happened to love? What happened to personal choice? I don't know, but I do know that at least in this case I am really  glad that I'm an American. Luckily he also said that this practice is a dying one. I can't say I was disappointed.  I feel like it's a lot like arranged marriages; they work just fine, but no one is really very happy about the situation. I choose love. I choose choice. I think most people would too given the opportunity.