In a paupers grave....

Last Thursday one of the patients died - I guess it is kind of inevitable that someone will die when you are working in an old person´s home. But what followed was, for us, anything but a normal burial.

The man who died was called Leonardo - he didn´t have any family, and as he was in the care of the nuns, it was up to them to bury him. Dorthe and I never met him while he was alive, as he was in Potosi hospital for the entire time that we have been here. Although he passed away on the Thursday, due to other things going on, it wasn´t until Saturday that the nuns were able to go and pick up the body, and hold a funeral.

First, there was a very brief memorial service held in the chapel - I hadn´t even finished getting some of the men into the chapel before it was over. Four of us then carried the plain wooden coffin, which was not nailed shut properly as the lid was a little warped, out to the car (a small 4WD), where it was left sticking out the back of the boot as it was too long. Two of the nuns, Roberto the driver, one of the residents of the house, and Dorthe and I then drove to the cementary. The coffin was not tied in, and I was convinced that we were going to loose Leonardo out the back on the way.

At the Potosi cementary, as in many South American cementaries, there are a large number of stalls outside selling flowers. Our car stopped at the gates and while we were waiting for them to open, Sister Mirabella went and got some flowers - the interesting thing was that she didn´t have to pay - seeing the nuns with a coffin, all the stalls gave a handful of flowers for free, so that by the time they were finished, they had two or three huge armfuls. As we were driving off, several more people came running up with flowers - it was very nice how they all gave flowers for the grave of a poor man that they didn´t know.

Next, we drove into the cementary to the section where he was to be buried, in what was basically the poor mans or paupers section. This area was absolutely packed with graves - in New Zealand, it is common practice to leave lots of space between graves, so that you don´t have to walk over someone´s grave. Not here. Roberto and I had an absolute nightmare trying to carry the coffin to the gravesite - it wasn´t so much that we were stressing about standing on graves (that was impossible to avoid), but rather tripping over the gravestones, and dropping the coffin. Somehow we managed to get the very heavy coffin there intact though. With very little ceremony, the cementary workers who had just dug the grave, dropped the casket into the hole - for a while it appeared stuck on an angle, half out of the grave, before they jostled it into position with two pieces of reinforcing steel. As the sisters said the last rights, the three workers then put their back into filling in the grave - dust illuminated by the setting sun flew all around, making people cough.

As they filled in the grave, I noticed that there was a cloth in the pile of dirt, that was getting caught on the shovels. Strange, I guess that they had heaped the dirt on top of it, as they do at burials in the west. Then Dorthe elbowed me - "look at that". There, sticking up out of the dirt was the unmistable outline of a human femur (leg bone). Two of them actually. A quick sweep of the shovel and they were in the grave, in the process revealling more bones - part of a spine. And some ribs. And maybe a collar bone too. I didn´t see it, but Dorthe thought she even saw the skull. All of these went into the grave. Further filling in of the hole revealed some masonry amongst the dirt - the broken remains of the previous headstone - complete with a name - Bernard. Clearly, they had dug up an old grave, to make room for Leonardo. It made perfect sense - after all, the paupers section was completely packed, and there was no more space available - but we were both shocked to see evidence of the previous resident so clearly.

The grave was soon filled in, and the flowers placed around it. There were many, many flowers, enough to completely cover the fresh, dry earth of the grave, and to lend some bright colours to the dull earthern surroundings. The sisters said a few more words about Leonardo, and told us what they knew about him - only that he was from La Paz originally, and that he had been in Potosi for a few years. They did not know if he had any family to inform of his death. Apart from the sisters, and us, I wonder if the passing of this poor man without family influenced anyone else. But even more sobering, as we walked away back to the car, we could clearly see a single rib of Bernard´s sticking out from the earth, amongst the fresh flowers.......