Day 6: Sunday - In Memory of Laurieta Chamula

Weekends in Angola are made for relaxing, being with the family, shopping, and, of course, church.
I found my way to the Huambo Cathedral and attended Mass with the Catholic Angolans. It was so gratifying to see so many young people in church.

Returning to my home at the CNFA offices, I was looking forward to a day of writing and walking when my Angolan countertpart, Luciano Silva, arrived to take me sightseeing. He just had one side trip before we would explore the beauty of nearby Caala. He had to pay his respects to a woman in his community who had been recently killed.

Friday night it had rained very hard. So hard that in Luciano's religious community of Sao Blaz, where most of the residents live in mud brick houses, the wall of Laurieta Chamula's next door neighbor crashed down against her house, collapsing it and burying her, her child and her husband. In the pitch black and rain other neighbors ran to help and were able to find the man and the child. Laurieta was not found in time. She was dead.

The entire community, hundreds of people, came to her funeral.

The cemetary was located miles away from Sao Blaz and people piled into any available car, pickup or truck to say goodbye to their community member.

The procession was blocks long, anything with wheels from motorcycles to little transporte buses joined as keening friends and family grieved aloud over this tragedy. The sad journey ended on the outskirts of Huambo in a little valley packed with mango trees where Laurieta now sleeps.

I have never been so moved as to see outpouring of grief for Laurieta who left a liitle one and her husband. The grave had already been dug and as she was laid to rest in the Huambo red clay. As her male family members and friends filled the void with shovels and hoes, the entire community gathered in a tight ring around the gravecrying out in their grief and singing their farewells in Umbundu and Portuguese. I asked Luciano later who would take care of the child and he told me, "the Community". I asked what had become of the man whose poorly built house had fallen on Laurieta's family and he said that it was being worked out but the man would have to be forgiven. I am still stunned from this emotional outpouring of loss and love.

Later in the day, Luciano insisted on showing me what would become another spiritual experience in Huambo. Traveling east 15 miles to the small town of Caala, he took me up to the Capula a Monte. The chapel sits on a prominence in an area where the air is so clear that from some directions, one can see to the horizon.

Amidst the beauty, a nun appeared followed by a column of children, walking single file, without shoes singing hymns as they entered the chapel. Luciano whispered to me, "They are orphans from the orphanage in Caala." Amid the beauty, it struck me that maybe this is the way that a people recover from a 30 year civil war: by taking care of each other

Enjoy the View