Quick, Get In The Lorry

I taught at The School For Arabic Studies in Kano, Nigeria, for four years.  Of all those years, there was nothing quite like the third day on the job.

My first two days on the job were focused on learning who my students were.  Not only did I have to figure how well they knew mathematics, I had to figure out their names.  The names were Muslim, from the Koran, and there wasn't much variety.  Since the custom was to take your father's first name as your last name, there was even less variety.

So, in one class, I could have a Kabiru Yahaya, a Yahaya Musa, and a Musa Kabiru.  Plus a Hamidu Yusuf and a Yusuf Hamidu.  And even two students both named Danladi Mohammed. 

A seating chart was my only way of telling who my students were.

On my third day at the school, the Principal walked into the staff room, and said: "Quick, get in the lorry.  A second-year student has died."

The lorry was the school truck, and was used to transport supplies - but it had some benches and could transport people.  It was transporting the school's teachers to the home of the deceased student's parents.

The United States Peace Corps had trained me for living in Nigeria.  They taught me the Nigerian currency system; they taught me how to treat a snakebite; they taught me which cuts of camel meat made the best hamburgers.  But no one had taught me what to say to console grieving Nigerian parents.

The teachers got off the lorry and stood before the parents.  I stayed in the back, trying to be inconspicuous, having no idea what to say or what to do.

One teacher, an Englishman, stepped forward and said, "We are sorry to hear that your son has died."  It was translated into Hausa for the parents, and they nodded in acknowledgement.  

The body was lying on a stretcher, wrapped in a white sheet.  The stretcher was lifted and the funeral procession began.  The teachers did not join in the procession, but we could hear it as it wound through the streets with mourners chanting the Hausa prayer for the dead: Allah ya ji kansa; Allah ya ji kan rai --- May God have mercy upon him; may God have mercy upon us, the living.

The body was taken to a burial field, where it was buried on its side, facing Mecca, to await Resurrection Day.

The lorry took us back to the school.  There was no teaching that day.  I sat at my desk and thought back to what the Englishman had said to the parents.  I realized that sympathy is universal; all you have to do is express it.

I took out my second-year seating chart, and found the name of the student who had died.  He had been in my class on the first day, and he had been in my class on the second day, and now he had just been buried on the third day.

I lifted my pen.  Should I cross out his name or should I draw a big X through his name?  

I hesitated, and then wrote R.I.P. on the seating chart.


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Sympathy is universal, and here is a 4-minute video in Japanese anime style about the death of a daughter, who was being treated for cancer at St. Jude's Childrens Hospital in Memphis.  The singer is James Otto, and the song is Where Angels Hang Around:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwnzTXBdcKc

And, if you have a box of Kleenex handy, here is a girl dying of cancer who is helping her little sister learn the lyrics to Where Angels Hang Around so her little sister can sing it at her funeral:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fl0FtKpSIsY

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com