Groundhog Day Wake (In Kinyarwanda)

• It begins with the scraping of chairs.  16 kids arrive in our small family room, each with a chair brought from their family's house.  It's a long process to get the chairs all in and arranged and a bit like that game where you can move one of 25 plastic tiles to get the photo of the tiger back.
• Then there is a 'game'.  This involves all of the kids from the visiting family drawing a number 1 through 16 and then being paired up with a girl from our family of a previously assigned number to sit together, or for one visitor, a chorus of "Oh, Sorry!" and being handed a framed photo of Jeanette.  (If the other family is a boy's family, this game is accompanied by copious giggling, like you might imagine would happen in a 6th grade PE class forced into partners for square dancing.)
• Then an 'emcee' from our family welcomes the visitors.  There is a strict protocol.
• There is a moment of silence.  
• The emcee invites one girl from Eleanor Roosevelt to speak, who thanks the visitors for coming and for being with us.
• The emcee invites one child from the other family to speak, who stands and offers condolences.  
• The emcee invites one girl from Eleanor Roosevelt to sing a sad song.
• The emcee invites one child from the other family to sing a sad song.
• The emcee invites our family mother to speak.  She gives the same speech about God picking the fresh blooms off the rose bush, and Jeanette being a good girl who was very obedient (possibly untrue?) [Look, I loved Jeanette, but obedience was not a strong suit for her, and definitely not a defining characteristic. One of the things I loved about her was that when Momma would ask her do something ridiculous like mop an already clean floor she would scrunch up her nose and make a face and move as slooooowly as possible to do the task. I always liked that she was showing her personality and a bit of backbone.]
• The emcee invites the visiting family mother to speak, who invariably claims a close connection to Jeanette, and then encourages the girls of Eleanor Roosevelt to make the most of opportunities at the village that Jeannette did not get the chance to, and to study hard and dedicate their effort to Jeanette.  
• The visiting family offers a gift, usually a package of biscuits for each girl, or a bag* of milk or some candy.  As with all food in the village, this generates significant excitement.  (*Not a typo.  Like a pouch really.  Not that different than a capri sun, sans straw.)
• The emcee invites our family big sister to speak and she and talks of death as a natural part of life, and how we must not be selfish, that we will all be together in heaven soon.  Simultaneously, the gift is being distributed, so there is much rustling of packaging and perhaps a minor disturbance if there is not enough for everyone. 
• The emcee invites the visiting family big brother or sister to speak and s/he says that Jeanette is an angel in heaven watching over all of us all the time, a possibility I find troubling on a number of levels.  Rustling continues
• The emcee invites me to speak, and I struggle.  This is the first English of the night and the kids are all well into their snack at this point, and tired.  I look at 31 bored faces.  Over the rustling and chewing sounds, I try to honor Jeanette and also be honest about how we are feeling at that point in the long, rote ceremony.  I usually talk about how she was funny, and a joker and brought a lot of joy and levity to our family.
• The emcee calls us to stand again, and invites someone to lead us in a closing prayer.  The prayer is long, and fervent and maybe even a bit evangelical seeming in cadence and volume.
• All the chair scraping begins in reverse.

So far we have been visited by 14 of the families in the village, so this will happen 17 more times. 

Update: Whether cowardice or sloth I'm not sure, but I bagged it for the half-marathon.  The Achilles still hurts enough when I walk and I just don't think I could gut it out.  I'm mightily disappointed.