hilarious funerals and school tragedy/comedy

so, my Saturday was spent at another funeral. Really, there have been a lot of deaths of late in my village. This funeral was for my host uncle, my ntate’s brother, whose son is also one of my students. It started later than any funeral I have yet been to, at 1:30 instead of roughly 11 am. So I was sitting around the deceased’s house for a while just hanging out. I got to meet some other cousins of mine who live in jo-burg, which was nice. They all seemed pretty cool and I was invited to visit them in Soweto sometime. My ‘m’e told me that this would be a shorter funeral than most. It was. It was only 1 ½ hours long. It was also the funniest funeral I’ve ever attended, perhaps proving that I have lived in Lesotho too long. First, as I think I have said, funeral’s begin with the family congregating in the house, where the casket is, to view the body. Well, the top was taken off the casket and it turned out that the body had shifted in transit from the funeral home to the house. Someone had to stick their hands in and shift his head to the proper position. I think I was in a morbidly humorous mood and thought this was a little funny. Then a cousin came in to view the body, clapped his hands together and then threw them up in the air shaking them back and forth at the wrists. All I could think was, “jazz hands, jazz hands” and then I had to try not to smile while this poor kid was collapsing onto the ground in grief. Then there was then woman who I later found out habitually arrives at funerals drunk. Whenever anyone started a song (this happens a lot between speakers) she would blare out the lyrics but she couldn’t quite get the vowels out right, so she ended up sounding like a sheep bleating. Ba-a-a-a-a-a-a. and when the preachers got up individually to give sermons (there were three of them) she would periodically shout at the top of her voice, “AMEN!!!” There were others exclaiming, “amen,” but softly. My ‘m’e and I happened to be sitting next to one another and we would turn and look at each other and try not to laugh. Both she and my chief at one point tried to quiet the woman. It did no good. She was hilarious.
A bunch of my students also came to the funeral because it was the father of a student who died. They were part of the choir and sang both at the funeral and the burial. They sounded beautiful.
The rest of my week, excepting Wednesday, was pretty slow. I got to school on Wednesday just before morning assembly and no teachers had yet arrived. Morning assembly was finished and still no teachers. Now, it’s not uncommon for most teachers to not be at school on time, but usually at least one of my male teachers (they seem to be in general more punctual and responsible) to be there. One of my male teachers showed up a few minutes later and told me that one of the students had been stabbed in the chest by a herd boy on the way to school this morning and the other teachers were helping him, calling the police, trying to track down the herd boy (he had run away), etc. turns out that the student thakabanna, is fine, he was stabbed low in the chest and not deeply, so that’s good.
Shortly after this I got a good example of the humor caused by students’ sometimes weak knowledge of English. Fyi: this is perhaps to some, a bit of a risqué story. Sorry, mom. I was writing notes on the board in my biology class while my students copied (I can’t talk while writing notes because the students can’t write and listen at the same time). One of my female students came up to me and said, “Madam I have just started masturbating. Can I go ask _______ [I forgot the other student’s name] for a pad and go to the toilet?” well, I of course processed the word “masturbate” immediately as it was said and was completely shocked until my brain registered the word “pad” and I realized that she meant to say “menstruating.” I didn’t correct her because I didn’t want to embarrass her in front of the class. I did however give her permission while trying my best not to laugh in her face. I turned back to the board to begin writing again and smiled. I told a couple other teachers about this later on because I thought it was funny. One didn’t know what the word “masturbate” meant. The other explained it as, “you know, what lesbians do.” I sighed to myself and mentally shook my head.
I’m heading into maseru tomorrow. I have a peace corps meeting Monday through Wednesday and wanted to get in a few days early so I could use the computers.