I went to KwaThema today to do some research on Funeral Infrastructure for my individual research report. When I chose this topic I didn’t think it would affect my like it has today.
I started off my research by visiting Regina at Tilly’s Funeral Plan on Moshoeshoe Street opposite the civic centre. She agreed to an interview with me and was very helpful in explaining her role in funerals in KwaThema. This small business offers life insurance to the people of KwaThema.
I then went to Kanyile Funeral Services. This is an undertakers also situated on Moshoeshoe Street. I spoke to Cecilia there who was very willing to help me since I told her I was from Wits University and was doing research on the funeral infrastructure in KwaThema. It was this conversation that unsettled me a bit. Death has always been a subject that I have been afraid of confronting, and hearing about the funeral industry and how remarkably efficiently it runs (due to the fact that there are so many deaths in KwaThema on a weekly basis) really upset me. It was disturbing for me to hear how Cecilia (who obviously deals with death on a daily basis) could be so without emotion about the topic of death and funerals. I’m not sure what to do with these emotions because although it saddens me that so many people are dying, I am very interested to find out more about funerals in townships as the culture surrounding death here seems to be very different to how I’ve experienced it in ‘white’ culture.
I started off my research by visiting Regina at Tilly’s Funeral Plan on Moshoeshoe Street opposite the civic centre. She agreed to an interview with me and was very helpful in explaining her role in funerals in KwaThema. This small business offers life insurance to the people of KwaThema.
I then went to Kanyile Funeral Services. This is an undertakers also situated on Moshoeshoe Street. I spoke to Cecilia there who was very willing to help me since I told her I was from Wits University and was doing research on the funeral infrastructure in KwaThema. It was this conversation that unsettled me a bit. Death has always been a subject that I have been afraid of confronting, and hearing about the funeral industry and how remarkably efficiently it runs (due to the fact that there are so many deaths in KwaThema on a weekly basis) really upset me. It was disturbing for me to hear how Cecilia (who obviously deals with death on a daily basis) could be so without emotion about the topic of death and funerals. I’m not sure what to do with these emotions because although it saddens me that so many people are dying, I am very interested to find out more about funerals in townships as the culture surrounding death here seems to be very different to how I’ve experienced it in ‘white’ culture.
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