Deborah nzigire, a 65-year-old Congolese woman, is nervous when she sits down for her job interview. Her hands are clasped tightly together, her words are slow and deliberate; she is blinking too much. \u201cWhat inspired you to pursue this career?\u201d asks one of the two people on the interview panel. Her answer is garbled, she mentions money. When asked to give a demonstration, she giggles awkwardly and leaves the room. She comes back in crying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBettina,\u201d she howls and throws herself to the ground. \u201cBettina, Bettina, why did you leave us?\u201d She thumps the floor with a flattened palm, her body convulses with sobs as she moans and wails. The interviewer\u2019s eyes fill with tears. Mrs Nzigire (pictured) has got the job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She is the first recruit in Gilbert Kubali\u2019s new enterprise to bring professional mourning to the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo. In the distant capital, Kinshasa, the mourning business is well-established and lucrative\u2014you need not look far to find pleureuses<\/em> (\u201ccriers\u201d) to hire for a funeral. But in Goma, a city of 1m people in the east, it has not yet taken off and Mr Kubali has spied an opportunity. \u201cI hope to monopolise the market,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ostentatious grief is tied up with a traditional belief that the dead linger long after their pulses have stopped. \u201cWe believe that the dead person is not dead, they are watching us like a film,\u201d explains Mrs Nzigire. \u201cIf you do not cry they will be angry.\u201d Angry ancestors are known to come back and disrupt the lives of their progeny. Further, it is shameful for a family member not to cry at a loved one\u2019s funeral\u2014and highly imprudent. Their insouciance may be interpreted as a sign that they were responsible for the death through witchcraft. One of the functions of the trained mourners is to elicit tears in others, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the p<\/em>leureuses <\/em>are expensive. To hire ten women for a week of mourning costs some $1,500. On top of this the women expect food, drink and transport costs. This may be why the industry has not yet flourished in the east. There are more wealthy people in the capital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mr Kubali reckons, though, that if the women are good enough and if he advertises well, he will find customers. He plans to fly a professional out from Kinshasa to train his ten ladies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As for the women, crying on demand is simple, says Mrs Nzigire. In a part of Congo that has been ravaged by raping militias, there is much pain. Financial worries haunt the population, 77% of whom have less than $2 a day. \u201cIn every moment there is some kind of problem\u2026 your mind is always turning, asking where can I find money?\u201d she explains. \u201cThat makes you sad and you cry. We are always ready to cry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Source: http:\/\/www.economist.com<\/p>\n\n\n\n Deborah nzigire, a 65-year-old Congolese woman, is nervous when she sits down for her job interview. Her hands are clasped tightly together, her words are slow and deliberate; she is blinking too much. \u201cWhat inspired you to pursue this career?\u201d asks one of the two people on the interview panel. Her answer is garbled, she mentions money. When asked to… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":112,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/112"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3263"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3264,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3263\/revisions\/3264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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