The purpose of this essay is to describe one brief but memorable moment I experienced in school during my sophomore year. Specifically, life is a journey with endless experiences that people face as they move from one stage of growth and development to the next. While in every person’s life, there are multiple unforgettable moments, there is always that one particularly memorable moment that will always remain embedded in someone else’s life, whether it positively or negatively impacted their life. One of the ways that people experience unforgettable moments includes engaging in explorations of diverse situations and learning new environments through travel. In this essay, I will outline an event that changed my perception of traveling, meeting, and interacting with new cultures.
As indicated earlier in the introductory part of this essay, one of my favorite hobbies in life includes exploring diverse environments through travel. I was inspired to embrace this hobby after reading Gulliver’s Travels story composed by Jonathan Swift. In the tale, Swift uses the main character, Gulliver, to show the reader that visiting a unique place can leave unforgettable moments based on Gulliver’s experiences on the unusual Island where he met the Yahoos and Houyhnhnms with unique cultures and perceptions towards life. Initially, Gulliver’s perception and attitude toward the natives on the Island were negative. However, as time passed, Gulliver became fond of their culture and became contended with living with them instead of his people, whom he despised and developed significant hatred against (Ruoff 20). This story taught me that someone’s life could be changed by exploring the unique cultures and practices of people they have never met through traveling. In this context, I wish to reflect on a journey I took that established an unforgettable moment I experienced during a school trip to Africa organized by my learning institution.
In November 2023, our lead instructor asked if we would feel comfortable accompanying our third-level student colleagues on a trip to Africa, where he had to attend the burial ceremony of one of my classmates who originally hails from Tanzania, Africa. While I had attended two burial ceremonies in the US, I was not skeptical of the trip, nor did I request to be left out, just like most of my peers who were extremely afraid of burials. Instead, I was extremely eager and excited to take the trip because I was passionate about traveling to unique places, meeting unique people, and learning about novel and unique cultures. “Why would you decline such a marvelous opportunity to learn the culture and heritage of your motherland?” I asked one of my classmates who was an African-American 17-year-old friend after our class lead tutor had asked us if we would feel comfortable accompanying the other cohorts to the burial ceremony in Africa. In the interest of self-preservation, some three classmates requested to remain behind until everyone returned from Africa.
After intense planning and preparations, we traveled to Africa the following week with my classmates and our three tutors. I remember the day of the trip being filled with excitement and joy, but ultimately I felt extremely tired immediately after we landed at the Julius Nyerere International Airport. However, this exhaustion was lifted after noticing the seductive landscapes of Tanzania. Indeed, while in the USA, you never know what is around the corner, in Africa, everything can be vividly observed. An uncle of my classmate who had lost her father came to pick us up at the airport and took us to the village, where his relatives warmly received us. Since it was nightfall, we were immediately served food that melted in my mouth after testing it. Even though I was eager to find out how the food was cooked, I could not as it was already late at night, and everyone had to retire and wake up early for the next day’s preparation for the main event.
The following morning appeared like a typical madhouse in the city market, with people preoccupied with the tasks that would eventually culminate in the burial ceremony event. At around midday, everybody was asked to gather around a small house to view the body’s exit from the house. No sooner than later, I saw men exiting the house carrying a starcher, on top of which a body lay in open view. At this moment, I just froze with dismay and experienced some level of shock I had never experienced before. I am not sure I will ever forget feeling a thud inside myself and my heart sinking to the extent that I could not utter a single word or move an inch for an entire minute. In my entire life leading up to that moment, I had never witnessed such a scene, leaving alone a deceased person’s body.
Nonetheless, I gathered myself and asked our guide why they would keep a deceased person in the house and present him to the people without placing him inside a casket. After the guide realized I had several questions to be answered, he gently grabbed my hand and asked if I was doing fine. “In our culture, people can stay with a deceased person for years until all preparations for the burial are completed as required by our cultural traditions. The body of the deceased individual had stayed with his family members in that small hut house for one week awaiting completion of all burial preparations and rituals associated with the Chagga people of Tanzania. “Well, that is just how it is. I hope today you have learned something about the Chagga ancestral heritage. Whenever we bury our beloved ones we do not mourn them in Tanzania. Instead, we always celebrate the lives they have lived previously.” While I took great care to grasp every word that emerged from our guide’s chin, I still felt a sinking feeling, especially concerning how the men handled the diseased person’s remains. Nonetheless, after the burial ceremony, I got to deliberate about the entire burial event with one of the family members of the deceased person, who could speak English and was conversant with the Chagga cultural heritage. During the conversation, I realized the significance of acknowledging and valuing different cultural practices even though sometimes we are brought up in a culturally distinct environment. Specifically, during the entire ceremony I noted that people were filled with joy and a celebratory mood, unlike our Western mainstream cultures, where an engraved mood of sorrow and sadness often characterizes burial ceremonies. Therefore, it is important to value and appreciate the culture of others, especially those who value and acknowledge important generational values, norms, and beliefs meant to bring people and entire communities together.
Works Cited
Ruoff, James E. “SWIFT, Gulliver’s Travels, Part IV, Chapter III.” Explicator 15 (1956).
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