“Want do you mean, he’s not there?”
“The Aga Khan hospital says it only has two bodies, a Chinese and a Swahili.”
So, I’d been entrusted to organise the end of life arrangements for my friend William and by the second day I’d already lost him.
My initial horror at having been forced by the insurers to change undertakers on day two would eventually prove to be fortuitous but as I stand here in the Shree Hindu Mandal Hospital in Dar es Salaam it’s stressful. The Hindus are really great and a world away from the dishonest and money-grabbing ones I had initially been assigned by the South African embassy.
Where was William if he wasn’t where the undertakers had told me?
My mind turned back to the previous day at the mortuary and my fateful decision not to accompany the body to the hospital. I had been waiting in the courtyard for two hours in the blazing sun, sweat dripping off my nose and chin watching bodies being lifted into and out of vans.
The South African embassy representative arrived with a scowl, a man who was employed to carry her handbag and the distinct impression that William’s death was an inconvenience. “Why am I here?” she addressed the police inspector. He pointed out that it was a legal requirement but she was in no mood to be helpful and said she could not stay long. I gave her my details, a photograph of his passport and she went back to her air-conditioned office.
And then we are called in to see the body and to help doctors establish the cause of death. In films the body is prepared for viewing in a private side room and the family brought in to pay their last respects away from the gaze of others.
In Tanzania you walk into the morgue is full of bodies lying patiently on metal tables under white cloths exposing only feet and foreheads, a row of giant hotdogs. I look along the row for white feet.
By the time the post mortem examination is finished and I am back in the courtyard, I’ve had enough of being in this charmless place. “You need to accompany the body to the hospital,” the police inspector told me. But I’d had enough “I don’t need to go with the body to the hospital. It’s not like it’s going to get lost is it!”
And now I’d lost him.
The new undertaker from the Hindu hospital thought for a moment. “I think your original undertakers probably brought him here.”
“But they told me they were taking him to the Aga Khan.”
“Yes they often do that because Aga Khan charges $52 a night and here we charge $21 so they charge the customer for him lying at Aga Khan and bring him here instead.”
He was right. I started breathing again.
The death of a foreign national abroad is not an easy matter to deal with but there are some top tips to share with anyone in the same position I found myself in;
- If you want cremation, the only people who offer it are the Hindus (at Shree Hindu Mandal Hospital)
- Under no circumstances use Corona undertakers. They are corrupt and are not afraid to blackmail customers who can do nothing without the death certificate. They tried to make money out of me by lying about which hospital the body had gone to and would not give me the death certificate without receiving payment from his friends of $900. They then insisted that we pay them $500 for the bribes they claimed to have paid along the way (I refused)
- Having the personal phone number of the local Chief of Police is invaluable for overcoming problems with corrupt undertakers. The undertakers go absolutely mental when you call the chief of police to report bribery but it does the trick.
- Remove all jewellery before the deceased is taken from the house (his wedding ring was stolen by the security guards)
- Make a list of all the items the police took and use it to ensure it all gets back to you (including the mobile phones!)
- Don’t be South African. The embassy staff are a shamble of miscommunication, ineptitude and care nothing for the people they represent.
- Don’t be white – things cost a lot more when they see the colour of your skin. The difference between Corona ($4,800) and the Hindus ($1,500) is the tax we pay for being white.