Go big, go into debt: Some Ivorian families pay dearly for a send-off to remember

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Valerie Bli Lou is a shopkeeper from a modest family, but she is determined to give her late father the sumptuous funeral that Ivorian tradition demands ...

ABIDJAN, Nov 15 — Valerie Bli Lou is a shopkeeper from a modest family, but she is determined to give her late father the sumptuous funeral that Ivorian tradition demands – whether she can afford it or not.

Dancing through the night in a flowing burgundy-and-black tunic at her father’s wake in Yopougon, a working-class neighbourhood in Ivory Coast’s economic capital, Abidjan, the 60-year-old recounted the hardships of organising and paying for this lavish tribute to his life.

Death is big business in Ivory Coast, where families are expected to say goodbye to their loved ones with massive, music-fuelled feasts tinged with moments of both joy and sadness.

Bli Lou said that including the three cows she bought, she had already paid more than 2.5 million CFA francs (US$4,275, RM17,485) for her father’s funeral rites — more than 15 times the average monthly salary in the west African country, according to the World Bank.

There would be more expenses to come, she said: transporting the coffin to a cemetery 500 kilometres (310 miles) away, building a tomb and hosting and feeding hundreds of guests at the burial.

Bli Lou, who is Christian, told AFP she was “proud” to be covering the expense, despite the difficulty.

When Bli Lou’s father died in July, she did not have the money to organise a funeral in line with tradition.

So, she did what many families do: paid to preserve his body in a morgue, at the rate of about 7,000 CFA francs (RM49) a day, while she got together the funds she needed with the help of family and friends.

She finally managed to put together the wake at a vast centre in Yopougon known for hosting funeral events, where crowds of mourners converge every Saturday.

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