Grandpa Nwana's Memorial Service

October 19-21, 2007. - This marked the 11th anniversary of the passing of my grandfather, Pa Moses Nwana, who passed away in July of 1996.

The weekend was terrific!!!!!!!! Celebrations started on Friday - welcoming people at my aunt Kona's gigantic home, a wide array of African dishes to eat and lots to drink, catching up with old friends, picking up people arriving at the airport...etc. Saturday early morning, I went and had my hair done in golden kinky braids. There was more cooking, birthday cakes for a couple of people...preparing for the program later on in the day. 5:30pm was church service. And the best you ever did see. Lots of friends, most of them in the "Ashwabi". The MC, Ma Lilian, was soooo good!!! She sang, led in the singing, everything was in the beautiful color-printed program (which had my grandpa's picture infront). Some of the highlights of the church service included my aunts, Angeline and Kona , reading, all the grandchildren reading the prayers that end with "we pray to the Lord, Lord hear us" and everyone answers: "Lord graciously hear us". Starting with me praying and thanking God for the time our grandfather had here on earth and hoping that we will live the good example he set for us etc, and then my other cousins present, first Samgwa and then Samgella, then Sigala, Leh, and lastly Feh, all read. They prayed for the community, the friends who had come for that event, the world, the church, and Feh lastly prayed for world peace. It was so cute because Feh is only 4 years old, and she had memorized her lines just that day, so she was looking at the paper but saying her lines from memory!!!! It was sooooo cute!!!! The pastor was a woman, and just awesome!! And then lots of singing during offertory time, lots of dancing, and during the "sharing peace" time, everyone just went around hugging and kissing, it was so nice!!! The Bali boys were drumming away to the music like crazy!!!!

Well, after that, we went to the hall. It was a great big basket ball gym, but how beautifully it had been decorated!! Colored baloons hanging to the sky from the tables, beautiful clothes, ornamental bowls of nuts in the center...etc. The DJ was awesome...well, in short, the hall was just waiting for us. Highlights of the evening included the biography I read. I broke down a couple of times crying...so fond was I of my grandfather that it was almost unbearable remembering some of those good old times. See his biography at E:\Personal Docs\OBITUARY_PaMoses.htm. [Copy and paste the link on your internet browser.] Okay, moving on...And then family shared stories about him; then there was an actual "cry-die" with us family members in the middle of a big circle holding his picture and dancing to the Bali music and drums that played. The older bali women led us through song after song. All the other Bali people formed a big circle around us and danced. The men were drumming and dancing as well. We were all genuinely crying and laughing again later. It was beautiful. Then of course lots of eating later, every single conceivable Cameroonian dish you can imagine, lots of jokes, a decale dance presentation by some girls from Dallas, Texas, (they were soooo good...they danced so well), and then dance, dance, dance. Notebooks/calendar were distributed as souvenirs with my grandfather's name and years on this earth engraved in front. The last people left the hall at 5:00am.

Sunday again was barbecue at my aunt's home. Boiling groundnut ooh!!! We chop am so tey!!!! Uncle Richard - a family friend - who does soya as part of his business, I mean, he's a specialist, came all the way from California to do the soya!! It was awesome!!! Chai!!!! Then doughnuts, food, all kind thing. Chop again ooh. Aaron and I could only sneak away on Saturday night because otherwise we will never have had any alone time together. He and his sister and her kids had to leave by 1pm on Sunday, though, coz Aaron had to return to Houston. But ooh, we had fun, fun, fun!!!!!!! I saw sooo many friends and family I hadn't seen in quite a while. Everyone was looking so good, beautiful hairdo, clothes,... especially when people changed from the traditional clothes for the dance part later on Saturday evening. Betrand, Aaron's younger brother, the one who's in high school and lives with us, was so glad he came!!! Everyone had such a good time. Oh by the way, we had t-shirts to wear on Sunday. Beautiful red, blue, and green t-shirts (blue was for children, red was medium, and green was large) and they were so pretty, with my granddad's name on it too, and what the event was. And so everyone was in jeans or short pants and these t-shirts on Sunday. Well, what else, can I say, the event was a huge, huge success. My mother said my grandfather was probably smiling broadly from where he was. I agree. We left for Arkansas at about 5pm that afternoon. My aunt later told me that the last of them left her home at 11pm at night.