When we arrived at Thalang hospital we were greeted by a number of Beer’s family including her mother. She looked particularly agitated and was very animated when she spoke to Hasun. Beer was in a sparse room, looking very ill but able to talk to Hasun. I discovered that she had stopped eating.

The hospital had wanted to put a tube into her stomach and feed her this way but her mother had refused. I asked Hasun why. I couldn’t disguise the rising anger in my voice.
Here she was in hospital and they wanted to help her but her mother refused because she
didn’t want to see a tube go down her child’s throat. She thought she would be in pain.
I couldn’t believe it. My head was whirring. I couldn’t stop thinking of how badly this was all being handled and just how frustrated I was. I felt powerless.

Discussions between Hasun, me and his mother persuaded her to let Beer take milk through a tube. Hasun went to buy the milk and gave it to the nurses who then tried to feed her.
I tried to imagine what would be happening in an NHS hospital in England if Beer was being
treated there. But it was pointless. I was in a different universe.

These were poor people from a village with little money and little knowledge about illness being treated in an under resourced local hospital where I suspect death was common place and accepted as just a part of the karmic wheel of life.

After a long wait while Hasun and the family talked, we headed home. I was exhausted and feeling really sad and confused. My next visit to see Beer came when Hasun called me from the village to ask me to go to Thalang.

He asked me to make sure I was covered up. When I arrived I was taken into the main living room of a barn type house. It was constructed of the usual concrete walls and corrugated iron roof and had no furniture. As I made my way through a large group of
people milling around the house I looked down to see Beer on the floor, looking very peaceful.

Many people were sat on the floor around her and I was invited with Hasun to sit near her. I have to say I didn’t actually realize for a while what was happening. Hasun wouldn’t answer any questions. People came in and out.

I soon realized that I was witnessing the death of Hasun’s sister. It was very emotional but I felt I should keep a hold of my feelings. I had seen the mother crying earlier. She didn’t want to come into the room. Everybody else chatted quietly some times laughing. It was sad but not sombre. I looked at Hasun. He looked strained and was noncommunicative.
He must have sensed some of my confusion as he said unprompted a couple of times that it was the village way.

The last stages of death are entered usually when you hear what is called “the death rattle”. A raspy sound comes from the throat as I guess it is closing up. I remembered it from the time my first husband passed away. As this began two women got either side of Beer’s head and started alternately whispering in her ear. This went on for a very
long time. Hasun told me later that they were encouraging Beer to let go of this life and wishing her good luck as she passed on.

Meanwhile a white shroud was being sewn together next door and the women prepared to wash the body outside. A group of women and young children were sitting in two lines face to face with their legs in front of each other making what looked like sleepers on a train track. On this formation of their legs the body of Beer was placed to be washed. I was invited to watch. I had never seen this before. Young girls of about 8 or 9 were part of the group and the women smiled and laughed as they gently washed Beer’s dead body. I remember thinking in a melancholic way how strange it was to see people nonchalant about death.

Beer was wrapped in the shroud and then in a carpet. Then laid in the back of a pick up and driven to the mosque. She was blessed and then taken to a burial ground near the sea. Hasun joined the family to vigorously dig the hole that she was ultimately placed in
and covered by the earth.

We returned to the house where lots of food was served under the usual striped canopy.
Hasun and I went home in a heavy mood. I tried to console him and asked him if he
wanted to talk. He said no. I tried many times to be sympathetic; to acknowledge his loss. He appeared indifferent. After I stopped trying to do what I thought was help, Hasun never mentioned Beer again.