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ITALIAN customs officers were startled the other day, to put it mildly. A respectable woman in her mid-sixties, arriving from Brazil, sought to pass through their airport check-point with a suitcase containing – a skeleton.
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GOOD mourning … er, morning. They say truth is stranger than fiction and proved to be so in this case; the skeleton was that of her brother who had died 11 years earlier and whose last wish was to be buried in his homeland of Italy. Brazilian customs papers were duly presented and the Italian officials waved the lady and her bag of bones on her way.
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THAT led us to think about the fact that PNG funerals nearly always involve burial. Coincidentally, we heard from a university lecturer of our acquaintance on the weekend. He described the deathly silence that settled over his class last week when he pointed out that many people around the globe actually cremate their dead – and that "cremate" meant to set fire to, until only ashes remained.
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IT became obvious that having Aunty in a tasteful carved jar on the bookshelf did not engender wide appeal. But it is an issue that should sooner or later be discussed publicly, as our urban centres run out of land for cemeteries.
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THEN there's the natural reluctance of villagers to have ground water run-off through a field of the buried dead, plus the more recent, if completely unjustified concerns over those who die of AIDS and are buried in villages – and the question assumes current relevance and urgency.
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NONE of which is calculated to help your jaundiced Monday-morning view of a hastily assembled lukewarm cup of tea and some sparsely buttered bread; the weekend memories of stretching out on the sleeping platform under the tree for a further three hours rest while Mum and the kids went to the market and stores have already faded.
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SO, with a restrained eight bars on the flugel-horn, we seek to cheer you up by announcing that this week will see – the launching of our Quiz for 2008. Sharpen both the wits and the pencil, and join us for more details tomorrow. Cheers!
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– Dee Nesenolis
Editorial