Sunday, January 27, 2013

morbid curiosity: cemetery photos


There's something peaceful, even pretty about gravestones scattered over a hill next to a little church.  Every time we drive by this church on the side of the highway, I think about how I'd like to take a picture or two of the gravestones.  I've never asked my driver to stop for a number of reasons.  One being that I usually have one or two of the children with me in the car.  Making an extraneous stop, to lengthen a car ride with small children, is just a bad idea in Addis.  Traffic is horrendous on a good day.  I wasn't quite sure it was appropriate as a white woman to hop out of my car and walk into this graveyard to take photos.  I didn't  want to offend anyone.  My reservations kept me from stopping.
Nothing like having an accomplice to help rid one of reservations.  I pulled the trigger on my little morbid photo shoot one afternoon when Megan and I were the only ones Zalalem was chauffeuring around.  I tiptoed around the trash and animal (?) feces that littered the ground around the graves and found a good little hill to stand on a snap a few pictures.  I was on the receiving end of tons of strange looks from locals walking by.  All the children stopped to stare and ask for "one dollar" as they have been trained to say.
I stumbled over a very recently chewed on sinewy animal bone, snapped one more shot and ran back to the car.

6 comments:

Emily said...

I LOVE going to cemeteries. They are some of my favorite places to go. This one looks/sounds particularly intriguing.

KristinJessup said...

No idea you have a blog Sarah! Save me some cookies at market day haha!

Mommy said...

I am also fascinated by cemeteries and my husband thinks it's so strange! I, too, struggle with whether or not it's appropriate to take pictures and so I usually end up snapping off a few shots and then running away before anyone can see me :)

Nomads By Nature said...

I think cemeteries are amazing places - to see how the dead are remembered and cared for. I would have loved to have gone to the large cemetery just outside of Maputo, but every time we passed it was packed with families mourning the loss of loved ones. Death is too common for all ages there. I could never bring myself to intrude. But had there been almost nobody there, I would have entered and taken some photos.

Anonymous said...

Haha I saw the title of this post and though "ah yes this is my blond-haired +3 girls twin living in Ethiopia." I too have a cemetery I'm still trying to get to. But its outside of town and our driver doesn't know how to get there so it might be a bit but hopefully we too will get there one day!

Sara said...

Oh, I'm so happy I'm not alone in my strange interest in taking pictures of gravestones. I really would love to get to Savannah, Georgia for this reason!