Postcard From the Algarve - October 05

As for the funerals themselves, they are somewhat different to UK affairs. In Sao Bras there is a funeral church used for no other services than pre burial services. The female relatives and friends crowd into the church, the males congregate in and outside the bar opposite the church.

The funeral procession is headed by a hearse containing the coffin, the driver, and a priest. Everyone else walks behind. The passing of a popular local figure can attract two or three hundred mourners who spread out across the road blocking it completely to on-coming traffic.*.

The final internment might be in a ‘Jazebo’, (a family monument which contains the coffins of one family, in a single compartment, in a bank of such compartments) or, very rarely, it might be in a grave. Graves are in very short supply, and in some areas, a family can only leave a coffin in a grave for three years before they need to make other arrangements. One offshoot of this is that there is a shortage of skilled grave diggers: at the last burial I attended the grave turned out to be too short, and there was an uncomfortable delay while another half meter was shovelled out.

* Wedding processions in the Algarve are formed by a line of beribboned cars hooting constantly while they follow bride and groom from the church to the reception. I once saw such a procession driving noisily towards Sao Bras. Coming from the town, along the same road, was a funeral procession of some 500 mourners. They met head on. The wedding pulled to the side of the road, the mourners continued. I often wonder if the marriage was a success.