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A BURIAL SOCIETY OF LOVE AND CAKE

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Members of Itsoseng Women’s Club.            Photo by Phineas Khoza
Members of Itsoseng Women’s Club. Photo by Phineas Khoza

HOW should someone show their respect to a family mourning for a dead loved one?

These women said if a member of their society had to bury a relative, they would arrive at the house with buckets of cake.

Itsoseng Women’s Club was formed to cope with the terribly high prices of funerals.

Mathoto Mthembu, chairwoman and co-founder of Itsoseng, said the club was started in 2000. It now has 27 members and they each contribute R250 every month.

Of this money, R200 is saved for burials and R25 is saved for transport if they have to travel far from Ekurhuleni. The last R25 is saved for any equipment the members planned to buy for the society.

They also pay R50 each for refreshments which are presented at the meetings.

Because crime is such a problem, the members do not bring money to the meetings. They show their deposit slips as proof of payment.

Mathoto said: “We no longer need to hire equipment if we have tombstone unveilings or funerals. We have our own.”

The society owns a warmer, five chairs, a table, two big salad dishes, 20 plastic glasses, gas stoves and cylinders, a three-foot pot and two big aluminium pots. They are saving to buy a tent next.

If a member or a member’s spouse dies, Itsoseng gives the surviving family R12 000. Dependents get R6 800 each.

The members also arrive at the house to do all the cooking and other funeral preparations on the day as well as the day before and the day after.

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