Ugandan veteran journalist Joseph Tamale Mirundi is being laid to rest today, Sunday, August 18 at his ancestral home in Matale village, Kalagala in Kalisizo.
Mirundi passed away on August 13, at Kisubi Hospital in Kampala, succumbing to a respiratory complication.
He is to be laid to rest next to his father, Yowana Mirundi, at his family gravesite.
In the morning, the Uganda Funeral Service (UFS) who took charge of the send-off, spoke out about reports that the deceased had requested a different kind of burial.
Mirundi had reportedly asked to be buried vertically so that he could keep watch of his family.
Mirundi said this during a media interview
However, one Steven from UFS’s grave construction department told reporters that this wish could not be met because it would go against the Kiganda tradition.
“In this transition, a child cannot stand over their parents,” he explained.
“Over there, is (Mirundi’s) father. There was no way we were going to bury him standing upright over his father. A child will be a child even in death.”
Strange but not impossible
Steven further explained that a vertical burial could have been met under different circumstances.
“If this was Mirundi’s own graveyard and not his father’s, that request could have been met,” he said.
“But this here is his family’s graveyard and his father is here.”
Steven also revealed that the Uganda Funeral Service engaged with Mirundi’s family where the vertical burial matter came up.
He said, however, that they managed to convince them that per tradition, this would not be possible.
