Let's talk about culture! Experiencing a disco funeral in Western Kenya.

My humanitarian trip to Kenya was spent working alongside the Kenya Red Cross; the purpose of the trip was to understand public health problems in order to develop solutions and integrate research to confirm successful results. I traveled across Kenya for 2 months, experiencing a myriad of public health interventions addressing various issues or situations. Halfway through my trip, I found myself traveling with a media group, who were interviewing beneficiary populations of an HIV/AIDS American Red Cross and Kenya Red Cross collaboration, in Western Kenya. They were creating a video with stories of local people who described how the program impacted their lives; this video was being sent to the American Red Cross to shed light on the success of the intervention. The days included conversations of Swahili interwoven with English, video cameras, and an abundance of fruit given to us as gifts of thanks; the nights were spent in a deep slumber due to exhaustion, but one night was different. Around 11 p.m., the group and I drove 30 min into the bush where we met with two local boys on a motorcycle. We were secretly led to a disco matanga located 30 min deeper into the bush. At this point, we were approximately an hour away from Busia, in a direction that wove in and out of Uganda, but we would never be able to retrace the trail. The only light came from the motorcycle headlights in front of us and our only trail disappeared as soon as the dust settled. I had no idea what a disco matanga was, even up until the point where I exited the parked vehicle. I quickly learned. A disco matanga is a cultural funeral practice of the Luo in the Nyanza province. 1 Nyanza province is the most severely affected area in Kenya with HIV rates up to 15%. 2,3 Disco funerals create an environment and provide opportunities for adolescents to engage in risky sex and promote HIV/STI transmission. 4 – 7 Wife inheritance also occurs at these events 8 ; the purpose of a disco funeral was personally described to me as the combination of wife inheritance and a funeral into one event. Because the infection and mortality rate from AIDS is so high in the region, it has become custom that if a husband dies, the brother of the husband takes the wife as his own. 8 The …