Dubai: Rows of crosses are sunk in the sand, adorned with prayer beads and names of those who lie beneath them. A zigzag of unevenly-laid bricks makes a path through nearly a hundred graves, each with a story that ended too early and was sometimes left untold.
Candles and rusted lanterns sit at the foot of some of these graves. Letters and sun-beaten flowers are left to wither in the deserts. Toys and shoes are neatly placed on many of these tombs. A Snickers chocolate bar that was likely moved by the wind sits inches away from a child's grave.
This is the Dubai Christian cemetery, guarded with four white crosses, a rusted metal gate and a brick wall. Surrounded by sun-baked sand, the cemetery is one of three sites for Christians to be buried. It's a mile from the Jebel Ali exit, an off-road plot that has no sign of human life.
A bushel of bright pink flowers peak from behind its brick walls. Birds are chirping and the sounds of wind whistling through the air is a glimpse of sombre moments spent here by mourners.
A little green door is left ajar. Words of farewell and poems of hope are carved in granite.
"Do not stand at my grave and weep. I am not there. I do not sleep... I am the swift uplifting rush of quiet birds in circling flight. I am the soft starlight at night. Do not stand at my grave and cry, I am not there; I did not die." These are the famous bereavement verses written by US widow Mary Frye in 1964. In the cemetery, they are written on the tomb of a 16-year-old boy.
Another tomb reads, "The family chain is broken now, but memories will live forever."
Dates of life and death, with a dash in between, are reminders of the abruptness of death.
Here a family of four is buried side by side - all died on the same day. A car accident on November 12, 2000 claimed the life of the young expat family with two children, one of whom was five months old. The accident happened on "death road," which is a stretch of the highway known for its fatalities.
Here the young and the old, those who were rich and those too young to know what money is, lie side by side. There is an overwhelming majority of young children, sometimes unnamed. It turns out that many of these are fetuses.
Because UAE law considers a fetus to be a human life, a three-month-old fetus that is the result of a miscarriage is required to receive a proper burial.
Operations
Trevor Grattan, a scientist and self-professed humanist who has called the UAE home for nearly four decades, was in charge of the cemeteries until a few weeks ago. After burying his mother-in-law in one of the original Christian cemeteries in Al Jaddaf, Grattan saw the need for someone to look after the cemeteries. "Before we buried my mother in law there, I had to personally clean up the site. It was very poorly looked after." says 70-year-old Grattan.
When Grattan arrived in the UAE, there was little need for a Christian cemetery because there were much fewer expats living here. "And most of those who died here had little connection with the UAE and preferred to be buried in their home country," he says.
For many expats, repatriating a dead body to their country of origin is either too complicated or too expensive. While most major airlines have the facilities required to fly a casket in a vacuum-sealed area of the cargo, the price of a business class ticket is expensive.
To accommodate the growing demand for grave sites among Christians, a committee has been set up to over see the functions of burials and cemeteries. Because Grattan is retiring, he has handed over the keys to the chair of that Committee, Steven Miller, a reverend at the Anglican Church in Dubai.
"As the expat population increases, there is a greater need for more cemeteries. Because many expats are calling the UAE home and sinking their roots here, they want to be buried here." Until recently, there was little cooperation amongst the churches in overseeing the cemeteries, due to a desire to focus more on the living than on the dead, but that is slowly changing, says Miller. "The problem is money. It costs a significant amount of money to run and maintain the cemetery and it's hard to find someone to take ownership of that," he adds. With no staff or an office, a group of volunteers will oversee this transition.
Even though cremation is a somewhat controversial topic inside the church, some are opting for the option. "Burial in the Christian cemetery costs around Dh1,000, and cremation can cost up to Dh3,000," Miller says. Until now, the only crematorium available belongs to the Hindu Temple. "Even though some Christians have used it, it is a very different ritual in both of these religions.
With an estimated cost of more than one million dirham just for a crematorium, the church is struggling to find the funds for that.
It is a strange but inevitable issue to focus on, for death is an unavoidable and so are graveyards. There is something about a graveyard that makes life seem like a momentary lapse in the course of history. It leaves you wondering what will be engraved on your tomb and how you will live that dash in between years.
Do you know anybody who has faced problems when dealing with the burial of a near one? What recourse did they seek?
Your comments
Abu Dhabi Ummu Al Nar Christian graveyard needs more attention because of its pathetic condition. My 6-year-old daughter is buried there and almost every month we visit her, but when we went last time there was some construction going on and we could not take our car near the gate. We parked it on the road and walked through rubble.
Christina
Abu Dhabi,UAE
Posted: March 15, 2008, 13:00
I know one Sikh girl whose father died in a road accident in Sharjah and they had a tough time arranging for cremation (in Sikhism, the dead are cremated). The procedure was so complicated, involving the expat's home country embassy, the Municipality, police and some other government departments, along with Dubai-Sharjah inter-emirate complications that the family had to struggle through for more than two weeks for the cremation to happen.
Jasvinder
Dubai,UAE
Posted: March 15, 2008, 10:14
A friend and myself decided to say prayers for the departed during the month of November/All Souls Day for a period of one month on a daily basis. We went all the way to Jebel Ali to locate the cemetery but couldn't find it. Even on calling the church, the location was not clearly given.
Vincent
Dubai,UAE
Posted: March 15, 2008, 09:56
My husband, who died in Al Ain , was buried at Aloha, and the neglect and state of this cemetery has to be seen to be believed, the church in Al Ain does not even check it.
Stephanie
Perth,Australia
Posted: March 15, 2008, 06:47
