Eliza's family are poor, poor beyond our imagining. Malawian funerals are great public events. The entire village gathers to spend the night at the house of the deceased. The songs go on all night long. The mourners must be fed, the food cooked, and firewood gathered.
Funerals are expensive.
In a corner of the female ward at St Ann's lies Mary Mbwana. Her sallow flesh is blotted and scarred with Kaposi's sarcoma. The disfiguring black-brown tumors under her skin run across her face, around her mouth, across her back and breasts. She is running a fever, wallowing in pain, struggling in the last hours of life. Everyone knows Mary will die soon.