Mortality rates in South Africa more than doubled between 1994 and 1999. Even that statistic fails to show the severity of the crises in certain areas of the country. Philip De Jager, president of the National Association of Funeral Undertakers, says while the death rate in white communities has held fairly steady at about 6 per 1,000, in some rural black communities, it has risen as high as 25 or 30 per 1,000. It's not hard to find other anecdotal evidence of the skyrocketing morality rate in communities hit hardest by the AIDS epidemic. Four years ago, there were no funeral parlors in Matubatuba, reported to have among the highest AIDS rates in the country.
Today there are six.
Twenty-five miles away, in the community of Empangeni, there are now 13 funeral parlors. Five years ago, there were two. Ninety-five percent of our clients are poor. Mvelase says many of his customers pay on a six-month credit plan and, often, he simply accepts that he will never be paid. The surge in deaths has also created a severe burial-space shortage, which will soon reach critical levels.