Meet Migori mourners for hire

Professional mourners are becoming more popular throughout the world.

The practice is exactly what it sounds like: hiring actors to come to a funeral and pretend to care.

Many will argue that it is wrong to profit from funerals and people who are grieving and it can also seem distasteful to trick other attendees and family members by ‘manufacturing’ emotions at a funeral.

Think what you may, professional mourning is a now a source of employment.

We spoke to 21 year old, Daniel Ochieng, a professional mourner from Migori County, to find out what it’s like to have a job that seems too ridiculous to be true.

According to Ochieng, they passionately cry for the bereaved at a cost, they evoke emotions without attachments and they know how best to paint a sombre mood.

“We have various sessions; the first session is at the morgue and that is the most serious session. We cry the most there until those who did not know the deceased believe they had people who truly loved them,” said Ochieng.

The professional mourners said that their charges are at Ksh. 1000 per session and their package has a total of three three sessions.

The charges are also dependent on how many professional mourners the family of the bereaved are willing to hire which takes the cost as high as Ksh.10,000.

Ochieng added that they not only make money out of it but they also enjoy working as professional mourners who now get clients as far as Meru.

With the business growing bigger and demands getting higher, the professional mourners have recruited other youth for efficiency attributing it to lack of employment and crowded job market.

They have however embraced this new venture saying that it’s competition free.

In as much as tradition would judge them harshly, these professional mourners argue that modernity was bypassing some of the traditions and believed that soon the society will embrace their new method of mourning.

Even though they have no emotional attachment, they believe they are doing their best for their clients.

They are now urging the government to consider licensing them and recognizing them as professionals in their field, saying that this is an honest way of making a decent living.