In Case of Death
Kerning Cultures
Kerning Cultures Network
4.9 • 529 Ratings
🗓️ 11 March 2021
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What happens when somebody dies in a country that's not their home? In the UAE, the answer to that is complicated. This week on Kerning Cultures, stories about the families who've had to go through the experience, and the group of volunteers who help repatriate the bodies of foreigners after they've died in the UAE.
This episode originally aired in September 2019.
Special thanks to Zaki, Max, Ashraf Thamaraserry, Vidhyadharan, Amal Mathew, Ambika and Renji. The people at the Indian Association; CM Bashir, Sajad Saheer, Mohamed Mohideen and Baiju G. Sunil at the Hindu Crematorium and Mr. Johnson at Holy Trinity Church.
This episode was produced by Noha Fayed and Alex Atack, with editorial support from Dana Ballout, Hebah Fisher, Shahd Bani Odeh and Tamara Rasamny. Translation by Ashfana Hameed. Sound design by Mohamed Khreizat. Fact checking by Zeina Dowidar. Kerning Cultures is a Kerning Cultures Network production.
Support this podcast on patreon.com/kerningcultures for as little as $1 a month.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi everyone, it's Dana here. I'm the editor at Kernan Cultures. We're taking this week off to finish up a few episodes that we're super excited about, and you'll hear them very soon. So this week, we wanted to revisit one of our favorite past episodes. This one originally came out in 2019, and it's about |
| 0:23.0 | something, honestly, before reporting this story we'd never really thought about before. It's a little |
| 0:28.8 | bit of a morbid question, but it's what happens when you die in a country that isn't your own? |
| 0:36.3 | What happens to your body? In the UAE, the answer to that is |
| 0:41.1 | complicated. So producer Alex Atec spoke to two families who had to go through the painful |
| 0:46.2 | experience and followed some volunteers that helped them through the process. It's a beautiful |
| 0:51.3 | story, one of my favorites, and I really hope you enjoy it. Here it is. A few weeks ago, |
| 0:58.0 | KC producer Alex Atak and I got on a call because he'd been working on a new story. |
| 1:03.5 | Okay, so maybe should I just start by telling you how I found out about the story? |
| 1:08.5 | Yes, tell me, take it straight at the beginning. |
| 1:11.5 | So I was having a conversation with my friend, and he'd lived in the UAE his whole life, brought |
| 1:17.7 | up in the UAE. |
| 1:18.5 | His dad moved there way back in the day, like, I think pre-70s kind of thing. |
| 1:24.1 | And his dad had died recently, and he was buried in Dubai. And he was telling me that he'd been at his dad's died recently and he was buried in Dubai. |
| 1:28.7 | And he was telling me that he'd been at his dad's graveyard that morning replacing the flowers on his grave. |
| 1:35.1 | And then it got me thinking like I'd never like actually seen a graveyard in Dubai. |
| 1:40.0 | And I've never had to think about death in Dubai. |
| 1:44.2 | Alex, by the way, is a British citizen who was brought up in Dubai. |
| 1:48.2 | I think I wouldn't have known what I was going to do if somebody died in my family. |
| 1:53.8 | You know, if my dad lived there, my mom lived there. |
| 1:57.1 | And so I would, and if they'd have died, I wouldn't have had a clue what the next steps would have been. |
| 2:03.1 | So it's making you think, like, well, what happens when we die here? |
... |
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