Have you ever wondered what it is like to spend your living days among the dead?
For many, the idea of being around the dead only incites fear and revulsion. It might be due to experiences that we have had, or even the tales that have been spun about the dead.
Such sentiments, however, are not shared by everyone.
James Mwangi spends his time with the dead every day. He is a mortuary attendant at the Murang' a County General Hospital Mortuary.
In an Interview on NTV's segment My Job, James Mwangi lay bare what it takes to be a mortician.
Like many other young boys, he had taken pleasure in many careers while growing up. He had no clue that life would take him where many fear to tread, to live among the dead. It was when his grandmother died and they visited her at the morgue that the idea came to him, and he has never looked back ever since.
He divulged that he was not happy to see the state that his grandmother was in, and he took it upon himself to make sure that the dead are treated with the dignity they deserve.
He enrolled at the University of Nairobi Chiromo Campus in 2009, where he pursued a three-month course on Mortuary Studies. He then returned to Murang' a county and has been working at the Hospital Mortuary for 4 years now.
"We handle between 3 and 5 bodies in a day," he revealed.
Asked how his typical day is like, he told the interviewer that when a body is brought in, the first thing they do is take a trolley and collect it.
They then check the pockets in the presence of family members, that is if the members are not comfortable to check the pockets themselves. Satisfied, the body is moved to the embalming lab, where it is undressed, washed, and drained of fluid.
After that, an incision is made and embalming fluid introduced through the femoral artery (in the thigh). The femoral artery, he explained, is the quickest route through which the drugs will travel through the body. After the embalming fluid has been injected, the body is massaged to ensure that the chemicals travel throughout. After that, the body is placed into a cabinet for storage.
When asked whether he had ever experienced anything awkward at work, he answered in the affirmative.
He added that one time, he thought he heard a child cry at night, and coincidentally, there was a child's body in one of the cabinets. Afraid, he locked the place and went to the back of the building, where he found quarrelling cats to be the source of the sound. Despite all this, James Mwangi takes immense pride in what he does every day.
He intimated to the interviewer that contrary to the common myth out there, he does not take any drugs in order to function effectively.
