|
 Elal, 36, said a sense of spiritual duty helped her continue
carrying out the common end-of-life ritual despite exhaustion and
fear, especially when she herself fell ill with COVID-19 last year.
According to the ritual, ghassals pray while washing the body,
before placing it in a white shroud ahead of burial. Corpses arrive
from hospitals or homes to a washing cabin, called a "ghassilhane",
where men wash male bodies and women wash female bodies.
"I have been a ghassal for 16 years. I have never seen so many dead
together. I have never washed so many corpses in one day. We were
exhausted," Elal said.
"Believe me, getting COVID was more difficult than washing someone
who died of COVID. Because you are sick yourself, you are waging a
battle of life and death," she said, adding she received therapy for
some time because she couldn't go outside fearing she would be
re-infected.
Istanbul, Turkey's largest city of some 16 million, has 243 ghassals
working in 16 washing cabins that are managed and funded by the
municipal government, providing the service for free.
Elal said two ghassals normally wash five bodies each day, though it
was as many as 40 during the worst days of the pandemic.
Turkey's daily COVID-19 deaths peaked near 400 in May last year, and
now hover just below 200 even as cases are at record highs.
[to top of second column] |
 Ceyhan Tunc, 45, another ghassal, said they were
panicked when the pandemic began and debated how
to continue their work while keeping safe, but
continued once new protective measures were
adopted.
"This is a matter of heart," said Tunc, who has
worked for five years.
The ghassals are paid by the municipal government but Elal and Tunc
said the demanding work is more a responsibility than a source of
income.
"We try to look at this not from a perspective of money and a job,
but rather from a religious duty," Elal said.
Elal says her father and husband did not at first support her
decision, at age 17, to become a ghassal. But now family is her
biggest moral support.
"I never had regrets about doing this work because preparing the
corpse is the last service to a person. My faith and spirit are
satisfied," Elal said, adding that being with someone in "their
final moment" made up for the difficulties.
(Writing by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Jonathan Spicer and Emelia
Sithole-Matarise)
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