When Andrew Psaila went to JobsPlus four years ago to apply for a job as a gravedigger, he was met with shocked stares.

“They said no-one ever applied for it,” he recalls, describing his profession as a job that “no-one else wants to do”.

But the 27-year-old loves his vocation because it keeps him focused on what really matters in life – living in the moment and not giving too much importance to material possessions. He was always fascinated by the role and had a friend who was a gravedigger. “They told me I would not be good at it because I don’t have long legs and would not be able to stand over the open graves. But I do very well,” he smiles.

Psaila is at peace with his choice but, whenever he mentions it to someone “they look at me with disgust”. He cannot understand this since, after all, death is an inevitable part of life and someone has to do the job. “This job keeps me aware about what matters in life. One day we’re here and the next we’re not. We must enjoy life since we won’t take our money with us,” he says.

Psaila has gone through this personally, having lost his younger brother, Simon, suddenly. Simon, 24, drowned when he suffered a blackout while free diving in September 2018. “I buried my brother,” he says. “I was the one who lowered down the rope during his burial.”

Eman Bonnici, manager of the Addolorata Cemetery.

Eman Bonnici, manager of the Addolorata Cemetery, concedes that Psaila is the only gravedigger he knows who actually signed up for the specific job. Over the years people “feared” grave diggers because they linked them with death.

“I remember once I was walking with a gravedigger and a man spat at him. He told me that the man blamed him for burying his wife. In the past, bus conductors would not allow them on the bus as they scared off other passengers. But the reality is that without these people we would have bodies everywhere,” says Bonnici.

I remember once I was walking with a grave digger and a man spat at him. He told me that the man blamed him for burying his wife- Eman Bonnici

He became manager when Campo Santo Ltd took over the management of the cemetery as concessionaires for 15 years as from 2019 after winning a public bid issued by the Ministry for Health.

Bonnici says that whereas in the past, public service officials were transferred to work at the cemetery mainly “out of punishment”, the situation has changed. Today the five gravediggers at the Addolorata are young and strong and well trained and equipped with the adequate resources they require to be safe at their place of work.

Unlike in the past where they learnt on the job – during real funerals – now they are trained on empty graves with coffins filled with sacks of sand. “They are taught that, while they bury countless people, the mourners are experiencing the loss once,” he says.

Bonnici adds that people often complain about the way gravediggers handle the coffins and about the way they are dressed – without understanding the reality behind the job. “People compare the burials in Malta to the ones they see in movies where often a hole in the ground is dug out in soil and lowered gently using a lifter. Malta’s cemetery is different. Graves are dug out in rock and are close to each other. Lifters can’t be used,” he says.

The graves at the Addolorata cemetery differ in their capacity: one finds single or one-tier graves, two- or three-tier, or the newly constructed ones, five-tier graves. In the case of one-tier graves the coffin can be lowered straight as it is easy to remove the surface slabs. But things get more complex as graves get deeper as each tier is separated by a row of seven heavy stone slabs that cannot be lifted to the surface. Instead, the final slab stays in place to act as a shelf to hold the six slabs removed for burial.

This means that the coffin cannot go in straight as it would hit against the shelf slab, so it has to be tilted. A gravedigger inside the grave guides it while others on the outside lower the heavy coffin using ropes. To complicate matters, most graves carry a monument on top which sacrifices a fraction of the grave opening, impeding the possibility of lowering a coffin horizontally at the very start of the interment itself.

The temperature inside the graves is hot and dusty, and due to the lining with limestone, also holds high levels of humidity. All this is compounded by micro environment changes following burials that mean diggers get dirty while carrying out their duties. It is for this reason that such personnel have to wear comfortable clothes that allow them to work safely, something that wearing a suit does not allow.

Apart from the actual burial duties, Bonnici adds, grave diggers also have to prepare the graves ahead of the interment. Their day starts at 6am and includes cleaning graves as well as exhuming corpses to ensure that the grave can adequately accommodate the next burial. They also have to tend to an amount of paperwork that relates to each burial and forms part of a chain of official documentation that is kept by the Environmental Health Directorate, the entity that supervises the operations at cemeteries around Malta and Gozo on behalf of the Ministry for Health.

Bonnici adds that, unfortunately, the gravediggers’ important role is neither appreciated by the public nor by the state. During the two years of the coronavirus pandemic these grave diggers worked around the clock especially during the times when burials of COVID-positive people had to take place within 24 hours of their death. “They were the ones handling the coffins which no one wanted or dared to touch for fear of contamination, and yet they were not offered early vaccines as other frontliners had.”

It was commendable, Bonnici adds, that they were given the recognition of other frontliners when they were awarded the €2 commemorative coin ‘Heroes of the Pandemic’, stressing that they formed part of the army of people who have made sacrifices to keep the nation running at a time of most need.

Gravediggers are not always treated with the respect they deserve but were recognised as ‘Heroes of the Pandemic’ for helping to keep the nation running during the COVID-19 outbreak.

Over the years, Bonnici has seen what he sees as a decline in respect for death and the cemetery. People litter, bring in food and drinks, want to bring in their dogs or be allowed to drive into the cemetery, and take photos and videos which are later posted online.

“The cemetery offers a big lesson in life,” he says. “There are 305,000 people buried here. All had plans for their life – all had their stories. Some were poor, others rich. Some famous, others not. They are all here and the world still kept spinning.”