One of the services Phoenix offers is providing funeral arrangements for their members, and giving emotional support to members, many of whom are abandoned by their families during times of loss. When we met at the office, every person was presented with a small red envelope with 1.30 Chinese Yuan (roughly USD 0.19) from the family: a token to show their appreciation for mourning their loss. We were also given a few grains of rice to keep in our coat pockets during the funeral, which Phoenix members told me was a Buddhist funeral custom.

When we arrived at the funeral home, another funeral had just started. While we waited I learned that the  women of Phoenix expected many more deaths in 2010. This, they told me, is 寡妇年 (guafunian), or the "year of widows". It occurs when, due to discrepancies between lunar calendar and solar calendar, the beginning of spring (February 4th) falls before Chinese spring festival in the first year, and after Spring festival the next year, so that the whole lunar year misses its official "beginning of spring". In these years, many people believe that husbands die more frequently.

We had to do a lot of sitting around and waiting - the whole process took four hours - and while we waited, Phoenix's executive director, Li Man, explained the cremation process. She said that there are two different types of cremation: one using gas, and the other oil. Since oil costs half the price of the faster gas-fuelled cremation, many of the people she serves have to opt for oil.

Because the burning power of the oil-based flames is not as strong, the body needs to be turned once or twice throughout the process, a task she herself has often carried out. This time, the family of the deceased was available to handle the task, but many Phoenix members do not have this support. Phoenix normally handles all these tasks: washing and preparation of the body, and arranging and paying for the cremation.

The funeral home was an arrangement of nondescript buildings. Apart from the family of the man who had passed away and the group from Phoenix, there was another small group of friends, many of them husbands or boyfriends of sex workers in Phoenix. But splits often occur within families when one person is a sex worker or a drug user: the family of the man who had died accepted Li Man and the Phoenix women as friends of their lost son, but openly ignored his wife, a tension that illuminated the important role grassroots groups play in providing emotional support to bereaved sex workers.

Before the body went into the cremation hall, the family and friends followed a ritual of burning paper offerings, stuffed animals and other items to help the deceased on his journey. This was a very emotional moment for all, and the only moment when emotions were allowed to flow freely. It was a sharp contrast when the doors to the cremation hall opened to the terrible stench of burned flesh and hair, and a funeral home worker emerged carrying a large bucket of bones and ashes and tossed them on the metal table. The family now had to go through these remains and pick out the bones that were still intact to go into the urn. Everyone gathered around the table to help identify suitable pieces for the urn.

After two cannon shots and some firecrackers, the family and friends sheltered the urn with an umbrella to protect it from sunlight, and proceeded to the burial grounds.

Attending the funeral was an unforgettable experience, and one that helped me to understand the importance of the work done by our partners in China. If mourners are able to pay a higher price, they are spared harsh tasks such as the preparation of the body or the turning of the burning corpse during cremation. But if you don't have a relationship with your family, or money to pay the costs, who will make arrangements for your funeral? For women at the front lines of the AIDS epidemic in remote areas of China, there is nowhere to turn but to a small NGO like Phoenix.

Gisa Hartmann is administrative coordinator of Asia Catalyst.