Is it a party?

Jon and I got really excited because it turns out that there is a village about 1.5 miles from our house.  You see, we live in teacher housing near the school and so there isn’t any real village around us.  We found one area about 10-15 minutes away, but it was hardly a village.  So, we walked into this village to see what it’s like.  As we entered, one of the first homes had about fifty people sitting around their lawn and large quantities of food being prepared.  We were super curious as to what was going on there.  Is it a restaurant?  Is it a party?  Is it a place where people get food?  We weren’t sure.
After going into the village and introducing ourselves to some people, we were ecstatic to find a little restaurant where we can buy chipsi mayai, one of Tanzania’s famous foods.  It’s basically just french fries and eggs together (it’s really good).  We also discovered places to buy more minutes for our phone and some food so we don’t have to buy it all in the major city that is expensive to get to for us. 
On our way home, we decided to stop and ask what was going on at that house with many people.  Of course, we used Swahili to try to learn what was going on.  The conversation that went awkwardly wrong went a little something like:
Jon: Hello!  What’s going on here?
Man: Hello!  It’s a <enter word we don’t know>
Jon: Hmm, I don’t know <that word>
Sara with a big, happy smile on the face: Ah!  Is it a party?
Man, in English: No, it’s a funeral
Jon & Sara: enter foot in mouth
Awkward.