Day of the Dead
Lady! Are you serious?! In heels? On cobblestone streets, downhill, with a baby in a sling and a ton of flowers for the dead? I never could understand when and how stilettos made their way into the indigenous wardrobe, but we are yet to see one traditionally dressed woman without a pair, unless they are barefoot. It is the Day of the Dead, and we have been visiting cemeteries in Xela and Chichi. We would have been far from here by now if only Shurik didn't spend a week trying to fix GreenGo yet again, but the final touches had to be left for a local mechanic. The repair man turned out to be a practicing Jew even if by a long stretch, with a handful of fellow worshipers he gathered above the garage to read from a fairly well bound xeroxed copy of the Old Testament. According to him, our van broke down because we were non-practicing Jews. He wasn't too upset with us, though, especially after I gave him a crash course in all the different ways to refer to god in Hebrew.
As for the dead, I have never seen a festivity that colorful and family oriented as the one thrown for the deceased. Children were flying kites, some store bought, others made from plastic bags; while their parents set up picnics and arranged heaps of flowers on colorful tombs. Some of the crypts were as simple as paint drenched cement molds or even grass covered dirt bumps, and could be as complicated as five meter high mausoleums shaped like pyramids or spaceships. My favorites once of all were the multiplex ones with foundation for extra levels to accommodate the next generations. I would imagine it brings a sort of comfort to know that when your time comes you too will get your slot and vase of calla lilies.
Where I come from, a cemetery is a scary place where uneasy ghosts might dwell and tombstones have faces of our loved-once scratched into the cold granite. Here life and death don't have such a colossal chasm between them. Here people come for a reunion, and while, I am sure, they miss those who are no longer around, they spend this time treating them as participating members of the family, instead of grieving and making the last memory of them a very sad one. Unfortunately, I have some cemetery experience, and I have to say that to me, having a day where the whole family would gather in joyous remembrance would have been more therapeutic than shrouding in black and crying over untimely death.
As for the dead, I have never seen a festivity that colorful and family oriented as the one thrown for the deceased. Children were flying kites, some store bought, others made from plastic bags; while their parents set up picnics and arranged heaps of flowers on colorful tombs. Some of the crypts were as simple as paint drenched cement molds or even grass covered dirt bumps, and could be as complicated as five meter high mausoleums shaped like pyramids or spaceships. My favorites once of all were the multiplex ones with foundation for extra levels to accommodate the next generations. I would imagine it brings a sort of comfort to know that when your time comes you too will get your slot and vase of calla lilies.
Where I come from, a cemetery is a scary place where uneasy ghosts might dwell and tombstones have faces of our loved-once scratched into the cold granite. Here life and death don't have such a colossal chasm between them. Here people come for a reunion, and while, I am sure, they miss those who are no longer around, they spend this time treating them as participating members of the family, instead of grieving and making the last memory of them a very sad one. Unfortunately, I have some cemetery experience, and I have to say that to me, having a day where the whole family would gather in joyous remembrance would have been more therapeutic than shrouding in black and crying over untimely death.