All Saint's Day/Day of the Dead

We have spent the last week or so asking about what goes on on November 1, All Saints Day or Day of the Dead (we have heard both names). We learned that it was a day to remember your dead loved ones, a day when everything is closed, a huge family feast day. Yesterday we left our little apartment to see it first hand. We walked to the big local cemetery. A few blocks a way, the road was blocked off with police directing traffic and only allowing residents of the street and those with elderly or handicapped occupants down the road. Outside the cemetery there were venders selling a variety of snacks, meals, and flowers to cemetery visitors. Also there were groups of well dressed men at religious booths collecting money for their causes. Inside the cemetery, as you can see from the pictures, we saw lots of families visiting their family grave site and leaving flowers. Inside the cemetery was a small chapel where people lit candles and prayed. We really got the sense of how important family is here as we saw multiple generations together. Some families had dressed up for the occasion, others were in regular street clothes.

It was interesting to read many scriptures on the tombs and see how far back the earliest family members were buried. The earliest we saw was in the 1800s. There we some really old tombs that were so

weathered you couldn't make out the inscriptions. The town was destroyed by earthquake in 1773 and abandoned for many decades afterwards. Since people are interred above ground here, a dozen family members may be in the same structure. We are not sure how this actually works. Around the outside of the cemetery were high walls with people entombed 5-6 high. It was sort of the apartment section.

We had read about the use of kites to send messages to the dead or call the dead spirit to come down to visit the living. We saw no one flying kites in the cemetery, however. We did go and fly kites behind the open

market at the dirt soccer field. There were lots of kids and dads enjoying the afternoon together. I asked someone about the kite messages. This guatemalan said he thought it was just a tradition and didn't believe this.

Our landlord told us that there is as much cooking and family get-togethers on Dia de Muertos (Nov. 1) as Thanksgiving in the USA. So we assume the noon meal, traditionally the main meal of the day, was a feast for many. There is a special dish that is made for the occasion called Fiambre. Many businesses were closed, the market was quiet and of course all government offices and banks were closed. The day before there were long lines at banks and ATMs since it was payday AND the next day was a holiday.