Friday 1 November 2013
We went
into town for the altar competition. There
were twelve altars entered in the competition and there were three prizes. It was stinking hot! And those diablos were still eating me. Lolita’s sister said she’d been there a
couple of weeks before and had to wear a jacket it was so cold; so the heat was
fairly unusual.
The first altar was in a
restaurant called the Boring Queen. After that, they were all
in people’s homes. It was such a
wonderful tradition and such a wonderful thing to be let into people’s homes to see
their altars. So many marigolds
surrounding and on the altars. They were
dedicated to one or more members of their family, and they would have a picture
of the person and explain that the things on the altar were all the things that
the person liked to eat and drink in real life; Mezcal, Tequilas, beer, tamales,
bread, coca cola, chocolate, fruits, bananas.
The
next day at breakfast Lolita and her sisters were going over the photos to try
and decide the winners. Difficult task
as they were all so beautiful. But they
looked at things like, one altar had a plastic table cloth which was not traditional, and another had a pumpkin - again not traditional. Another didn’t seem to be dedicated to a
particular person so marked down. But
hard choice to make.
After
the competition we went to the cemetery.
Jose’s grandfather’s grave was near the entrance, and it was all done up
with flowers, marigolds, lilies and chrysanthemums and candles. Then Alma took us around the cemetery to the
other family members graves. We helped
her with the flowers.
From
afar the Day of the dead may seem a bit morbid, but actually it’s a very warm,
loving, happy celebration of family and lost loved ones. The community at the cemetery were all happy
to see each other, they had food and singing.
I’ve never seen a cemetery look so alive. It was very special and it was so nice of
Lolita and Jose to let us share it with their family.
