Today was Day of the Dead, which is always celebrated November 1 (All Saints Day) in Latin America. It was really exciting to see how they celebrate! Ever since I learned about Day of the Dead in middle school (my teacher had been to Mexico and explained it to us), I have always wanted to see how it is celebrated. So today was wonderful!
The holiday is meant to simply celebrate the deceased. Families go to the cemetery and decorate the gravestones with beautiful floral arrangements, and sometimes candles. In Guatemala, people also make homemade kites and fly them all day long. I’m not sure the significance of the kites – but they look amazing.
My friend Cassie, her boyfriend Robert and I went to a cemetery in a town called Sumpango. Apparently they have one of the biggest celebrations in all of Guatemala (Sumpango is most known for their Day of the Dead celebration). Outside the cemetery they even have detailed murals of the gravestones and the kites.
The cemetery itself is amazing. The gravestones are gigantic (many of them are like little houses for multiple bodies, I don’t remember what the word is for that in English) and many are painted bright colors. Some of the paint looked fresh so we think that some families painted them today. Other bodies are marked with a cross and adorned with flower arrangements as well (and pine needles). It looked like the bodies were sticking out of the ground, but then we figured that when the bodies are buried they probably just pile the dirt back on top. (I took some pictures so you’ll see what I mean. Those will be uploaded at a later time because it took me 5 hours to upload my pictures yesterday.)
Outside of the cemetery were zillions of vendors selling food and souvenirs. There were hundreds of people walking around. I ate my first tamale ever! That was exciting because it’s traditional Guatemalan food. We also had some corn soup that was delicious. After sitting in the cemetery for awhile and walking around, we came home. The day was really cool.
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