dia de los muertos

***Disclaimer*** So obviously I am no expert at dia de los muertos considering i celebrated once, but i want to share what i observed and learned duing the holiday =)

They definitely celebrate a combination of Halloween (thanks to america) and dia de los muertos here. For example, the kids (and adults) dress up in costumes-like in the US- but here they tend to wear them for 3 days: Halloween and the 2 days of dia de los muertos (one for kids, one for adults who died). And trick-or-treating isn´t big. I wish i could remember right now what the kids say, but it´s not trick-or-treat. So that´s the cliff notes version read on for my experiences.

In honor of their combination of the two holidays i´m going to do my post in black and orange. even though here the colors are not black and orange, that´s what i´m going with.

Day of the dead is actually Nov. 1, but my preparations began Thursday at work.

I was still trying to grasp what day of the dead really is and what it means to people, but i feel i´m learning a little, which is more than i started with.

Oh wait, I guess my celebations sort-of started Tuesday night when our spanish teacher gave us dia de los muertos pan (special bread only available at this time). I did give it a try and I appreciated it´s fluffiness, but it was a bit too sweet for my liking. It was fun to try though.

Thursday the day started with the kids bringing in fruits, breads, etc. for the offering, which I didn´t quite understand at that point. During the day the kids decorated skulls (with me because Lucy left again, but at least this time she left me with an activity to execute). Israel wasn´t there so there was an extra copy (I know it´s shocking they made copies and I wasn´t tracing for an hour! I guess since it´s a special occasion...) so I decided to make one too. Father told Caro we should all contribute something to the offering at the church so I thought I would enjoy making it and it would be my offering because I´m still figuring this holiday out. Then I thought I could decorate it with things I think represent me: family, friends, running, Cardinals, Chicago, recycling (I should do a post about recycling here later), my favorite foods, etc. Then I started realizing everything I was putting on it to represent "me" I can´t do here and I started feeling a little depressed. I still liked the idea so I took the skull home with me for more work especially since I barely had time to start it at work. (My skull ended up in our chapel instead of at church)

The offering at work

I was trying to skype Karen Thursday night and someone was on the computer so I had to wait, but I had my skull and I just started drawing. Among many little sketches to represent me I drew a heart which evolved to a heart with a talking bubble representing talking from my heart, which evolved to a explaination point in it because I like to speak animated then I put an upside down one first (¡...!) to represent spanish and confusion so that little sketch probs has the most going on, but in my hour of waiting my brain was flowing some severe thoughts and all those little sketches have a lot of meanings. So with working on my skull i ended up feeling depressed although i used it to explain myself a little more to isaac. although after i was almost done isaac told me here people really only paint/color the skulls they don´t make a collage like i did. Hump..as if i don´t stand out enough...

I also found out the skulls are used for the living to remind us, you never know when you can die. So I think with reflecting on the things that mean a lot to me I appreciated them and that´s the point....

Friday After a particularly rough Thursday evening I was ready for the celebrations of the weekend. This was the big party at work for the kids, which was a lot of fun. They were so cute. Although i sort-of had mixed emotions about the dressing up thing because some of the kids didn´t and i don´t know if it´s because they couldn´t afford it or their parents didn´t care, etc. but Murat (who´s always a very active, loud kid-generally a trouble-maker) sat basically silent for a good hour after he arrived not in costume and he seemed really bummed. It took his good friend, Michael Jackson, to cheer him up.

One of my kids, Xian, parents came in to tell a story, which the kids seemed to love, especially Xian.

At this point I had Gael´s facepaint already on my jeans...one hour.

the facepaint culprit...Gael

Then we headed out to the patio to get ready for the costume parade. This is when they turned on Michael Jackson. I attempted to do as much of the Thriller dance as I could remember (thank you 13 Going on 30 and seton girls freshmen year) and all the kids watched me. Then we listened to more Micheal Jackson as Melissa & I danced with the kids and waited for the younger kids to arrive. This is when Murat started perking up. As I went up and said, "You like Michael Jackson" and did the spin he always does while he´s supposed to do his work in class. The costume parade was fun, but I was stuck as one of the judges, which I didn´t enjoy. They´re all adorable, therefore all winners. Why did we need to pick out a few?

my class with Lucy in the back

Then it was Haunted Room time (some of the teachers turned one of the rooms into a haunted room). Most of the teachers were in the room playing parts. What was my role? Calm the crying kids down. No, not when they leave the room, but before. They were so scared at the thought of going in, they burst out crying and I had to explain to them they didn´t HAVE to go in, only if they wanted to. Murat wanted to make sure there were only dolls inside and when I said no he didn´t want to go.

After the teachers were done they came out with one dressed as a wolf under a blanket and she ran out at the kids. It was funny in a very cruel way. The kids were terrifid. The few kids I had around me suddenly swelled and Murat ran over and grabbed me. He pretended he wasn´t scared when any of the other kids looked scared, but I thought it was extremely cute that everytime the mask went back on the teacher if nothing else at least his hand was touching my leg. He was scared, but still wanted to be his tough self to the other kids.

Pakita wrote Melissa & I a poem (which I believe is traditional when celebrating day of the dead)

Melisa y Liza en un ricón observan

las tradiciones mexicanas,

la muerte curiosa pensaba

a que hacen estas hermosas gueritas

Yo creo que me llevo a una debajo del gaban

a la otra engañada con unas verduritas,

cedera.

pero no contaba la flaca,

que una es vegetaiana

y a la otra tortilla con chile, sabe comer,

sabiendo que esto le hacia más grande el

deber.

corrio lejos, lejos, y jamás de las gueritas se

dejo engañar.

this was the fist time i attempted to translate a poem and it was very difficult. i asked our spanish teacher and even after he translated it, it didn´t really make sense, but it´s a poem and it was made to rhyme.

Work finished up with the norm...lunch. Oh but then they got their treats. i´m not sure about the other classes, but my class was actually asked to bring in a clown sucker, which i wondered why they needed to bring one as i wrote their homework Thursday. (I thought it was a strange thing for the offering.) When actually that was their treat. They paper mached skulls and Lucy put the big sucker they brought in for them to take home and that was it.

It was a super fun day and as we were leaving I found out we didn´t have work Monday. I always enjoy a day off every once in a while.

Friday night was super interesting too! I went to the parish with Isaac and his friends (the usual) and these dancers that I´ve seen practicing basically since I got here were getting ready for their performance. I was so excitd although I didn´t really understand it at all. They were all dressed in black or white (which I later found out the black ones were more advanced) or their were some random people just wearing normal clothes. They all wore something red. Which may be because our parish´s color is red? Many of them had their faces painted and some sort-of shell wrapped around their legs so when they moved they made lots of noise. I should mention it was raining pretty hard and steady the whole time. I admired all of them for getting out there and performing. (My raincoat came in handy once again. Although Isaac insisted I needed to stand under the umbrella as well.)

There were toches of fire as well as 7 different smokes (like insense) with 7 different smells(not sure why 7...Isaac was trying to translate for me). And in the middle of the circleish they formed was a huge offering of flowers and fruit. The ceremony began with blowing a conch shell and then who I believe was the leader talking and explaining the ritual.

Isaac started saying how people from the States come here to celebrate, etc. I started explaining that I wasn´t sure that was true (maybe I´ve just never noticed). He said, "Lisa, I´m just translating what he´s saying." Me, "Oh" and I stopped.

Then he explained the ceremony. So they believe 2 days before dia de los muertos the constellations aline for an opening for the spirits of the dead to come back to earth and they are here until the night of the 2nd when they all leave the earth again, but this ceremony was a way of calling them down/welcoming them. They had another ceremony Monday night, but I missed it.

After the conch shell they looked each direction & chanted in a different language-not english or spanish. Then they sang a song in spanish and started dancing. There was one large drum to keep time and eac song had 2 different leaders: one in black, one in white and everyone else in the half circle followed. I thought the whole thing was extremely interesting and am really happy I saw it. We stayed about an hour before leaving (it wasn´t over yet).

Saturday the big day in the US, but not too much happened here, except for our halloween party. We carved pumpkins, which everyone participating hadn´t done before, except for Melissa, Caro, Jess, & I. I will say it was more difficult because the pumpkins are different here...among other things they are much thicker, which makes it a challenge to carve. We used a cutting boad as a bit of a hammer to get the knife in. After I said pumpkins are different in the US one of the carvers said pumpkins must be thinner there or else it wouldn´t be a tradition. Afterwards when we put a candle inside everyone who participated was very proud, I could tell =). Our director of the program came and brought us some halloween treats and melissa was really excited to have "real chocolate" Their sweets are different here.

After our party we went to another one and then another one, which was interesting to see how the locals do it.

Sunday Dia de los Muertos. So from talking with people apparently during the day families go and picnic in the cemetary to be with their loved ones. (but this isn´t a tradition for everyone here...i heard varing reports) On my bus ride to go run in the morning it was so busy by the cemetary with about 5 times as many flower vendors than usual and there were even police there...very busy.

Also apparently the 1st is the day kids visit and the 2nd is the day adults visit.

They had a book of the dead at mass (like in the states), but I´m pretty sure I´ve never seen one SO full of names before. After mass and a little time at the parish-checking out the offering and visiting, melissa & i headed off to get supplies for the offering for our chapel.

Offering at the church

At night Pool´s (pronounced Paul) family had a dia de los muertos party. I honestly have never been to such a big costume party and of course I didn´t dress up for this one...oh well. It started with a costume parade through some streets and the market in Santa Fe (all organized by Pool´s family). We walked in it too. Then we arrived back in his patio for the costume party portion. Then food was passed around (I ate before anticipating meat...and I was correct) mole with tacos. And the music started and the night was full of lots of dancing =) We arrived home around 4 and Halloween/dia de los muertos night number 2 was a success!

Monday No work!

I started out the day with a wonderful run in beautiful weather.

Melissa finished up our offering, which as you can see was amazing. Necessary items for the offering: pan de la muertes, glass of water, picked paper, pictures of your loved one, food he/she liked. I added a couple things for my grandpa. melissa did a great job and put a lot of time into it.

We wanted to go to the Zocolo to see offereings because last year Caro & Jess went and each state put one together, but it turns out it didn´t happen this year. (good thing we found out before we got there) Turns out it was a bit of a protest of sorts. I don´t know the whole story, but the federal government decided not to fund the project this year and the states said they couldn´t afford it, but it was kind-of them making a point that they need support... We ended up going to a university to look at the offerings they put together. On the way it was interesting to watch our surroundings change from Santa Fe. We started seeing 7 elevens, Starbucks, etc. I thought it´s interesting how quickly your perspective can change. In Chicago there was a starbucks every three blockish and now when I see one I´m like ahhh Starbucks. We also went to the mall near the university for Josue to pay his phone bill and I honestly felt like I was back in the US. It was pretty overwhelming. Christmas decorations were up. There was a place for Santa. We didn´t do any shopping, but I find malls overwhelming in the states so i was ready to go.

Josue thought the university was about 2 km away so i was very excited to walk. Even if we were walking on a thin sidewalk basically on a highway. I really enjoyed having a sidewalk without having to dodge people the whole time. So the university is huge (caro thought she heard 80,000 people go there) so yes we reached the university in about 2 km, but not the part we needed to get to. melissa said later we walked for an hour. i really enjoyed it.

even though I really enjoyed the walk I was excited to make it to the offerings =)

once we arrived at the offerings we found there was an Edgar Allen Poe theme and the different schools at the university did different offerings. there were bands and food/coffee/items for sale. i loved the atmosphere. organic coffee. artisian bread. I didn´t buy anything, but I regret not buying the Artisian bread. We have one bread place we like with wheat bread, but like at the pandaria basically all the bread is sweet in some way and man that bread looked good (lots of grains). Oh heinsight. I just loved the atmosphere, I felt totally comfortable.

some pictures from the offerings

We started our trek back to Santa Fe and we were all pretty exhausted (and hungry). 1 metro bus, 2 buses and 1 1/2 ish hours later we arrived home.

It was a really great day and I really enjoyed it, but I was happy to get home. I like the simplicity of Pueblo de Santa Fe.


see...Melissa had a fun day too!

So it was a great weekend and I fully enjoyed my first dia de los muertos celebrations. So with my beginning thoughts filled with much confusion to learning about it throughout the celebration I really like the holiday. I like the thought of remembering someone special to you who passed away in a special way on a certain day and feeling like they´re visiting you and with you in a special way on that day. I think it´s a beautiful celebration.

The parish we go to (i sort-of helped with the cross Sat.)