Dia de Muertos

Dia de Muertos was such an amazing experience. It all started on Monday with a presentation explaing the beliefs of Dia de Muertos. In short it is a couple days where the people in Mexico honour the dead by making altars. These atlars are made of flowers, fruits, and different favourite foods of the deceased. After the presentation we went to Central de Abastos, which is a market, to pick up different materials for the altar we built at our school. I was in charge of getting peanuts.

Monday evening we all got together to paint our faces for when we went to the cemetary. We painted our faces because it is believed that during Dia de Muertos the spirits come back to earth and we need to hide our faces so they don't confuse us for other spirits. We then went to the Panteon, which is a cemetary in Oaxaca. There were candles and flowers everywhere and so many people. After the Panteon we went to Xoxo, another cemetary in Oaxaca. The graves are very elaborately decorated and there were many people sitting graveside. It was kind of sad because Monday is the night that the children spirits come back so there were many small graves decorated. It is believed that first the children spirits come and then on the second night all spirits come.

Tuesday night we dressed up and painted our faces yet again. We hoped into the back of a truck and drove up to Etla. There was a parade that went on all night, it didn't stop until 9am wednesday. There are people dressed up very elaborately and they walk around the town going from house to house. There is also a band that walks with them and they dance as the band plays. At every house they go to there are chairs set up in a circle in courtyard type area. This is for the people watching to sit. The band and dressed up people come in and dance around. The home owners give everyone shots of tequila or mezcal. It was a lot of fun following the parade around the town. There were some young kids who were dressed up dancing all night. I don't know how they did it. We stayed out until 5am and I was more than exhausted at this point.

I had to wake up at 8am Wednesday morning to go to the Panteon with my homestay family. On November 2 they always go to the cemetary and visit the graves of their family members. We made sure that the flowers at the graves all had enough water. Outside of the Panteon it was almost set up like a carnival with food stands, games, and rides. So we went and had breakfast after visiting the graves. It was a really neat experience. And a very busy couple of days. There are so many tourists that came to Oaxaca for Dia de Muertos because Xoxo is a famous cemetary. It will be nice when Oaxaca goes back to being our town ;)