Dia de los Muertos

November 2nd, 2006 La Encantada, Peru

Dia de Los Muertos

I woke up this morning to travel to the cemetery with my family for Dia de Los Muertos. Those accustomed with the holiday may be thinking I was a day late. Well, at least here in Peru they only celebrate “angelitos” or “little angels or infants” on the first day of November and then celebrate the adults on the 2nd of November.

Upon entering the cemetery you are attacked by vendors trying to sell you candles and flowers to place at the grave sites. The custom is put a set of three flowers on those you have lost and sometimes you buy a pack of candles and place them on the headstone and wait until they cease to exist before leaving. Sometimes people just hold the candles in their hands letting the hot wax burn them. It was a sovereign day.

October 31st 2006 La Encantada, Peru

An Amusing Instance

Last night was Halloween. Here it was a “fiesta patronal”. Nothing was much different about the party than usual. Everyone forces the foreigner to dance for their entertainment. But an amusing instance did happen.

I got a call from another volunteer and walked off to take it. When I hung up, five girls of age ten or so pretty much bombarded me with questions. Which is normal, until they wanted me to give them 5 names of each gender with which to name my kids. And in Spanish. I haven´t even planned my future kids names in English. Well, I do want to name a girl Brianna but after that I got nothing. It was amusing…turns out little Peruvian girls dream the same as the American type.