Death where I
come from is cold, sterile and colourless. It’s not even daunting black, but a
solid dull grey. Death scares us because we can’t control it. It keeps its own
schedule, disregarding our needs, feelings and conveniences. In the worst case
Death is devastating; at best it’s uncomfortable. That’s Death in the First World, where the living are still waiting for an
app to be invented on how to deal with it.
Not in Central America. Here Death is High Definition Full
Colour. It’s noisy, fragrant and very much alive. Death is bright orange
against sky-blue. Death is Mariachi music and delicious food. Death is being
together, sharing and remembering. Death is a part of Life and nobody around
these parts is silly enough to forget so.
The multisensory
experience of Death accumulates on November 1, All Saints Day, and bursts out
into a circus of colours, smells and flavours. The streets leading to the
cemeteries are lined up with stands selling sweets, toys, souvenirs and pizza.
Women sell flowers, pine needles and wreaths made of colourful paper flowers
dipped in wax. At the entrance of the cemetery a dozen of men are offering
their surfaces, armed with buckets and ladders. Do you want me to clean your
tomb? Maybe a fresh layer of paint? For
just a few Quetzalitos your
grandfather’s eternal resting place is as good as new.
All Saints Day is
not a sombre day of mourning. It’s a family outing, a reencounter with those
on the other side. Graves, tombs or burial vaults are being cleaned and
decorated before the family sits down for a meal, often the favourite food or
drink of the deceased. Children run around traditionally playing with kites and
nobody cares that they climb on tombs or stumble over graves.
There is social
and racial hierarchy in Death too. Antigua
Guatemala has a gorgeous cemetery, completely white in
ancient colonial style. The paths and gardens are well maintained, the luscious
tombs of the rich and simple burial vaults of the rest of the people all
freshly painted an eye blinding white that makes the multi-coloured wreaths and
flowers stand out even more.
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| Antigua Cemetery |
You know you’re
at an indigenous or at least mixed cemetery when the tombs are of simpler
design but making up for it with vivid colours. There are no tombs, not even
vaults for the poorest of the poor. They are laid to rest under a mound of
dirt, a cross at the head with the deceased’s name.
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| Sumpango Cemetery |
This year I was
thrilled to visit the cemetery
of Sumpango. The area
with the simplest graves was the best visited and by far the most impressive.
Colours so bright and numerous, there can’t be names for them all. Mariachis
played mournful ballads in the shadow of a tree right in the middle of the
graves. Hundreds of Maya men and women in their most beautiful outfits lovingly
covered the mounds of dirt with pine needles and marigolds, traditionally the
flowers that with their bright colour and pungent fragrance guide the spirits
along their visit this day. The air was dense with the smoke of burned incense.
A scruffy dog scavenging for leftovers, lured by the smell of food everywhere.
Babies comfortably dozing off on their mamas’ backs undisturbed by the heat,
noise and presence of the living dead. What a fantastic, delicious sensory
overload.
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| Sumpango Cemetery |
Oh, and then, of
course, the gigantic kites! Nothing is more spectacular than the kites in
Sumpango or Santiago.
They seem to be getting bigger and bigger every year, some over 35 meters in
diameter! And not just one, but dozens of them, dangerously swaggering against
bamboo poles. And yes, sometimes they do tip over.
Thousands of
people gather at the field near the town of Sumpango for this yearly festival, thousands
more trying to make a little money selling ice cream, cold beers, yarn for kite
flying or renting out bathrooms. Nobody with a few coins in his or her pocket
will go hungry today.
Kites of all
kinds and sizes are up in the air. Simmering heat, but smiling faces
everywhere. And colour. If there is a paradise for colours, then this is it.
Day of the Dead
is my very favourite holiday.
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| Sumpango Cemetery |
