Dia de los Muertos

Did I mention I had the best birthday ever? I have the most awesome family and friends!

In any case, here I am in San Miguel de Allende. I am staying with Doug and Brianne, father and step-mother of my good friend Alison. I wish she was here with me! But, I am making due. Doug and Brianne are awesome! Their home is beautiful (we're talking Home and Garden beautiful!), they have been extremely welcoming, helpful, and very fun to hang out with.

The first day I was here I stayed in the house all day. I spent time on the roof terrace, reading and chatting with D&B, in the courtyard when the roof got too hot, in the bed taking a luxurious 2.5 hour nap, in the TV room watching the news, and in the dining room eating a lovely meal of green bean soup, albondigas (meatballs) with red sauce, rice, and one of the best green salsas I have ever had in my life. It was a good day.

In the morning I went to a yoga class with D&B. It was perfect since I haven't done yoga in ages. I was stiff! So, the class is held in a room in the Bellas Artes, which is located a couple blocks away in an amazing colonial style building, all the rooms set around a large courtyard. They had papel picado (colorful, cut tissue paper) strung all over the walkways around the center. After yoga was breakfast and then a jaunt to check out the local Spanish language schools. I ended up choosing one that is located almost directly across the street from the hotel K & I stayed in April. Academia has group and private lessons and as I am not here very long, I have decided to do both for a week. I started with one private class yesterday and will continue for the rest of next week with both. I am very excited to improve a little and possibly be tested for bilingual pay at work eventually. I think I will have to come down here more often if that is going to be a reality. In any case, it is great to have a place to meet people and improve my Spanish.

Thursday and Friday, November 1st and 2nd were huge celebration days here in San Miguel de Allende (SMA) and all over Mexico. They celebrate and eulogize their family members, important people in the community who have had an impact on many lives, and friends. Altars are created which assist the dead to pass back into the world of the living to visit their families. The papel picado is cut with different scenes with skeletons in all different colors of tissue paper. They come in all sizes. I even saw some that were probably 5.5 feet tall and 2 feet wide. These are hung all over town (mostly in the zocalo) and in the cemeteries. Gold or orange marigolds and purple garra de lion (lion's claw) flowers are everywhere. Thursday is a day of preparation. In the zocalo there were students hanging papel picado, erecting a giant altar and putting marigold flowers everywhere. Additionally, there were designs of skulls and ancient Aztec and Mayan gods "painted" with colorful wood chips, corn, seeds, and other natural dry ingredients.
On the way to the main cemetery there is an entire street devoted to stands of florists, people preparing and selling food, and tables with sugar skulls, lambs, hens, and fake food. All of these items have significance in promoting a safe journey for the soul to come back and then return again to the realms of the dead. Most Mexicans are Catholic, so they mostly believe that souls are in heaven. This is a holiday which is definitely not Catholic and originates from the indigenous cultures pre-Spanish take-over.
Inside the cemetery people were busy cleaning the gravestones, painting them white in some cases, and putting colorful flowers all over the tombs. The tombs and plots are different than those in the US in that they are mostly raised, there are very few marble stones, often the grave has a gate around it, and in some cases there is nothing but a simple cross and a mound of dirt. There were also stacked crypts, walls of them, each with a small box facing out, with enough space and a ledge to put flowers on and other items you might find on an altar.
The place was buzzing with activity, but there was very little display of sadness.
November 1st is also a day to specifically celebrate the lives of children who have passed.
In the evening D&B and I went to my favorite place for pozole. It is their favorite place too! Actually it was the first restaurant K and I went to in April. And their pozole is very good. (I have never had better pozole than a little place in Cuernavaca and one of the stand in Coyoacan in Mexico City.) The zocalo was swarming with Mexicans, gringos, and children in costumes, mariachi bands, a skeleton couple on stilts, both before and after we had dinner. It was very exciting and the energy was high.

Mas, mas tarde.