After a night celebrating Halloween with a few Spanish-school friends, Sunday’s egg, bean, plantain, tortilla breakfast was very welcomed!
With a full belly, I wandered around Antigua, searching for Day of the Dead traditions. My instinct took me to the market first, where I admired the overflow of flowers and fantastically colorful kites. In addition to adorning love ones’ graves with flowers, adults and kids alike fly kites to honor the sprits above. I decided to buy a few kites of my own to remember the day that was to come.
I followed the crowd I found in the market, and soon found myself outside the Antigua Cemetery. The cemetery was surrounded by what seemed to be a festival – cotton candy, fresh popcorn, more flowers, and more kites.
I have never seen a cemetery so hopping, nor so beautiful. The law in the Antigua is that every tomb (all the graves are above ground) is painted white, compared to every other cemetery in Guatemala were each grave is a rainbow of colors. Antigua’s white backdrop made the gorgeous flower arrangements stand out even more. It was a beautiful day. Mariachi bands played between the tombs. Families laughed. Families cried. And I remembered those I had lost too.
I stayed longer in the cemetery than I expected, only leaving because I was pretty hungry.
My boss, Alex, picked up myself, and Transitions boys Nacho and Juanito, to join his family for fiambre. Fiambre is a cold meat salad eaten once a year on Nov 1st. It’s tasty – kinda like my Mom’s bean salad: salty, vinegary, but with more meat.
After fiambre, we piled into the car to go see us some humongous-ass kites. Sumpango, a town just 20-min away, is famous for its Day of the Dead kite festival.
It wasn’t until we reached the top of the town’s hill that I realized how huge the kites were. The biggest on display were 30-40 feet tall. While others were about 10-13 ft in diameter, but somehow could still be flown! There is no reason why you should believe this, except for my following video.
But the highlight of my day was still to come. Mesmerized, along with a crowd of 1,000, I wasn’t paying attention to the announcer until Alex tugged my jacket: “Extranjeros, esto es tu oportunidad.” That’s right I got to fly one of the kites!
The rest of the our time in Sumpango we took pictures in front of the kites too big to fly, and left as the sun started to set to join the rest of the Transitions crew for pizza.
My day wasn’t so dead. It was quite alive. But maybe that’s the point, to recognize the dead by celebrating the present.
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