Dia de los Muertos

     The beginning of November in Guatemala brings some very interesting traditions, and some very interesting experiences for a gringito like me.  As October ended and I began seeing my friends' Halloween plans and photos on facebook, I got a little homesick.  So, being the industrious Norte Americano that I am, I picked up a gourd and a knife and decided to make the monastery a little more homey.  Pumpkins are nearly impossible to find here at the monastery, but they do have a green gourd called "ayote."  Given the fact that they use it like a pumpkin (they roast the seeds and have even tried to make pumpkin/ayote pie, basically a pie shell into which they scoop out the ayote and add salt and sugar) I figured it would serve my purposes for making a jack 'o lantern.  What I didn't know is that the largest ayotes are about half the size of pumpkins and feature a rock hard outer shell with a inner shell like a pumpkin's, but about twice as thick.  This turned "carving" a design into "chiseling" a design and effectively thwarted my plans of making some great work of art for the Guatemalans' enjoyment.  Given the restrictions on how detailed I could make it, I settled on a Guatemalan symbol that everyone here would recognize. Gallo Beer. I call it my GALLOte.      
    

     The gallote was unveiled with great success.  Almost everybody in the community commented on it, some even went up to hold it and touch it.  I think it might have been the first time they have seen a jack 'o lantern.  After the mixing of cultures on Halloween, I got to enjoy a thoroughly Guatemalan experience on Day of the Dead.  I had to miss the national holiday of All Saints' Day because another north american was coming into Guatemala, and I had to ride along to get him in order to serve as a translator.  About 11 hours in car all day and nothing to do in the capital, but it wasn't all bad; I had a nice relaxing day away form the monastery and got to eat a lunch at Pizza Hut without a tortilla in sight.

     Day of the Dead is by far my favorite Guatemalan holiday that I have experienced (Fiestas Patrias was kind of a bust except for the reindeer dance).  There was an atmosphere of fun and family, and the entire city seemed to be in a good mood.  I was drawn to the cemetery next to the monastery by the music that I think was audible throughout the entire town, but I can only vouch for the monastery. When I arrived I found something more akin to a summer festival than a remembrance of the dead.  Everyone had decorated the tombs of their loved ones and were sitting outside meeting all of their friends as they walked by.  I got the distinct impression that the families with adjacent burial plots see each other only once a year, on día de los muertos.  Kind of like how families with adjacent cabins in MN might see each other only on the 4th of July.  The day was complete with crock pots full of food, big back slapping hugs, and, obviously, Gallo. 

     Although this stage and speakers were wet up for mass, it makes no sense to let it go to waste.  Let's hijack the speakers and play marimba music all day long!

     There was another strange tradition for day of the dead that I didn't quite understand.  Although the entire cemetery is actually covered in pavement, they laid down so many pine needles (for sale outside the cemetery) that it appeared to be covered in grass.  I have no idea why they did it, but it made the entire cemetery smell like a pine tree stand, solidifying Día de los Muertos as my Día Favorita.

     The AWFLE for this week could actually be considered an AWESOME Foreign Language Experience.
     Santos, one of the postulates, and I were walking around the cemetery seeing the sites when he stopped to talk with someone he knew.  It was a particularly festive group, with all 13 or so of the family members there with food and drink, and they began talking with me.  It was the usual questions:
where are you from? Minnesota.
hmm... is that close to New York? No, it's right next to Canada.
Oh, is it cold?  During the winter, you betcha.
Are you studying to become a priest?  No.  (apparently people think it is funny that I answer this question so fast and emphatically).
What did you study in school? Physics.
Boom, that was it.  The entire group either started laughing or trying to tell me something I couldn't quite make out.  However, when they pulled a chair up to the altar/table/hopefully-not-a-grave that they were working on and pointed to one of the girl's physics book I began to get the picture.  She was doing her physics homework, and couldn't figure a problem out, so they wanted me to help.  It was a simple kinematics problem however, the fact that the cemetery was nearly all cement and there was no breeze to cool the very hot midday sun in conjunction with the fact that the entire family was watching me work, I got flustered and forgot all the equations.  So, to hide my ignorance and the growing sweat droplets on my brow (and back and... everywhere), I pulled the oldest physics teacher trick in the book and tried to give her the slip by just telling her what to do and how it would work out.  My plan backfired and the matronly figure across the table noticed my discomfort and ordered some girls to pour me a drink while to pulled me next to her in the shade.  20 minutes of idle conversation later, I ended up with a lesson in Latin American hospitality, but never finished the poor little girl's problem.

Somehow it just felt so natural to do physics in a cemetery.

(disclaimer: I later did the problem on my own and had no problems, so at least part of my wildly expensive college education is paying off)