Day of the Dead

Sunday I went to a community called Huaquechula, famous for its non-traditional Day of the Dead altars. They tend to be all one color (predominantly white, though we saw one blue one) and a bit more "modern"--angels, etc. You can contrast that with a more traditional Mexican altar (black, orange, and with catrinas), which I saw on Monday in the Casa de la Cultura in Puebla. The event at the Casa was so popular, a line formed outside and down the block!



On Tuesday, I happened to be downtown with a friend, and we walked by the Cathedral. Wondering what the line was all about, we formed up. Apparently once a year they open the crypt below the main pulpit, where they have entombed previous fathers of the church. One time a year!

Dance Party

My salsa class had a get together last night at one of the student's house--her sister takes another class (general "ballroom dance"), and so she invited her classmates too. It was pretty fun, but what really got me was that the first couple of songs were Texas line dance songs!! I think this picture was to the Spanish version of "Achy Breaky Heart."



This entire weekend is also the Mexican version of Halloween (part of the Day of the Dead celebrations); it is nowhere near as organized as in the US, where kids in each neighborhood only come out on a certain day at a certain hour. Here, kids are in the streets, dressed up and asking for candy or money wherever and whenever. These two kids--my salsa teacher's kids--came to class on Thursday.

Day of the Dead 2010

Next week is Day of the Dead in Mexico (Dia de Muertos), which falls on the night of Nov 1 / day of Nov 2. Last year I went to Aguascalientes with some friends for a festival, but this year I will probably try to check out some small pueblitos around here--the region where I live is very traditional, so people say the altars and festivities are very authentic.

On a side note, my Salsa class takes place in the Casa de la Cultura, kind of like a community center. Every class is putting up an altar this week for a competition, and they will be judged on Friday. So, my class put up our altar yesterday! Because of my unique, non-Mexican height, I got to tape up our flower outline, although by today it had mostly fallen down. I get to try and put the flowers back up on Thursday, so we can be judged at our best.



One of the women also made these little muffin people, one for each person in the class. How cool was that!!

Día de Muertos in Aguascalientes

A couple of volunteers decided to meet up this last weekend in Aguascalientes to take in their Festival de Calaveras. It is a celebration of the Day of the Dead, or Día de Muertos, which occurs on the evening of November 1 every year (All Saints Day). November 2, the following day, is always a national holiday in México, regardless of what day of the week it falls on, so this year we were lucky and had a 3-day weekend.

A calavera is the head of a catrina, and both are skeleton images that are widely celebrated now in México. The catrina was created by Méxican artist Jorge Guadalupe Posada--born in Aguascalientes. A famous image of a catrina is here.



The festival included a ton of activities, including bands, a county-fair, theater, and a parade. Here is a picture of some people painted as calaveras and wearing traditional costumes. They were pulling people from the crowd to dance on stage.