November 2: Dia de los Difuntos

Mama Isa y perrito

Nate
Cholos plowing Abuelito's field!

Outside the cemetery, selling candles, flowers, gua guas de pan, colada morada, and other wares for Dia de los Difuntos

Mama Isa's great grandmother's (?) grave

The cemetery

Niches for remains in the cemetery


Date: Sunday, November 2
Location: Cuenca
Weather: Bright and very lovely

Nate and I went to El Valle with our moms and Leslie to spend some time with my grandfather and his chickens. The front fields were being plowed by his workers with none other than a pair of oxen yoked together and pulling the type of plow I'd only seen in museums. My grandfather hunched his still tall, still imposing frame over his cane, looked every bit of Esteban Trueba, watched over with a critical eye to make sure the oxen were pulling fast enough and the farmhand was guiding them in a straight enough line.

A pair of puppies rough-housed with each other and Nate because they were flatly ignored and shooed away by my mother when they came to beg for scraps at the table. Apparently, she isn't an animal person.

The chola house worker was boiling six or so guinea pigs in a vat of water in the kitchen when we got there. Their matted fur and pointed, rodent faces made them resemble rats more than chubby little pets. Their noses were smashed in and bloodied from their sudden death, and they were soon plucked completely bald by the woman in the kitchen. My mother told me we'd eat them on Cuenca's independence day. Yummy.

Nate and I were dropped off by our cousins Christina and Leslie at the cemetery so we could take pictures and explore for our Day of the Dead projects at school. Venders sold us two cups of piping hot colada morada and two guaguas de pan for only $1.50. Colada morada is definitely one of my favorite traditional Ecuadorean foods I've had. The pineapple, blackberries, strawberries, and different spices make a sweet stew that's both filling and tasty. The guaguas are the only form of yuca I like and have a heart of guava inside. Delicious!

A mass was being held in the cemetery and Nate and I wandered around looking at the graves being cleaned, the mass of flowers filling the air with the cloying scent of funeral parlors, the old people in black and the young people in jeans looking for the closest exit, and my great-great grandmother's grave again with the candle barely melted away. Purple-flowering trees pressed against the levels of niches, stacked like morbid filing cabinets and decorated with tokens, memorials, flowers, and melted wax ghosts of candles. The top of the basin in which the cemetery is laid is lined with mausoleums, watching over the poorer graves as they probably did in life.

It's somber inside the cemetery with the mumble of Spanish prayers but the moment you step outside there are vendors selling the traditional foods, music, flowers, candles, cleaning supplies, everything you might need or want for a day to celebrate the dead.