Dia de los Muertos

Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) is a unique Mexican tradition with religious and indigenous roots that takes place on November 1 and 2 (yes, I know this was more than two weeks ago. Sorry this post is so late!)  As a staple of every Spanish class’s culture unit, I was excited to experience the event first-hand.  We went to the small town of Huaquechula, still in the state of Puebla, which is known for their celebrations of Dia de los Muertos.

Celebrated on All Saints and All Souls days, Dia de los Muertos is based on the idea that one night of each year, the spirits of the dead can come back to earth to visit their loved ones. This is not in the sense of hauntings or scary ghosts, but rather part of the idea that our loved ones still exist in the spirit world and that we can still have some sort of relationship with them, even when they are no longer with us physically.  It’s a really beautiful idea, and has a strong influence on the Mexican attitude toward death, which is somewhat more accepting and in some ways more nonchalant than ours in the US.

Since the dead can only come back once a year, families prepare for the coming by building ofrendas, or altars, that are beautifully decorated and ornamented with flowers, pictures of saints, pictures of the deceased, food, candy, and alcohol. The decor is often based on favorites of the person to whom the altar is dedicated, but there are some traditional staples, such as pan de muerto (bread of death) that are seen on nearly every altar.  People also leave paths of marigold petals leading to their door to help guide the spirits to the altar.

In Huaquechula, these flowered paths serve a dual purpose; they guide the living, as well as the dead, into the homes of residents who have built magnificent ofrendas and prepared vast quantities of food to share with whoever might wander in. I probably ate four meals that afternoon. I was astounded at each house, many of which were very humble, and their generosity in inviting not only their whole town, but large groups of foreign tourists to share in their memories and their meals.  There were also groups of young children roaming the streets in the Mexican equivalent of trick-or-treating, where they asked for money or candy for their baskets.

Here in Puebla, I got a chance to participate in an ofrenda-building contest at UPAEP with my drawing class.  We made an altar for Jose Guadalupe Posada, an artist whose work influenced many of the images of skulls and skeletons seen during Day of the Dead today.  Although I was in and out, my group put in a huge effort and made a really beautiful altar.  The entire courtyard at school was full of incredible ofrendas; it drove home how special this day is in Mexican culture.

The semester is drawing to a close; there’s so much more I want to see and do and share before I leave, so I will try to up the frequency of posts in this last month.  My family gets here a week from today (yay!), bringing a new phone with them, so hopefully pictures will be part of the blog again soon!

Boots on the Ground: Community Health

This week we went to a more rural part of the state of Puebla to experience community health and traditional healing methods.  While each day was full of something new, Tuesday was the highlight of my week, and one of the highlights of the semester so far. We got split up into groups, and my group went with a young doctor and nurse to a clinic even further out in the country from the small town where we were staying, Xalacapa. It was in what I think qualifies as a town, although it was so small it’s hard to be sure.  We had to take a taxi down dirt roads to get there. 

We saw patients all morning. The first week of the month is chronic patients, so mostly people with diabetes and high blood pressure.  I sat in on consults for a while, and then took vital signs for patients before they went in to see the doctor.  They were almost all women, middle aged or elderly.  A lot of them couldn’t read or write well, and could barely sign their names.  The clinic was a lobby, a room for the nurse, a consult room for the doctor, and a bathroom.  They all had concrete floors.  The woman next-door was a patient and also had a restaurant, so we had lunch with her (tamales and gorditas.)  She also brought us bread and coffee for a mid-morning break.  The third person who works at the clinic does home visits, and the rest of my group got to go with her on a couple.  There were dogs, chickens, pigs, turkeys, and goats everywhere.

In the afternoon we went to a different clinic with the same doctor in another one street town.  She mostly had to do paperwork, since nearly everyone she serves is on public health insurance (why isn’t this a thing, America?!?), but she sent one of the nurses and another lady up to give a vaccine to a baby on the outskirts of town.  We went with her.  It was a half-hour hike through the mud, up dirt paths to a house on top of a hill. (Did I mention I was wearing my all-white uniform?)  They had cows and dogs and a pig, and they were extremely hospitable and brought us all chairs and offered us drinks. We went back and caught a bus to the main town where we are staying.

It was an amazing day and really inspired me to keep thinking about what I want to do, because that was some seriously important work.  Stay tuned for more about the rest of my week!