El Dia del Muerte

Day of the Dead, All Saints Day, Day of the Living...it heard it called different names by different Arequepinas. Whatever the case, November 1st is a very important day for Arequepinas. Everyone has the day off and the head to the cemetaries to celebrate and remember thier loved ones. Our profesors took us to the largest and oldest cemetary in town to check it out. The cemetary was packed and looked like a small city with streets, vendors selling ice cream y muchas personas. Families come every year to clean the graves, leave flowers and basically spend the day. You can even pay singers to come to the graves and sing your loved ones favorite song.

In a far off corner of the cemetary, persons who had committed suicide were buried. Since it is considered a mortal sin in the Catholic faith, they were not buried with eveyone else. Some of the families of the deceased had even scratched out their names out of shame. In another corner, we found the graves of Jewish and Protestant folk. While we were looking at these graves, an older Peruvian lady came and left a single yellow flower on each grave and had some younger boys spray a bit of water on each grave (symbolic of cleaning the grave). She wanted to make sure that the deceased knew that they were not forgotten. It was very sweet.

Mis Profesoras posing in front of the body of Christ

Tombs of the Babies Graves with Chachani in the backround