Double the death, double the fun.

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Yesterday morning, during my 12th grade Literature class, Julio, the director, burst in to tell us one of younger students’ parents had died. “School will be canceled for the rest of the day,” he announced. This, I assumed was to show our respect for the mourning adolescent. I put on my most solemn pout. And wrong again. Why had the students begun to cheer?

“You hate literature that much?” I asked them.

“No seño.” they lied. “It’s just, you see, that a dead person died. He’s dead you see, that dead man.”

It quickly became clear that this was the joke of choice on death days. Everyone found it hilarious, despite the fact they all had heard it thousands of times prior. Yet strangely, after hearing it repeated enough, I found myself laughing too. Maybe those Mateanos are on to something with all the those repetitions

Earlier this year, or rather in a prior moment in time that occurred well before this moment, the one at present, I cried about how pathetic Guatemalan parties were. Apparently I just hadn’t attended the right ones. Funerals, in the Chuj culture, are quite a reason to party. As a colleague told me later, this is because everyone already knew that that dead person was going to die that day. “Everyone here can foresee everything,” he said, “so we might as well celebrate that dead person died.”

In San Mateo, to honor the dead, the entire town meets at the dead person’s house in order to drink coffee and eat black beans. Everything consumed is black, because black is the color of death, as is the case in American culture. The similarities end here. In San Mateo, rather than mourning, people discuss the price of Guavas or the latest look in Cortes (the woven skirts typical to indigenous Guatemala).There is no point in inquiring why the dead person died, how old he was, etc, because everyone knew this already.

The eldest members present are the first to be served their frijol (beans) and coffee. As they kneel down to eat on wooden benches (specially built for the funeral), the rest of the town rushes to see the corpse. Everyone elbows each other out of the way, itching for their turn. I was gringo-ly patient, so my turn came an hour later. So much anticipation. As I peered down at the dead body, all I could do was laugh at the gaggle of moms cheering, “HA!! He’s really dead, isn’t he? That old dead man!”

I found out 10 minutes later that everyone had been unusually jovial because they had foreseen the second death, which was announced as I left the building. Two deaths in one day? Now it was really time to celebrate. Within an hour, two batches of Grandma’s had brought us frijol and coffee. I ate so much my belly became stiffer than the dead man’s.

Later that afternoon, as two Mateanos were laid to rest in their highlighter hued death houses, we sat around a bonfire telling stories about past funeral/parties. So many deaths. So much mirth. And suddenly the death was over. As we walked back to the center, the fog descended over our sunburned heads, enveloping us in a mist of severity. Back to white foods, and grading notebooks. Is it cruel of me to wish that another one will bite the dust?

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