El Panteon General

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If I had any sense, I would know that eating chocolate at midnight is not going to put me back to sleep. At 3am I decided it was time to get up. That got me to the zocalo just after dawn. That quiet time when everyone is stumbling around still half asleep, reading the paper or drinking coffee. Food and drink vendors on bikes. The bustling of setting up stalls to sell clothing and things. The APPO camp's quiet, too. An elderly woman, shoeless with bunches of flowers strapped on her back, shuffled up to me, her eyes cloudy, asking me to buy a bunch of white freesia. If not, how about some wilted roses? 10 pesos (a dollar). I took the freesia, that were tied together with a couple reeds, giving her a 10 peso coin. She kissed it and touched it to her head, mumbling what I guessed to be a thankful prayer. She shuffled on. I put the flowers on the altar of the APPO teacher who was killed. Mostly just wandered in circles in the zocalo for a couple of hours.
Then off to find the Panteon General, the big, central cemetary, some blocks east of the zocalo. Its huge. There are so many memorials that you can barely walk betweel the graves. Its divided into a number of sections. In the central part there is a circular ruin - San Miguel church possibly? In its center is what seems to be a pool or fountain. It has a stone cross memorial dedicated to the forgotten ones. At its base is carved a skull that someone has put a cigarette in the mouth of. In fact all around the base are offerings of beer, bread, apples. and more cigarettes. I guess the dead like to smoke. There are already people cleaning and putting flowers out. One man was chiseling an epitaph into a headstone. Mostly there are the usual types of crosses and statuary, but also some pretty modern constructions. I'm going to try to see all five cemetarys before the festivities begin.
Walking back, I attended two weddings, and collapsed on the bed on arrival. I must not have twitched for at least an hour, my neck frozen when I fainally did move. What made me get up was the sound of heavy furniture being dragged around, or so I thought. It was the thunderous beginning of a torrential downpour that lasted almost an hour. At last I've figured out how to get some images on here.

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Photos

Smoking Skull
An altar for forgotten souls with various offerings

Carving Calaveras
He's as delighted with his creations as I was.

Comments

[con and trac]

This blog was a fab idea!!! We soooo wish we were there but having you and timmy there is the next best thing. The photos are great! Miss ya and love ya both