El Día de Los Muertos

Today is "El Día de Los Muertos"(Day of the Dead) that is celebrated by the Catholic Church all over the world - mostly nowadays in Latin American countries. This is a day when families visit the graves of their ancestors and loved ones. The cemetaries were so packed with mourners, and floral vendors that the city buses weren´t able to come within a mile´s distance of the entrance to the cemetary because of all the people and cars.

Lead by my grandma, aunt and mother, we visited the graves of the Michaud tribe(my mother´s side of the family). We then headed off towards the crematorium to visit the small piece of land where my grandfather´s ashes are burried. Grandpa died the very day my mother found out she was pregnant with me, so he never new that i was on the way.

Because my mom´s family wasn´t well off at the time, grandpa´s gravestone is a simple rock they´d found, then had engraved and was painted over with black paint in order to read what the headstone says. Every year at this time, some family member re-paints the gravestone because through the course of the year, the letters fade. I decided to do the task this time, and so I proudly took the headstone and painted it for my grandfather.

this is a typical looking cemetary

rows of cement graves piled on top of each other.

many times, there are 2 or 3 people in each square hole burried together.

painting the letters on my grandfather´s gravestone

it reads: O. Sergio Michad C. died 1-6-81. His wife, children and grandchildren.