dios de los muertos

It is the tradition in ecuador that on the day of the dead, everybody consumes a drink called colada molada- which is like a blackberry smoothy but served warm and the little bread boys are called guagua. everybody loves the morada and everywhere i went during the week, people insist that you partake. it is delicious!

i went with my professor on sunday to an indigenous cemetary and learned from a speaker there that the deep purple color of the morada represents the dark color of the dead´s blood, while eating the bread reminds the circle of life& death- nourishment provided by pachamama (earth) and the returned to pachamama when we die.
i found out when we got there that in fact this was not where any of my professor´s relatives were burried and i was concerned that i might offend by entering the cemetary. my professor assured, oh no, it is completely acceptable. still, i hesitated, and crept in.
there were a handful of other westerners there with expensive cameras and an news team. it gave me an overwelming sense of unease that while people are trying to morn and carry on with there way of life, they are a curiousity to outsiders and are somehow tolerated. i dont know really what people there thought, but i never felt hostility from any one.
and, as i write this and wish to describe what it was like, i feel a little like i have taken something without asking. this happens to me quite often, and i feel that it is inevitable as people from different cultures interact, each side seeing only the superficial or straight-up assumtions. i am very aware in each interaction that involves money, or being in a public place that many people see me as only a source of money, or as a symbol of an unfair disparity between themselves and white, western people. i do talk about this with ecuadorians and other westerners, which sparks some quite heated conversations, leading back to history, economics and belief systems.
okay- back the cemetary: directly up the stairs is a large painting of jesus with a tablecloth on the ground many plates of food, flowers, drinks, plants on it. a band was warming up playing on electric guitar an iggy pop song, just adding to the surreal emotions of the day. the graves are placed quite close, somethimes without a decernable path between. the name-stones were mostly concrete crosses covered in white tiles. roses, calla lilies and shiny papered wreaths cover the grave places.
families are busy cleaning the graves, afterwards they share a meal with the dead. children run around and there is a constant flow of people moving about, visiting, talking, listening to music. a man was talking to his dead relative, gesturing with his hands towards the ground, and i thought god, ive got to get out of here, i dont belong here, this is not personal for me. i gestured to my teacher towards the entry and we began to pick our way between graves and clusters of people. at one point the path was unclear. it was obvious we would have to walk over some graves. this really distressed me. i thought this just tops it off. i had been thinking about how at home dead are not talked about and was remembering my grandfather, and others that are gone to me and i felt sad and teary that at home we do not celebrate or acknowledge the dead.
i sucked it up and stepped in the same path as a man in front of me and crossed over several graves. there was a traffic jam of people and i was standing, wanting to leave, but not wanting to run away and the feeling of tears in my eyes because i hated the feeling of not being able to express to the people arround me that i meant no disresect. two grandmothers passed in front of me carrying immense packs and when i looked up a man held out a pan de way-way to me. i looked at him like, are you sure? and he held the bread out closer. i took it and said thank you and he said it all with his eyes.