Afternoon of the Dead

In case you didn't know, this past week Mexico celebrated Day of the Dead (Día de los Muertos). At my school, they built this altar (to the right). It's supposed to commemorate people who have died, and they decorate it with skeletons and papel picado, flowers (I think they are marigolds), and of course photos of the departed. Then they put the dead person's favorite things, like food and drink or cigarrettes, and light candles all around.

This altar is nice, but my friends Amy and Michael were visiting for the weekend, and we went downtown to the Zocalo to see all the really big altars.

They had some really huge papier mache skeletons making some sort of social commentary or other. The big one has a hammer and sickle badge, and bears a passing resemblance to a certain North Korean leader, don't you think? You can't see in the photo, but he had a lucha libre wrestler in his right hand. The woman skeleton, I don't know. That's why I say it was some social commentary or other. I'm just not sure.

They also had a huge wrestling ring, with skeleton lucha libre wrestlers. They were really funny, caught in wrestling poses.





















Just walking down the street, we saw some construction equipment disguised as a giraffe. If it was a Halloween costume, or something for the Day of the Dead, I can't say.