Halloween / Día de Muertos

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First thing: What day is Día de Muertos? Depends on which state you're in. Yucatan thinks it's tonight, but the internet seems to think it's tomorrow.

Second thing: The weather just got better. It suddenly dropped ten degrees a couple of days ago and it has stayed there. I'm suddenly much more optimistic about surviving for the rest of the year ... or at least until March when, I am told, it will get hot again. Sigh.

Third thing: So, in summary, if you're going to come to Merida, may I recommend the end of October? It's a party and you probably won't die of heat.

Today we had a little celebration at my Spanish school after classes where we could get our faces painted like calaveras. James didn't do it because he's wearing a mask with his costume. We also ate pan de muerto, sweet bread flavored with orange blossom water and sprinkled with sugar. That's the "normal" kind. You can also get it stuffed with anything from guayaba to Oreos and cream cheese. Kind of like how Christmas keeps creeping earlier every year, the pan de muertos have been at the bakeries since August! And we have eaten a LOT of them.


During class, we wrote and illustrated calaverita literaturas. Here's mine:


Even though I'm dead and don't have skin
I'm very conscientious
I eat my altar candy and I
brush my teeth

I also liked these clever ones from classmates:



At the end of his seventh life
the Catrina (death) finally arrived
but the cat wasn't stressed
because he only said, in English,

"In my country, we cats live 'til nine.
Only then is it ever our time."
The Catrina looked back [as it walked away],
"I'll see you in two more lives."


In a dream my father said to me
"I miss the pastries, my son.
It would make me happy if you could
move the altar to the bakery."

After class, we ran to go to an ex-pat kids trunk or treat activity that I had seen online. What I hadn't picked up on from the invite was that it was a group for black ex-pats, which was a teensy bit of a surprise, but we were totally welcomed and it was no big deal, just kind of funny. The kids got lots of candy AND WE WON THE FAMILY COSTUME CONTEST with our facepaint. Double-score!

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