Dia De Los Muertos!!!!

This week was Dia de los Muertos, a holiday in Mexico that is more popular than christmas. This holiday celebrates those that have passed away and is entirely ran with traditions. We did our best to integrate ourselves into that tradition in order to fully experience this wonderful holiday.

The first tradition we got involved in was making an altar. We were the only US team to enter in this competition. Although we are all very creative and innovative, we had to learn all about the traditions of the area, which were very strict. For example, the arches of the altar must be made with sugar cane stalks.

All of us guys were in charge of the altar's general structure. We went to the mercado to buy the cane stalks, some rope, and the wooden boxes pictured above. We used these boxes to make the seven layers of the altar.

This was our taxi that helped us transport all of our materials. I always enjoy these experiences because one of my horrible stereotypes of Mexico is the image of people riding around in the back of trucks. Although, it is unfortunate that we can't legally do this in the US because it is very cost effective and exciting haha.

Here we are starting the structure of our altar. Tradition gave us the blueprints of which we were left to recreate. 

The region our altar was representing was high in the mountains and know for its greenery and orange flowers. We decided to wrap the cane stalks with the flowers, which were meticulously sewn together, and use banana leaves as our table clothe. One thing we forgot to account for was the weight of the flowers. The canes began to slouch and fall, so we had to anchor them to the roof.

Here is the final product of the altar. We also chose a local celebrity of the area to represent our altar. Her name is Maria Sabina and she was best well known for her use of mushrooms as a medical treatment. She also met with famouse froups and people like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and even Walt Disney. Also each layer has a significance and must have certain materials on it. For example, one layer was just food and drinks of the area.

Here were the other altars we were competing against. The first two were very traditional altars of other areas. The third altar is very innovative and cool, but lacked any tradition. The last altar was by far the best, but it went against some of the strict traditional aspects of the area. Basically, the picture I am painting is our altar was perfect haha. Unfortunately, there must have been something we were missing cause we didn't even place. We were pretty shocked but still very proud of the work we did.

The second tradition we got involved in was the creation of these sand sculptures called tapetes. We used thick sand to help create our sculpture and then fine colored sand to add in the detail.

Here is a picture of our finished tapete with our banner hanging above it. It is a picture of Maria Sabina, half living and half dead, with a crown of mushrooms on her head. She is also surrounded by the mountains where she is from.

Here are some more professional tapetes. As you can see, these are much bigger and require days of work. We finished ours in less than six hours.

Here is the traditional attire for the festivities. Many people paint there faces to look like skulls and dress in elegant dresses or suits.

We decided to join in on the face painting tradition. We all got together and helped paint each other's faces so that we could further participate in the festivities. The funny thing is, that was probably the time I fit in most in mexico. It hid half of my whiteness haha.

Here is a picture of me and my roommates. I am very proud to say that I did my face paint all by myself. Even though I did sit in front of a mirror for about an hour working on it, the result did end up looking pretty manly haha.

Once in skeleton form, we joined a small community parade called a comparsa. These little parades where going on everywhere. They involved a marching band that would play music and you would march around downtown drinking mezcal and dancing. Here is a short video of a time when we met with another comparsa and did a little dance.

Here we are in character, half living and half dead haha. 

Here is another video of us with the comparsa. In this video we are in the center of the city and hundreds of tourists and locals have gathered around to watch us all make fools of ourselves. You can also see the majority of the faces that are painted in our group.

The next day, after clinic, we went to another cemetery where hundreds of families gather to honor their dead relatives. They told us that people will travel from all over the world to visit their dead relatives on this day.

Each family covers the graves of their loved ones with as much flowers as possible and some get really creative like in this one.Outside of the cemetery was a huge fair and a band so everyone could enjoy the festivities. That concludes my amazing experience with Dia de los Muertos and we are now headed to Puerto Escondido to learn about tropical diseases and enjoy a little bit of paradise. Please comment and thanks for reading.