Los Dias de los Muertos son PRONTO!

Day(s) of the Dead begin Friday and this city is deep in the throes of preparation. Halloween is making its influence evident too, with orange and black tinsel, witches, bats and the occasional scarecrow decorating most "day of the dead" sections in every store. But if you look carefully there are plenty of "calaveras"--skeletons in contemporary and traditional Mexican dress, getting ready to have a good time. I prefer chocolate skulls to sugar, but the kids would definitely vote me off their island in favor of crystal sugar frosted crania. The best explanation I've heard for the joyous, raucous holiday that marks All Saints' Day down here is this, from our elderly tour guide in Mexico City: "Our dead are Mexicans, remember, and they don't want to listen to a bunch of crying and moaning when we go to visit them in the cemetery. The things they miss are fiestas, with music, dancing, mezcal, and good food. We have to clean the tombs and put on a party because THAT'S what they want to do when they have a chance to see their families again."

Here's how we know "Muertos" is coming: artisans are stationed all around town building altars for galleries, museums and restaurants...Amelia's class spent an entire day visiting a chocolate shop and then rolling and cutting the paste into skulls, bones and flower shapes...on Harper's behalf, we are required to supply 350 marigolds to the kids' school before 2:30 tomorrow afternoon, so each class can begin decorating their altars (I opted for this assignment instead of preparing 350 tamales)...young men are selling jicamas from wheelbarrows on street corners, to serve as "globos" or symbols of the earth on home altars...Crispin's classmate Sylvia hosted half of the 3rd grade for a tour of her parents' bakery,
"La China Oaxaquena," so the kids could observe the process for making Pan de Muertos, celebratory loaves of bread given as gifts...the family in a nearby home has gradually added black faux spider webs and a cardboard cemetery to their large wall, and this morning, rows of extremely lifelike skulls BACKED BY SPARKLING PINK WRAPPING PAPER perhaps 15 feet across appeared...any grocery store we care to enter presents stacks of chocolate, almonds, cinnamon, calabaza squash, sugar cane, and at least 5-10 types of dried chiles near their front doors...the dark green mountains we can see from our yard are now streaked with yellow, from fields of wild daisies and sunflowers in bloom...

Lots more to come. I'm aiming to update this blog every day from now through Nov. 3rd so please check back early and often for photos and news from the afterlife. Or, better yet, the here and now in Oaxaca--which may amount to one and the same thing!