Day of the Dead continues – oh yes, the dead really know how to party here. We visit the market in the morning to buy the stuff to make our own altar. Our purchases include a big bag of pine needles, some flower petals, a sugar skull and a particularly natty sugar coffin with a pop-up body inside. Nice.
Back home, we set about making an altar to remember Paul’s Dad, filling it with things that he liked. First we spread pine needles on the floor, and then we make a cross with the marigold petals. We add a picture of Peter, together with a bottle of wine, some butter, a map, a book and some hiking boots. We also add the customary Bread of the Dead and some candles.
It’s actually a surprisingly cathartic thing to do. Making the altar forces you to remember the good things about a person, and the happy times. We even manage to lure the cat in to pose beside the altar for a bowl of milk. Peter would have been impressed, he loved to feed cats.
When Mariet and Enrique observe our altar, they make just one comment. Apparently we should have left the top off the wine. Paul retorts that his Dad would never have been defeated by a simple cork.
In the evening, we go out to the Zocalo and watch the beginning of a particularly gruesome costume competition. The whole city is out in force, and there are people wearing giant skulls dancing down the street. Daisy, again, seems to find the whole thing curiously soporific. Strange child.
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