Messaging the Great Beyond

Sue, my friend from Elkader,  arrived in Guatemala 

just in time for a field trip best described as (Vinton's) Party in the Park .....

........ and Memorial Day, 

all rolled into one. 

On November 1, the Day of the Dead, the people of the villages of Santiago and Sumpango fly vibrant tissue paper kites, large and small, to honor their dead. 

 Brian drove us to Santiago where we parked in someone's yard as if it was a Hawk game in Iowa City.  Later we paid to use the family's toilet, a simple cement throne in an out building near our car.  

But first we wound our way through the streets.... 

  .....past fair vendors (this is something medicinal, I think)...

......to join families in the cemetery who spent the day cleaning up graves.... 

......decorating with flowers.....

  ....picncking.....

 ......and of course, flying kites.

This should be the featured photo with this post .. the cell phone company advertisement next to the old school message to the great beyond.

Brian, Sue and I...












..... climbed atop a tomb for a great view. 

 Traditionally it takes 40 days to build the kites, the first day marked by the village's unmarried men heading out to the coast at 4:00 am to laboriously collect bamboo for the kite frames, some measuring over 60 feet in diameter. 

Community and family groups work for months, cutting and pasting. The glue is a mixture of yucca flower, lemon peel, and water, ropes are made of the maguey plant (the plant that also brings us tequila), and the tails are made from woven cloth.

The kites have portraits and messages to or about deceased family members (below, the words read "there is no other love on earth as great as that of a mother") and slogans about issues like caring for the environment or women’s rights. 

Below, the quetzal, their maginifcent national bird.

The groups who have created the kites assemble them onto the frames and attempt to fly their kites in the later afternoon. Families and children fly smaller kites together as well, running between graves to get them up in the air and suffering crashes that can be somewhat fatal to their carefully built kites. Bystanders learn to duck!

These kite celebrations have  been around for 3,000 years and are recognized by various religious sects. Locals believe it is a tool for communicating with the beyond.