Yesterday was All Souls’ Day, November 2. This is a day that many Peruvians spend at the cemetery with their deceased loved ones, who are very much a part of life here. Like a folk festival, people first make a pilgrimage to the cemetery forecourt to stock up on necessities, ranging from flowers and vases to small bottles of beer or schnapps, which are given to the deceased. Together with the deceased, they celebrate what they enjoyed in their lives. Until a ban was imposed a few years ago, the celebrations were indeed lavish, with lots of food, drink and music, and in some cases they developed into extensive parties. This tradition was stopped and security guards ensured that it was enforced, more so at the city cemetery in Cusco than at the small one in the suburbs, which we also visited.
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In many countries, there is this architecture, in which there are niches into which the coffins are inserted and small “showcases” at the front. On this day, many families came together to first clean and refurnish this niche and then to make contact with the deceased. This was also done with a box playing Santana.
The temperature today was enormous, everyone preferred to stay in the shade. It felt like 35 degrees in the morning, with parasols offering protection.
People sat next to, near and on the graves.
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After a while, my companion Roberto told me that as a young man he and a friend “entered” this cemetery, there was a hole in the surrounding wall that everyone probably knew about. Late at night, they decided not to walk through the less safe adjacent neighborhood, but to sleep in the cemetery. There was a new area where the niches had already been constructed but not yet filled. The two of them lay down in an alcove, talked for a while and then went to sleep. In the morning, with the first sunshine, they slipped back through the hole into the living world.
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The second cemetery in Huancaro, in a suburb of Cusco, extends over several levels. Below and at the upper entrance, there is once again a festival-like hustle and bustle, including children’s entertainment of all kinds. As this cemetery is a little further away from the city center and therefore less under urban surveillance, there were fewer limits on what food and drink could be brought in.
After a while, it started to rain here, which left many visitors unimpressed and the parasols turned into umbrellas.
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On this day too, suckling pig was on offer at numerous stands. When asked, it was confirmed that the heads were also eaten, Roberto’s explanation: “Nothing goes to waste in Peru …” 😉 I was offered a piece from the stall to try, it tasted delicious! If we hadn’t eaten just before, I would have dared to try the head.
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