Mexico’s Day of the Dead mourns quake victims
MEXICO CITY — Day of the Dead celebrations opened with a sadder tone than usual Wednesday as Mexico City and nearby states marked the holiday by remembering the 369 people killed in the Sept. 19 earthquake.
Mexico’s traditional view of the dead is not ghoulish or frightful — rather they are seen as the “dear departed,” people who remain close even after death. On the Nov. 1-2 holiday, Mexicans set up altars with photographs of the dead and plates of their favourite foods in their homes. They gather at their loved ones’ gravesides to drink, sing and talk to the dead.
But this time many of the dead departed so recently that the grief is still fresh. In the capital alone, the quake killed 228 and collapsed 38 buildings.
Nayeli Flores struggled to bring up her two children, working as a legal aide and studying law, so she never had time or money to set up an elaborate Day of the Dead altar as her son, Julian, wanted to do. This year Flores will fulfil his wish for an altar — dedicated to the 11-year-old boy and his 6-year-old sister, Ximena, who died when the quake collapsed their apartment building into a pile of rubble on the city’s south side. The two kids had stayed home from school that day while their mom was working.