Holiday Weekend

This weekend has been pretty tranquil here in Cusco for me, because the many riots around the country have shut down the buses that were going to take us to Arequipa and the coast for our four day weekend. Instead, I got to spend the weekend with my immediate family and ALL my extended family from Arequipa - Latin American family life at it`s best.

 This weekend holds three important holidays for Peruvians: Halloween on Friday, Day of the Living on Saturday, and today is the Day of the Dead. Technically, the Day of the Living in for honoring the Saints - it revolves very much around the Catholic church. The Day of the Dead is about the lives of the people you have lost. The Peruvians visit cemeteries, pray for their lost ones a lot, and sit around in circles talking about their lives and their death, and the things that they loved and miss about their relatives. It´s kind of interesting because the second day is a sad one, and yet they still manage to turn it into a celebration. To them, everything is a festival! Food, music, dancing and lots of family. For the Day of the Living, one random tradition that they have is to buy cakes, called Wawa, with dolls in them, and take the dolls inside the cakes to a priest to have them baptized. They receive names, the people present for the baptism become the parents... it´s a big deal. And then they take it home and eat it. lol Very odd to me, but they were surprised that we didn´t do the same thing on the day after Halloween in the United States. Ah, cultural differences.