Days of the Dead

Danny had a holiday from language school November 1st, so we joined the locals and went to Sumpango to fly Barriletes (kites)! It was the day of the dead or all saints day. Try to figure that one out. The tradition is that the dead have 24 hours to come back and greet their loved ones. So everyone goes to the cemetery to clean, paint and decorate the graves. These graves were a work of art. It was so neat to see all these beautiful people working together as families. Some families did not have much to decorate their graves with but they were clean and painted, others were very elaborate.

These kites are huge!!

They write messages on kites and fly them so the dead relatives can read the message. It was a very happy occasion. I thought it might be morbid but it was not in the least. The kites were amazing some of them were so big they did not fly these were only for display.


Danny and I could not get over how it was so much fun but at the same time complete chaos. We were all in one soccer field and everyone was trying to fly a kite. We had some serious tangles. The people would walk up to the mass, bite the string, tie it back and go fly their kites.

We forgot the boys hats so they bought some local hats, don't they look cute!

We had to try the roasted corn it was soooo good. The Guatemalans like it with lime and salt. We liked it with Parmesan cheese and hot sauce.

We loved laying on the blanket watching all the kites! There were so many to see.

Our favorite part was being together as a family and seeing other families have such a good time.