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Sunday, November 1, 2009

All Saint's Day

Sorry, I got cut off! As I was saying...

Saturday, October 31
(yesterday)
Obviously, people in the Philippines don't celebrate Halloween like we do in the US. In fact, for them, Halloween isn't even on October 31st. They say Halloween is on November 1, and by that they mean that All Saints Day is November 1. But I digress. Saturday, we left just before lunchtime for Manjuyod so my mom could visit her brothers there once more before she leaves on Monday and so her and her sisters could visit and honor their father's grave for All Saints weekend. When we got to Manjuyod, we passed "the marker," a forked coconut tree at the entrance of the town. We went to their house (my Lola's house, but again I remind you that she is currently staying in North Carolina with my aunt, so it's only her two sons there now and their families and helpers), and we had lunch. After lunch, we went to the Ayungon fiesta, where, naturally, we ate some more, visited for a while, ate some more, visited for a while, then packed up more food to take home with us. Somewhere in there we stopped by the town church so my aunts could offer prayers. Afterward, we drove back to Manjuyod, where we ate dinner (rememberrrr, Mexicans of Asia! hahaha). We finally drove home late in the evening. Somewhere throughout the day my throat started hurting and is still making me suffer to this moment.

Sunday, November 1 (today, All Saint's Day)
Today, my aunt spent all day preparing food for the All Saint's Day celebration. I know, "celebration," right? If only you knew! All Saint's Day in the Philippines is definitely something every person should experience. This evening once it started to cool off, we took the food my aunt had prepared and went to the cemetery where her sister- and brother- in-laws (grammatically incorrect, I know) are buried. First of all, the traffic on the way there was HORRIBLE. We hardly moved the entire time because EVERYONE was going to the cemetery. On the way to the cemetery, the streets were LINED with food, candle, and flower vendors. Even when we made it INSIDE the cemetery, there were food, candle, flower, and western-style Halloween vendors everywhere. More shocking than that, there were people EVERYWHERE all over the cemetery camped out on graves having picnics and visiting and lighting candles and praying and eating. I'd never seen anything like it. If I only looked at it from the waist up, I would have thought it was a carnival or festival or something with all the lights, food, and people. But when you look down, you realize the blankets these people are laying out on are strewn over people's grave mounds! I couldn't believe it. Apparently, this a tradition here, though. (That, and it's become over-capitalized like every religious holiday.) Families travel from all over the country - all over the world even - to return to the cemetery where their family is buried. My mom was saying that often they don't even have a chance to stop for food or anything, they just go straight to the cemetery and begin praying, lighting candles, etc. They stay there all day, and all night even. Since they aren't able to go home to eat, they just bring food (if they're fortunate enough to live nearby), buy food from the vendors, or even prepare their own food right there at the grave site. The vendors sell flashing toys and Halloween trinkets to keep children occupied, and some people play music or set up karaoke machines to pass the time. Can you imagine? Music, toys, karaoke, camping, and grilling right on top of your relative's grave?! It just seems so shocking to us, but to them it's normal. I love how much cultures differ from one another. Anyway, we finally arrived at the family plot, and we set up our food where someone had thrown a sheet right on top of the concrete block covering two graves. Apparently, the block itself wasn't the grave (like in New Orleans, often people here are often buried in cement above ground in case of floods), but it was placed on top of the graves to mark them. The cement block was also purposely fashioned to be larger than the actual grave sites it covered for the purpose of it being used as a table. True story (or so my mom says). So there we were, hanging out at the family graves having fried chicken, lumpia, hot dog and marshmallow on a stick, pork empanadas, and Coca-Cola, listening to the pop music and karaoke from the people hanging out at the neighboring plot, and watching all the bright candles from all over the cemetery slowly burn. AND it was a full-moon. AND we were sitting right beside gigantic graveyard trees (can't remember the name, but they're huge and pretty with white flowers and they grow naturally EVERYWHERE in graveyards here). AND the street lights kept going out. I would be so scared to sleep in a graveyard, but there were so many people there and there was so much going on that I think I could do it then and not be afraid. We didn't stay the night though, and instead left pretty early. We came back, and now we're all eating and visiting and such. This is my mom's last night, and I'm really sad about it. Early tomorrow morning she flies out, and I'm really sad. I'm going to miss her a lot when she goes. I'm worried about her flying by herself also. I hope she'll be okay; I'll be praying that she has a safe trip.

I'll try to update tomorrow night if I have time. I really need to keep this thing updates as often as I can, even if it's just short updates. I hate waiting too long, and by then I've forgotten everything that happened. :(

2 comments:

Susanne said...

Ok so that's what they do on Halloween! Very interesting. Just yesterday, my sister and I were thinking what our family in Cebu were doing because we don't really know the full details of their celebration. Anyways everything of course always involves food and more food..hahah but it's delicious!

Michelle DuBose said...

Lol yep, that's it. Parties at the cemetery, haha. I think the young people have even adopted the idea of dressing up for Halloween parties like we do in the US. I didn't see anyone dressed up, but my friends here were telling me that if you go to bars and stuff you'll see lots of ghosts and witches and Playboy bunnies, lol.