Still Catching Up

A few days before Palm Sunday was the Dia de Dolores, or Viernes de Dolores, which can be translated as the Day/Friday of Grief/Sorrow, but I think of it as Pain Friday. It commemorates the grief felt by Mary at the death of her son. I don't think it's celebrated much outside of San Miguel de Allende, but here it is a really big deal and is very, very cool. People create altars inside their houses and businesses, and on a lot of the public fountains (there are a zillion fountains in this city; one of these days I'll post some photos of them). Every walks from house to house looking at them, and people give out ice cream and juice. Indigo, in particular, thought it was really great.

This altar was in the school where Amy is taking Spanish classes, and was created by one of the teachers who does it every year:


Here's a closeup:


Giving out ice cream is an important part of the celebration:


Here's a few more altars, all inside houses, mostly in the neighborhood where we live. The detail, complexity, and sheer volume of stuff that people use really amazed me. Purple is the dominant color, since it symbolizes sorrow:












In both these house, the families had created pictures of Jesus out of rice and different kinds of seeds: (the first two photos are of the same altar, with and without flash)






This elaborate altar was in a public building of some sort. I'm not sure who created it, but it was huge. Most of the floor space of a large patio had pictures and patterns made from seeds:



In addition to the color purple, most of the altars had pots of wheat grass, oranges, and chamomile. Some of them had lots of other herbs, too, so that they smelled really nice. In many of the houses, music was playing as well, making for a complete sensory experience.