día de los difuntos

november 2 was día de los difuntos and much of managua celebrated by joining loved ones at the cementerio general, cleaning and adorning grave sites with flowers, plants, and confetti, and gathering together around family members' tombs singing, eating, and drinking. by 5pm the cemetery was crowded as many had the afternoon off from work on what was a public holiday. families filled the narrow walkways between graves, vendors sold comida chatarra (fast food), muchachos hawked their grave-cleaning services with shovels and buckets of water, and groups of mariachis milled around offering to serenade the deceased. the graveyard is expansive, its front end filled with people born in the 19th century; further back lie the more recently-deceased. many national heroes are buried here - including Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, Camilo Ortega Saavedra and many other martyrs of the revolution - impressively, the gravesites of the well-known and well-off (including President Ortega's parents and the family of opposition leader Montealegre) lie side by side with those of working class and poor families -- death and its accompanying rituals are more democratic than life...