Xela's public cemetery is more alive than any cemetery in the United States. Every weekend the square outside the walls is packed with venders selling massive bouquets of flowers and families going to visit their lost ones. Latin America in general is more in touch with death than the U.S. I think part of it is that family connections are stronger, and they try to maintain that connection even after someone dies.
Perhaps another contributing factor is that every country in Central America, with the exception of Costa Rica, went through a civil war in the last half of the 20th century. Brutal civil wars. In Guatemala many people don't like to call the 37-year long conflict a civil war because it was one-sided. It wasn't a war between two armies but rather a slaughtering and terrorizing of civilians. Yes, the guerrilla forces also tortured and killed civilians, but 90% of the atrocities committed from 1960 to 1996 were done by the Guatemalan army (The bishop Juan Gerardi, who was responsible for that report, titled Guatemala: Nunca Más, was assassinated a few days after it was published). So everybody older than 30 remembers the war, and had close friends and family members who died.
The sign hanging in the entrance to the cemetery says "The memory of the living gives life to the dead." I think the people of Guatemala do live by that saying.
The most striking difference between U.S. cemeteries and Xela's is that the graves are above ground, and they're colorful. They make me think of shelves for caskets. The head stones (shelf stones?) tend to have whole poems or Bible verses written on them, not just names and dates. There are a lot more flowers too -- families visit graves regularly for years after someone has died.
All that visiting means that, like the rest of Xela, there's a lot of garbage. Old flowers and ribbons get thrown on big dirt piles. As gross as all the litter and stray-dog poop is, there's something nice about it too. It means that this is a place for people, for alive-things.
Of course, some people get fancier graves than others. Some have statues on top, or busts of the deceased, or are mini-chapels. A few years ago someone smashed off the head of every angel in the cemetery -- only the angel of death's head was safe. My professor thinks it was satanists. Maybe it was just a group of dumb kids. Weird.
Some of the fancier, older graves had the caskets below ground. Here's what an open one looked like: shelves for everybody in the family!
A lot of the graves had chapels I could peer into.
And now! The legend of Vanushka! It's a long story that I don't feel like writing, fortunately Camina beat me to it. Read the whole legend here.
Probably the most famous tomb in Xela's cemetery is Vanushka's, a gypsy who died of a broken heart... or poison. Couples, distant lovers, and those seeking love write their names on Vanushka's tomb so the lady will help them. Her love story ended badly -- he married someone else and she killed herself -- but her ghost-spirit-whatever wants to help others avoid her sorrow.
Lastly, smack in the middle of the cemetery there's a big yellow wall. It's a monument to the fallen soldiers of the revolution of 1897. Remember how I wrote about Quetzaltenango trying to be it's own country, the sixth state of Central America? This is a monument to that struggle.
"The love of liberty made them heroes."
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