Sola en Guatemala: Sundays in Xela

Towns shut down on Sunday. I had finished my language school, but wanted a few extra days in Xela to see some sights and finish my weaving class. I moved myself to a lovely pension, set in a renovated old house near the central park, and owned and run by a Dutch woman. I felt right at home checking in when one of her cats, Poes, hopped up and stood on the registration book as the owner was trying to sign me in. It turned out Poes needed me as much as I needed her, and whenever I would sit down, for breakfast or to use the pension's computer, Poes would get on my lap and start to purr, and she would snap at me if I tried to get up. We got along famously.

Breakfast at my lovely pension.

Poes the cat up for her morning lap.

Part I: Tiptoeing Past the Dead

Anyway, with all shops, museums, and almost all restaurants closed on Sunday, what is a tourist to do? I resolved to walk the city, poke into far-flung corners, and try to find out what the Guatemalans were doing. And this is how I found myself edging through the Xela cemetery, senses on alert, late in the afternoon on Sunday. Because it turns out that two of the most interesting things locals do on Sunday is 1.) They go to the huge open air market and 2.) They visit their dead relatives. And cemeteries in Latin countries are very, very interesting places.

First of all, I had been wanting to go to the cemetery all week, but did not have time, and the school had specifically warned us not to go alone. When you get there, and are walking alone down row after row of crypts and tombs, you see why. But on Sundays, it's a safer time to go, as the cemetery is full of families, couples strolling, kids kicking a ball around, and oh yes, funerals...

The cemetery is walled off from the rest of the city. I found the entrance by accident, thinking I had wandered into the flower-selling district (which I had) but then I put it together: flowers, Sunday, families busily buying bouquets...I was right outside the gates to the cemetery. I passed through a huge gate with wrought iron doors, and entered a long, tree-lined promenade. Rows of tombs cut off from the main paved street, and stretched as far as I could see. Many were very ornate, with angels and statues, family crests and flower holders. Some were faded glory: head-less angels, cracked marble, slanted bases, dead flowers. Some were just walls, with the tombs lined up like drawers, and each drawer painted a vibrant color. If you've never seen a Latin cemetery, they are wildly colorful.

The late afternoon sun slanted through the rows, and Volcan Santa Maria rose picturesquely to the south. The tree-lined promenade was full of people. As soon as I turned off it, however, following the grassy rows down a line of tombs, it quickly felt lonely, with just the occasional glimpse of another couple in a distant row, or a kid hand in hand with his father. In truth it felt creepy. The dead are very close in Latin cemeteries--not least of all because they are all above ground--but also because of the activity, the color, the chaos. People come here. There were bones. I knew they were animal bones, dragged in by stray dogs no doubt, but it still added to the feeling that the dead are close.

I didn't feel comfortable straying too far from the main promenade. I walked for a while, headed toward a hill in the distance. Just before reaching the hill, I passed through an opening in a second wall, this one low and simple. The scene changed abruptly. The graves became simple dirt mounds, packed close together. Some had markers, and flowers. Some had plain wooden crosses. Some had poppies or flowers growing on top. And some were fresh dirt mounds, unadorned, so sparsely mounded with dirt I feared I'd see something unwanted, like a dog digging or a hand sticking out. I had entered the cemetery of the common person, the graves of the poor. I wanted to turn around but I wanted to see. Smoke was drifting over the hill. I could see one or two groups of people sitting by grave sites, but it was otherwise eerily still. Finally I saw the source of the smoke: piles of burning grass. I put it together: fresh grass, fresh graves, fires that must be kept burning to keep up with the demand.

Flower vendors outside the gates.


This sign hung above the gate at the cemetery entrance: The memory of the living makes the life of the dead.

Colorful rows, but still eery.

A fancy tomb, gone to neglect. There are so many heads missing from statues around Xela that I kind of wonder where they all end up. Is there a big pile of statue heads in some thief's collection somewhere?

The common person graves.

The colors of the cemetery. Note the mounds of fresh grass from the new graves. These were the piles that were burning.

Part II: No Livelier Place

A good market in a Latin city is the source of endless fascination for me. As eery and somber as the cemetery is, the market is the polar opposite: a seething mass of humanity, fighting to sell every carrot, every pineapple. Pushing through the crowds, bargaining for every Quetzal saved on your sponges, calling out to your potential customers. In short, it is a fantastic place to watch the people go by. And folks were so busy with their buying and selling and bargain-hunting, I could at times simply stand to the back and take it all in, and hardly anyone glanced my way.

My favorite market scenes: