Yesterday I made an unexpected visit to a cemetery in Nejapa, a municipality in the department of San Salvador. The uncle, who was really more of a father, of an activist compañera here passed away, so we spent the afternoon at the burial. Nejapa is a very poor, incredibly dangerous area; recently, this friend had to abruptly depart one afternoon so as not to end up on the bus after dark.
The cemetery itself was beautiful--we seemed to have chosen the wrong place for Día de los Difuntos, because here all the graves were decked out like christmas trees. It was lovely.
The burial was a super strange experience for me. A whole crowd (noticeably more women and children than adult men) gathered around the gravesite. People didn't wear black, no one was particularly dressed up, though some wore lace scarves over their heads. There was lots of peripheral chatting, even cell-phones out among the close relatives of the deceased, children running around. I guess the family belonged to one of the many evangelical sects that draws on old testament insignia; the ceremony was lead by this guy in a Kippa, who i guess was a minister, and his crew of a couple guys, also in kippas, and a couple women wearing the lace scarves over their hair. He read from the bible, new testament mostly it seemed, and they sang without accompaniment (or adherence to tune, really). There was a lot of talk about how life and death make sense when you believe in jesus, otherwise all is meaningless, how death with jesus is a gift...no one actually talked about the deceased, though I'm sure there's a space for that in the pre- or post-burial gatherings. While the minister spoke, male relatives prepared the grave site and female relatives arranged flowers on the grace. Before the interment, the coffin was opened and folks cycled through to see the face. I saw one relative pulled out a digital camera and took a picture. Back where I was standing (we all were arranged between and on top of the many surrounding graves) a woman collapsed.
