Last Thursday, November 1, I stopped to look at some altares set up under the portico of the Palacio Estatal (“state palace” of Veracruz state) after going to the cajero (ATM) in downtown Xalapa so that I could pay my rent, which was due that day--more about this later. Crowds of people were moving from altar to altar to view the differences between the altars from different cities in the state of Veracruz.

At one point, I encountered an old man holding out his hat, asking for money from passersby. He managed to maintain his dignity nevertheless, which showed in his calm demeanor and the way he looked people in the eye as they approached him. I stopped and began looking for coins at the bottom of the large canvas bag I was using for a purse. I fished and fished for my coin purse but couldn’t find it. As I was fishing, I assured him I had money to give him but it was taking me some time to find it. Then the old man said to me, more or less: “No te preocupes. A veces se puede, y otras veces, no se puede.” (“Don’t worry. Sometimes one is able [to give], and at other times, one is not.”)

At that point, I gave up looking and thanked him for his understanding, walking away feeling that he had shared his abundance with me.
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Directly across from the Palacio Estatal where the Día de los Muertos altars were displayed is Xalapa’s cathedral, whose congregation is deep in celebration of a former bishop, Rafael Guízar y Valencia, whose body is entombed in a crypt within the cathedral and who was beatified on January 29, 1995, by Pope John Paul II. Margarita tells me he is expected to be granted sainthood soon.

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I mentioned above that I went to an ATM (automated teller machine, or cajero in Spanish) to draw out money to pay my rent. (I pay $400 US for a two-bedroom apartment here in Xalapa.) I discovered that I could only withdraw $3,000 pesos ($280 US) on a single day here in Mexico. I tried going to a cajero from a different bank, but I got the message that I'd already withdrawn my daily limit.

I ended up going to my landlady, Doña Atala, explaining to her daughter Samantha the problem I'd encountered, and paying my rent a day late.

Yesterday I spent the afternoon at Pery’s mother’s house. (Pery is my Fulbright mentor at the Centro de Idiomas here in Xalapa.) She invited me to join her and her mother in making tamales for El Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), November 2.

Making tamales is definitely not a project undertaken lightly. They take a lot of time, effort and skill to make but—boy, oh, boy!—they’re worth it! And Doña Estela, Pery’s mother, is a good one to learn from because of her many years of experience and her high culinary standards. She said she doesn’t make tamales often any more, but she really went whole hog yesterday, making four different kinds with the help of Pery and her household helper Nay and my meager contribution:

• tamales de chile con pollo (chicken in a delicious sauce made of several different kinds of chiles, tomato, and other ingredients);


• tamales de queso (two different kinds of cheese, in this case) with epizote and chiles jalapeños;


• tamales con frijoles gordos (similar to lima beans), pepinos (pumpkin seeds heated in a pan until they puff up and turn golden), y cilantro; and


• tamales de verduras (vegetables that in this case included carrots, green beans, potatoes, and chayote).

It was such a pleasure to spend time with Doña Estela in her kitchen, watching her work, listening to her explanations of how tamales should be made, and basking in her warmth and her dry sense of humor. Pery clearly takes after her.

The whole complex process of making tamales reminded me of preparing Thanksgiving dinner: the women working in the kitchen (it lacked the men watching American football on TV); the wonderful smells emanating from pots and pans covering every burner of the stove; and the chopping, shredding, beating, cooking, steaming, and assembling of ingredients into wonderful dishes that we wait the whole year for.

El Día de los Muertos is about more than just tamales, of course. I encourage you to read this webpage to learn about the idea behind El Día de los Muertos in México. As it explains:

The celebration goes through the night, when ‘throughout the cemetery, there is a grand family reunion of huge extended families, alive and dead, as one by one, through stories, memories and dreams, the dead return. On this night, those who wait realize the importance of living to be well remembered, working to be well respected, and loving to be well missed.’

I especially love the idea that the aromas of the tamales, chocolate, and other favorite foods and drinks of deceased loved ones tempt and guide their spirits back to their families for this one day of the year. These foods and drinks are placed on altares erected in most homes and many businesses. In this photo, you can see the altar in Doña Estela's home. (Pery told me she was a little dismayed that her niece had included a border with a Halloween motif--jack-o-lanterns--above the altar, but her niece failed to see a problem. Speaking of Halloween, I think the Hollywood spin on Halloween as a night of terror has changed the character of that U.S. holiday in unsavory ways since I was a kid back in the mists of time.)

I think this is a holiday my gringo family could easily embrace because we love our father, Murray King—who died at 54 in 1974—so much. If we could entice his gentle, humorous spirit to be with us even more vividly on this day than he is on other days, what wouldn’t we do? I for one would build an altar in the Mexican tradition and place on it his favorite foods (which, to be honest, only our mother could make) and drink and lots of books.

Ah, and then there are our grandparents and other dear relatives and friends we don’t want to forget and would like to draw closer to us.

I can see why this holiday is so well loved and carefully observed by Mexicans.