Feast of All Souls

Here in Ecuador there is a blending of church, tradition and culture.  All of the religious holidays have a strong cultural component.

The Feast of All Souls Day that we celebrated this month is a good example.  There is a Mass, and reading out of the names of all the dead one wishes to be prayed for in the cemetary.  Then individual tombs are blessed. 

The thing that makes this feast unique for a lot of South and Central America is the great devotion to loved ones who have passed.  There are four-hour lines in the bus terminals to get a bus on All Souls Day as everyone travels to be with family.  Sometimes no transportation is posible as all the buses are full to capacity.  Everyone visits the cemetary where family members are buried.  The families clean the grave site the week before and then all the family spends the day around the graves of their loved ones.  There is food and drink (a dark purple fruit juice is typical only this day) available to all.  There is occasionally music as well.  The cemetery is so full that you have a long wait just to be able to get to the cemetery chaple to pray.

Typically the people in Ecuador pray at the house of the deceased for eight days after a death, have a monthly mass and family get together, and give out bread to all at the one year anniversary of the death.  Some families will not have the money for a stone so save up money and years after the death of a loved one they put up the tombstone. 

I believe this tradition is a reflection of the great devotion that the people have to family here.  Parents with large families sacrifice everything to give their children the best they are able to.

The devotion to family here is an example of hard work and sacrifice to help others that I am trying to learn to imitate.