All Saint´s Day Part 2

All Saint’s Day was the one year anniversary of Aurora 8 de Octubre. We celebrated with a church service and building blessings which began at 10pm. In the midst of the serivice, after the creed, the women entered the church silently through the side door with thin taper candles glowing in the dimness of the church. They kneeled before the credence table first, followed by the backwall table and then the altar. Dressed in their traditional shirts and croqueted shirts, most were bearfoot which seemed appropriate for the cermony as they were blessing the church as holy ground, they prayed and left three bowls at each of the three tables... one bowl had bread, one had chicken and I believe the third contained picante. The women brought insence around to each table and then as they concluded left their taper candles on the floor (melt the bottom and it will stand).

When they were down the elders, four men, unwrapped four huge balls of incense and gave everyone a small taper candle. They also had 5 large candles, 4 blue and one white. We all went outside together, men, women, children- those that were not asleep on the church floor at their mother’s feet next to other children- and foreigners. The elders set fire to the insence in a huge kettle inside a space of three walls of palms knees high—the flames were as tall as me and the smoke was pungenant. All prayed outloud or to themselves. It must have been a designated prayer because they all ended at once (it was not in spanish or english). They lit the five big candles and all the small candles were lite from the light of those and them from one another. Into the stillness of the night, four bombs were sent skyward telling the community about the anniversary.

We re-entered the church singing “Together with Brothers and Sisters in Christ” each places our candle on the floor before one of the three tables. The four blue candles were placed in the corners of the church complete with blessing, more incense and water from a palm branch. The white candle was placed in the center of the church. The candles burned until sunrise, we went on with the communion litury and then after two and a half hours were fed another full meal at midnight.
November 2nd was our last day in Aurora 8 de Octubre and was spent being with one another and the members of Ocho. That evening the parish held a cultural evening for us. We listened to songs about their history that they had written and danced. At first the women from the community danced alone and then later on they asked if the women of the delegation would dance with them... to be honest I felt huge being so much taller than the women, and frankly I have no clue how to dance to a marimba. I felt like we were umpa- lumpas from Willie Wonka. The dancing continued, and continued... women could dance with women, men from the community could dance with foreign women, Scotty danced with some of the young ladies not yet married, the little girls would dance with us and the boys would dance with our men. The sociology of the event was very interesting. Thank you’s were also exchanged...