Purple Drank & Baby Bread

Yesterday marked a holiday that I have never celebrated before this year: “El Día de los Difuntos”, also known as “The Day of the Dead”. This holiday is more commonly associated with and celebrated it Mexico, but the tradition and practically national day off still spans most of South America. We decided not to close our Centro in the middle of the week and saw a surprising amount of kids and teens come in to hang out because 1) they were out of school, 2) didn’t want to go to the cemetery, or 3) coming to the Centro is just a natural daily activity for them! On the way to the Centro the streets were packed with vendors of all sorts selling anything from track pants and DVDs to food and flower arrangements. On they way out of the Centro was a completely different story. With the exception of a few cars, taxis, and bikes, the streets in Rumiloma were completely dead — no pun intended. After waiting almost 30 minutes for the bus that was not going to come, we piled into the back of a camioneta with the fews kids and adults who had been in the Centro and headed home, staying warm by sitting close together and talking about the warm Llapingachos (Emily’s speciality) that awaited us at home.

Also awaiting us at home were two friends from our Adult English classes, Ishmael and Ivo, who had come over to celebrate the holiday with us by making Colada Morada — the typical, purple fruit drink of this day — and Guagua de Pan — which literally translates into Baby Bread! Me and my gluten-free self had actually made some Pan de Guagua with Plaintain Flour earlier in the day, but chose to make them slightly more appropriate (aka. creepy) than the smiling babies from a nearby panaderia. It was really, really neat to share this experience with local Ecuadorians. And to make jokes about wanting the “babies” in our belly. Another friend, Christian, came over as we were finishing our first (and only, for most) portions of the colada and bread….which, he warned, apparently wasn’t enough. He went on to explain the story behind the tradition of making this food and told us that if we didn’t finish the Morada or eat our baby bread, the dead would come to us in our sleep and try to take us with them. At the very least we would have nightmares.

So maybe it was because there’s still a big container of Colada Morada in the fridge, or maybe because our Rooster starts crowing in 7-second intervals at 3am and animals fight on our roof, but multiple people in the house did not sleep well last night. However, I am happy to report that none of us went back with the dead. Which I think makes it a pretty successful holiday.

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