Reading Places Essay

669 Words3 Pages
Reading Places For many people here in America, a graveyard is nothing else but a place where dead people are buried for the rest of the eternity, buried 6 feet underground with a headstone that reads RIP, and few flowers on the vase. While other peoples, especially those from Latin-American countries, a graveyard is not only considered a place of burials but it is also a place for social festivities, and other miscellaneous rituals. It is not indeed an artistic nor educational place or architecturally rich it is rather a simple landmark that holds memories and lifeless bodies of people like you and me. November 1st, 1985. In a small town in Peru, it is again time to celebrate The Day of The Dead. Mom and other women from church were invited to participate in the praying rituals for the dead. I asked mom to take me along with her, and after several requests she finally agreed. When we arrived in the cemetery, the first thing I noticed was the delighting smell of the environment; it was obvious that the smell was generated by the abundance of flowers – especially roses, candles, and coca leaves that were sold by a group of sellers outside the cemetery. The majority of the attendees were indigenous people who loved to chew on coca leaves- it is part of their identity. Approaching toward the main entrance of the cemetery, I saw neither a special design nor fancy decorations anywhere around it. It was rather intimidating, ugly, rough, and scary looking, with a huge dark brown door that squeaked every time it opened and closed. In addition, it remained dusty and smelled to some type of grease. The whole cemetery had the shape of a trapezoid surrounded by tall walls made out of mud and hay bricks. Inside the cemetery, the scene was even spookier than the entrance. The entire place was dirt; in fact, almost every grave was covered with dirt and small rocks. It
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