sugar skulls

Spent some time at El Centro this past week; first parent night, where I'm still kicking myself for not bringing my camera. The kids performed between presentations, the first one being where CP came out wearing a big "V" sandwich board, followed by an "O" and a "T" and an "E" and then launched into a rousing song and chant, half spanish half english (as was the rest of the night). A bunch of four year olds yelling VOTE, VOTE, VOTE! is a sight to behold. In between was halloween and then on the weekend was the "day of the dead" celebration, where the video is from. We don't have anything like it in our culture, where we take a day to honor the dead (on whose lives ours are built). We honor specific dead, like presidents or veterans, but no global civilian populist honoring of the dead. And god knows we all have them in our lives (and are moving in that general direction).