Wawa de Pan All of my life I’ve heard how Halloween was linked to this really scary holiday celebrated by tribes called Day of the dead. I always thought it was an evil thing. Obviously, there are some people who probably do take it to extremes, but here, in Ecuador, it is really a pretty cool tradition.

Halloween isn’t really celebrated here. A few people have started borrowing this tradition from the US, but for the most part, it is nothing. However, the following 2 days, Nov. 1 & 2 are really big deals. The celebration dates back to the Incas or even before. They call it “Dia de los muertos” which means “Day of the dead”.

On Nov. 1, the families gather and bake bread babies and decorate them to represent family members who have died. In the evening, everyone tells stories about that family member to help the memories continue. Then on the 2nd, everyone visits the grave sites and leaves food, flowers, etc. as gifts for their dead loved ones and they eat the bread babies. I’ll admit, it is a little odd, but it seems to be mostly about honoring and remembering your ancestors which is kinda cool.

I think it would be nice if we had a holiday that was about remembering our heritage like this instead of just trying to score tons of candy.