The Associated Press
MEXICO CITY —The altar shows a diminutive figure of a skeleton in a face mask and medical cap, with a hand on a bedridden patient. At its side is the sort of skull made of sugar common on Day of the Dead altars. And behind is the photo of a white-haired 64-year-old man in glasses smiling at the camera: the late Dr. Jose Luis Linares.
© Provided by NBC News
Linares is one of more than 1,700 Mexican health workers officially known to have died of COVID-19 who are being honored with three days of national mourning on these Days of the Dead.
Linares attended to patients at a private clinic in a poor neighborhood in the southern part of the city, usually charging about 30 pesos (roughly $1.50) a consultation. Because he didn’t work at an official COVID-19 center, his family doesn’t qualify for the assistance the government gives to medical personnel stricken by the disease, his widow said
“I told him, ‘Luis, don’t go to work.’ But he told me, ‘Then who is going to see those poor people,’” said his widow, Dr. María del Rosario Martínez. She said he had taken precautions against the disease because of lungs damaged by an earlier illness.
In addition to the usual marigolds and paper cutouts for Day of the Dead altars, hers this year includes little skeleton figures shown doing consultations or surgeries in honor of colleagues who have died.
It’s echoed in many parts of a country that as of September, according to Amnesty International, had lost more medical professionals to the coronavirus than any other nation.
They include people like nurse Jose Valencia, and Dr. Samuel Silva Montenegro of Mexico City, whose images rest atop altars in the homes of loved ones in Mexico City,
Martínez's altar is in a living room beside a room in their apartment where she and her husband gave consultations. Martínez, who also fell ill but recovered, now sees patients only online or by phone.
Linares died May 25 after being hospitalized at a peak of infections in Mexico City. Martínez lost consciousness at the news, but when she came to, she found her only son and her sister were hugging her. “Don’t touch me, don’t touch me!” she yelled, fearing they too would be infected.
At the peak of her own illness, she trekked from saturated hospital to overflowing clinic, looking for help.
Martínez, 59, said she now feels better, and at peace, though not resigned to the loss of her husband of 36 years, who she first met as a girl selling gum outside a movie theater to help support her eight brothers and sisters.
“I feel strange,” she said. “But I owe it to the patients and they are going to help me get through this.” She said, though, that she expects to work fewer hours.
“I’m afraid because we don’t know how much immunity you’re doing to have, how long it will work,” she said. “The illness is very hard, very cruel. ... All over the world, we are going to have a very sad story to tell.”
Mexico has reported more than 924,000 confirmed coronavirus infections and nearly 140.000 deaths listed as confirmed or probable, though experts say the actual numbers are likely significantly higher.
Still Martinez has found comfort in Mexico’s Day of the Dead practices.
“According to the traditions and beliefs, he is going to come here, accompany us, and he is going to be happy that I am thinking of him in this moment.”
Linares is one of more than 1,700 Mexican health workers officially known to have died of COVID-19 who are being honored with three days of national mourning on these Days of the Dead.
Linares attended to patients at a private clinic in a poor neighborhood in the southern part of the city, usually charging about 30 pesos (roughly $1.50) a consultation. Because he didn’t work at an official COVID-19 center, his family doesn’t qualify for the assistance the government gives to medical personnel stricken by the disease, his widow said
“I told him, ‘Luis, don’t go to work.’ But he told me, ‘Then who is going to see those poor people,’” said his widow, Dr. María del Rosario Martínez. She said he had taken precautions against the disease because of lungs damaged by an earlier illness.
In addition to the usual marigolds and paper cutouts for Day of the Dead altars, hers this year includes little skeleton figures shown doing consultations or surgeries in honor of colleagues who have died.
It’s echoed in many parts of a country that as of September, according to Amnesty International, had lost more medical professionals to the coronavirus than any other nation.
They include people like nurse Jose Valencia, and Dr. Samuel Silva Montenegro of Mexico City, whose images rest atop altars in the homes of loved ones in Mexico City,
Martínez's altar is in a living room beside a room in their apartment where she and her husband gave consultations. Martínez, who also fell ill but recovered, now sees patients only online or by phone.
Linares died May 25 after being hospitalized at a peak of infections in Mexico City. Martínez lost consciousness at the news, but when she came to, she found her only son and her sister were hugging her. “Don’t touch me, don’t touch me!” she yelled, fearing they too would be infected.
At the peak of her own illness, she trekked from saturated hospital to overflowing clinic, looking for help.
Martínez, 59, said she now feels better, and at peace, though not resigned to the loss of her husband of 36 years, who she first met as a girl selling gum outside a movie theater to help support her eight brothers and sisters.
“I feel strange,” she said. “But I owe it to the patients and they are going to help me get through this.” She said, though, that she expects to work fewer hours.
“I’m afraid because we don’t know how much immunity you’re doing to have, how long it will work,” she said. “The illness is very hard, very cruel. ... All over the world, we are going to have a very sad story to tell.”
Mexico has reported more than 924,000 confirmed coronavirus infections and nearly 140.000 deaths listed as confirmed or probable, though experts say the actual numbers are likely significantly higher.
Still Martinez has found comfort in Mexico’s Day of the Dead practices.
“According to the traditions and beliefs, he is going to come here, accompany us, and he is going to be happy that I am thinking of him in this moment.”
Corpses lie unclaimed on Day of the Dead in violent Mexican state
By Josue Gonzalez, Daina Beth Solomon
VIDEO https://www.reuters.com/video/?videoId=OVD2QR48X&jwsource=em
CHILPANCINGO, Mexico (Reuters) - For Ben Yehuda Martinez, head of forensic services in the violence-torn Mexican state of Guerrero, there is more to celebrating Day of the Dead than arranging a colorful altar with flowers and photos.
It means trying to identify 428 bodies currently unclaimed at the state’s forensic cemetery, most of them victims of crime.
“Trying to find out their identities ... that’s the greatest recognition we can get on the Day of the Dead,” Martinez said at one of Mexico’s newest facilities for unidentified bodies.
The latest official count of people listed as disappeared reached 73,000 this year. Most are believed to be victims of drug cartel turf wars, casting a shadow over the typically festive Nov. 1-2 Day of the Dead holiday.
For families who spend months or years searching for vanished relatives, the possibility of death is often hard to accept, said Arturo Gerardo Cervantes, a forensic adviser for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
“They never lose hope of finding their loved ones alive,” he said.
Still, once there is proof, it can bring closure.
For one family looking for a missing young woman, that proof came from her feet. Relatives fondly recalled how she would put up her feet on the coffee table while watching television.
About 60%-70% of the dead examined by Guerrero’s forensic team are shooting victims. Others died in incidents ranging from natural disasters to car crashes. Workers are at pains to treat them with dignity.
On Friday, a priest led a ceremony to commemorate their lives alongside a wreath of golden marigolds, the traditional Day of the Dead flower, before sprinkling holy water upon numbered compartments stacked four rows high.
The scene was a contrast to those playing out at ordinary cemeteries around Mexico, where families pay tribute to deceased relatives with festive picnics and elaborate decorations.
The cemetery opened in 2017 to relieve overcrowding at forensic facilities caused by record levels of violence.
With ICRC assistance, officials designed the site to accommodate bodies individually, rather than putting several into one grave. The facility holds up to 1,120 in individual tombs.
Each has a plaque with a person’s case number, so families can easily retrieve bodies once they are identified.
That requires specialists in matching distinguishing features such as teeth, fingerprints, birthmarks and DNA. Such people are in short supply.
“Here the violence truly, like everywhere else, hasn’t slowed down ... bodies arrive every day,” Martinez said. “This is a never-ending story.”
Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon in Mexico City and Josue Gonzalez in Chilpancingo; Editing by Lisa Shumaker
Spanish families mark Day of the Dead separately amid COVID-19 fears
By Guillermo Martinez
MADRID (Reuters) - Spanish families who normally honour their dead relatives by visiting cemeteries on the Day of the Dead are spacing out their visits this year as a second wave of coronavirus sweeps the country.
Authorities have advised families to spend only 30 minutes at graveyards and not to go in large groups to mark the event, which is linked to the Catholic holidays of All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day at the start of November.
“Our family is coming separately, two or three days apart. We are the last to visit,” said Francisco Gonzalez, 81, who visited the Almudena cemetery in Madrid with his wife.
Flower sellers said many people are staying away, meaning fewer sales of bouquets to place at graves.
Yolanda Gomez, a florist who has her stall at the entrance to Almudena, said sales of flowers had fallen by 50% this year.
Spain imposed a six-month state of emergency last week enabling it to impose measures aimed at trying to reduce the soaring rate of coronavirus infections, including night curfews.
By Josue Gonzalez, Daina Beth Solomon
VIDEO https://www.reuters.com/video/?videoId=OVD2QR48X&jwsource=em
CHILPANCINGO, Mexico (Reuters) - For Ben Yehuda Martinez, head of forensic services in the violence-torn Mexican state of Guerrero, there is more to celebrating Day of the Dead than arranging a colorful altar with flowers and photos.
It means trying to identify 428 bodies currently unclaimed at the state’s forensic cemetery, most of them victims of crime.
“Trying to find out their identities ... that’s the greatest recognition we can get on the Day of the Dead,” Martinez said at one of Mexico’s newest facilities for unidentified bodies.
The latest official count of people listed as disappeared reached 73,000 this year. Most are believed to be victims of drug cartel turf wars, casting a shadow over the typically festive Nov. 1-2 Day of the Dead holiday.
For families who spend months or years searching for vanished relatives, the possibility of death is often hard to accept, said Arturo Gerardo Cervantes, a forensic adviser for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
“They never lose hope of finding their loved ones alive,” he said.
Still, once there is proof, it can bring closure.
For one family looking for a missing young woman, that proof came from her feet. Relatives fondly recalled how she would put up her feet on the coffee table while watching television.
About 60%-70% of the dead examined by Guerrero’s forensic team are shooting victims. Others died in incidents ranging from natural disasters to car crashes. Workers are at pains to treat them with dignity.
On Friday, a priest led a ceremony to commemorate their lives alongside a wreath of golden marigolds, the traditional Day of the Dead flower, before sprinkling holy water upon numbered compartments stacked four rows high.
The scene was a contrast to those playing out at ordinary cemeteries around Mexico, where families pay tribute to deceased relatives with festive picnics and elaborate decorations.
The cemetery opened in 2017 to relieve overcrowding at forensic facilities caused by record levels of violence.
With ICRC assistance, officials designed the site to accommodate bodies individually, rather than putting several into one grave. The facility holds up to 1,120 in individual tombs.
Each has a plaque with a person’s case number, so families can easily retrieve bodies once they are identified.
That requires specialists in matching distinguishing features such as teeth, fingerprints, birthmarks and DNA. Such people are in short supply.
“Here the violence truly, like everywhere else, hasn’t slowed down ... bodies arrive every day,” Martinez said. “This is a never-ending story.”
Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon in Mexico City and Josue Gonzalez in Chilpancingo; Editing by Lisa Shumaker
In Frida Kahlo's old home, Day of the Dead 'offering' honors artists felled by pandemics
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A traditional Day of the Dead “offering” in Frida Kahlo’s iconic home in Mexico City has taken on a wider artistic homage, with an exhibition helped by French designer Jean Paul Gaultier also remembering artists who have died in past pandemics.
Mexico’s Day of the Dead festival blends Catholic rituals with the pre-Hispanic belief that the dead return once a year from the underworld, and seeks to celebrate the continuity of life.
Traditionally, Mexicans build Day of the Dead altars in their homes and outside, where they place pictures of the dead and items they enjoyed in life.
In Kahlo’s “Blue House,” which is now a museum, organizers put together an offering titled “The Restored Table: Memory and Reencounter,” in collaboration with Gaultier, who was a huge fan of the iconic Mexican artist. The offering included pictures of famed artists who died in previous pandemics, including Italian painter Tiziano, who passed away in 1576 when the plague ravaged Venice, and Austria’s Gustav Klimt, who died from the Spanish flu in 1918.
“It’s an interesting experience,” said Mariyah Efimova, a Russian tourist in the Mexican capital.
The offering included an homage to Mexican artist Manuel Felguérez, who died from COVID-19, and marigolds, known in Mexico as “the flower of the dead” for a scent believed to be strong and sweet enough to attract souls and draw them back.
Edna Romero, a mask-wearing visitor, said it was important for her family to learn about Kahlo and Mexican traditions such as Day of the Dead despite the tough times during the coronavirus pandemic.
“It’s very interesting and very cool,” said Romero. “I hope it will be a respite.”
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A traditional Day of the Dead “offering” in Frida Kahlo’s iconic home in Mexico City has taken on a wider artistic homage, with an exhibition helped by French designer Jean Paul Gaultier also remembering artists who have died in past pandemics.
Mexico’s Day of the Dead festival blends Catholic rituals with the pre-Hispanic belief that the dead return once a year from the underworld, and seeks to celebrate the continuity of life.
Traditionally, Mexicans build Day of the Dead altars in their homes and outside, where they place pictures of the dead and items they enjoyed in life.
In Kahlo’s “Blue House,” which is now a museum, organizers put together an offering titled “The Restored Table: Memory and Reencounter,” in collaboration with Gaultier, who was a huge fan of the iconic Mexican artist. The offering included pictures of famed artists who died in previous pandemics, including Italian painter Tiziano, who passed away in 1576 when the plague ravaged Venice, and Austria’s Gustav Klimt, who died from the Spanish flu in 1918.
“It’s an interesting experience,” said Mariyah Efimova, a Russian tourist in the Mexican capital.
The offering included an homage to Mexican artist Manuel Felguérez, who died from COVID-19, and marigolds, known in Mexico as “the flower of the dead” for a scent believed to be strong and sweet enough to attract souls and draw them back.
Edna Romero, a mask-wearing visitor, said it was important for her family to learn about Kahlo and Mexican traditions such as Day of the Dead despite the tough times during the coronavirus pandemic.
“It’s very interesting and very cool,” said Romero. “I hope it will be a respite.”
By Guillermo Martinez
MADRID (Reuters) - Spanish families who normally honour their dead relatives by visiting cemeteries on the Day of the Dead are spacing out their visits this year as a second wave of coronavirus sweeps the country.
Authorities have advised families to spend only 30 minutes at graveyards and not to go in large groups to mark the event, which is linked to the Catholic holidays of All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day at the start of November.
“Our family is coming separately, two or three days apart. We are the last to visit,” said Francisco Gonzalez, 81, who visited the Almudena cemetery in Madrid with his wife.
Flower sellers said many people are staying away, meaning fewer sales of bouquets to place at graves.
Yolanda Gomez, a florist who has her stall at the entrance to Almudena, said sales of flowers had fallen by 50% this year.
Spain imposed a six-month state of emergency last week enabling it to impose measures aimed at trying to reduce the soaring rate of coronavirus infections, including night curfews.
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