marcha funebre

I've done many things and experienced a lot in Guatemala, but yesterday it occurred to me that I'd never witnessed one of life's milestones in a culture other than mine.
Monday, while I was internally complaining about the uncertainties of the status of my article-writing and entitling myself to chocolate, a woman from Llanos de la Cruz was killed, hit by the bus she was hailing down. I learned of this tragic event Tuesday morning when I went to work at the Oficina, and I went with Eunice and 2 other ladies to pay a visit to the family and give our condolences (sit shiva, in a sense).
The dark mahogany-colored casket was in the main room of the house surrounded with large white candles and flower wreaths. People were grieving beside the casket of Dona Rosa, a 58 year old indigenous lady who left behind 5 children (ages going from 8 to 20), a husband that was just operated on his head, siblings, and parents. That room gave onto the internal patio, where dozens of women from the community were bustling about wrapping tamales, slicing beef, chopping carrots, and stirring beans. A sarabanda, a group of older men playing brass and percussion instruments, was playing funeral marches extremely loudly to accompany the family in their sorrow and the soul in its ascent to God. Eunice went over to comfort the older daughter who was heaving and weeping, her hands full of corn masa from the tamales. Needless to say, the atmosphere was heavy and glum, loudly transgressed by the sarabanda. Mariachis or such a band is customary during funeral preparations here, and it felt out of place to me because my culture doesn't associate the 'major' key with a mournful ambiance. All the women gather to prepare a gigantic traditional lunch of beef soup and tamales for the entire community, to thank everyone for participating and supporting the family; it's the families' utmost preoccupation to make sure their guests are well-fed and satisfied to thank them properly. It's quite costly and everything is made in huge cooking pots. Mass in the community was at 3pm and the procession to the Xela cemetery was at 4. I went to the cemetery in the afternoon. All the women were dressed in their best traje and men in their best suit to honor the dead. The cemetery is somewhat of a tourist visitation site because of how incredibly different it is from Western cultures. Nearer the entrance are large mausoleums with lots of embellishments, colors, and family names, and as the cemetery stretches onward, the graves start getting smaller and shorter and simpler. Rosa was being buried almost at the way end of the cemetery, where some graves had no stone, just a simple painted cross above an elevated mound of dirt. I also saw a couple of graves where the dead was 19 or 10 years old, something I'd never really seen in the rare occasions I've been to cemeteries. The family was wailing softly while the priest led the congregation into prayer and the casket was prepared to be lowered, a daughter was screaming "No quiero dejarte aqui". After twenty minutes or so Eunice and I walked away amongst the rising broken voices singing a psalm to lift the soul to God. It was a bright but cloudy day, the completely uncovered volcan Santa Maria majestic in the distance like an omen of hope.