Flights

DAY OF THE DEAD

The guidebook maintains that this holiday lasts for three days. When it falls in the middle of the week, the government rounds out the length of the holiday’s duration, and schools and public offices get a whole week off. Radio stations broadcast without interruption the music of Chopin, since it is thought that this favours concentration and serious reflection. It is expected that every inhabitant of the country will visit in this time the graves of their dead. Since the country has over the course of the last twenty years gone through an unprecedented boom and industrialization, this means that almost all the residents of several of the large modern cities set out for distant provinces. All the flights and trains and buses have been reserved for months. Those who weren’t quick enough before will now be forced to drive to the graves of their ancestors in their own cars. On the eve of the holiday the roads out of the cities are already congested. Because the holiday is in August, sitting in a traffic jam in high temperatures is not much fun. Therefore people, anticipating all sorts of inconveniences, come equipped with small portable plasma TVs and coolers. If you close the tinted windows and turn on the AC, you can get through those few hours, particularly in the pleasant company of family or friends, with a travelling buffet. This is a time people make phone calls. Thanks to the fact that mobile phones are being used everywhere for video connections, you can make up the distances in social contacts. You can even, sitting in a traffic jam this way, connect with your friends through videoconferences, gossip and make plans to meet up after everyone gets back home.

To ancestral spirits one brings gifts: cookies baked especially for this purpose, fruit, prayers written on pieces of material.

Those who remain in the cities experience very strange sensations: the giant shopping centres are closed and even the huge screens with advertisements are turned off for this period. The number of metros is reduced, and some stations are completely shut down (for example, University and Stock Exchange). Fast food restaurants and nightclubs are closed. The city is so empty that this year the authorities decided to stop the electronically controlled system of city fountains, which is expected to bring massive savings.