I got to Haiti on Saturday, so I missed Holloween in the States. However, I didn’t feel too bad because I got to experience the Ghede Day of the Dead festivities. According to Wikipedia, the Ghede are “are the family of spirits that embody the powers of death and fertility.” We had a great time going from ceremony to ceremony, encountering some which were very uncharacteristically civil, to those which were downright raucous.

We ended up at the disheveled Port-au-Prince cemetary where thousands had gathered to respect the dead and buried, and pay tribute to the Ghede spirits. We even got briefly lost amongst the maze of tombstones and had to ask folks to show us the way out.

View more pictures. Anpil Foto!

Relatd Links:

Guédé - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guédé

HaitiXchange Teledjòl Forum | GHEDE / All Saints-All Souls
http://www.haitixchange.com/index.php/forums/viewthread/5644/

Fete Ghede, or, Day of the Dead
http://www.lyalls.net/haiti/ghede.html