BEACON

Celia told me that yellow daisies are what people like the most. I found Celia outside the entrance to the cemetery. She was surrounded by flowers, and she watched and waited as one by one, mourners came to the iron gates, paid her 6 or 7 pesos for a bouquet of yellow, and walked down the dirt path to find their family tomb. The mourners seemed to walk slower than usual. Few people are in a rush to get to death, I suppose.

Ciénaga, a town on Colombia’s Caribbean coast, has two places for people to go when death happens to them: one is called Cemetery of the Rich, and one is called Cemetery of the Poor. A personal essay on visiting the tombs with a local Cienaguero named Benedicto, inequality in Colombia, and mourning. Continue reading on Beacon…