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FORTRESS STREET WHEN PENCO remember their dead

P or the reasons that the authorities had Penco of those years, it was decided to establish the cemetery on the site currently occupied. It opened a space on the hillside surrounded by forest, because it should be - and began arrive with the first dead relatives. The perimeter was open, so you could enter anywhere. Like a barbed wire fence was inadequate, it raised the option of building niches, the servants of the wall. However, these walls always had large gaps created by the successive tremors and earthquakes.

The cemetery was in charge of the parish pencona, Catholic as the site excluded the deceased who had professed another faith in Christianity. This created problems. Where to bury the evangelicals? Some were buried just outside the perimeter, waiting for a review. Some stayed there forever.

But this is not the subject of this note. It is an attempt to remember how the people of Penco reminisced their dead every first of November. In the forties and fifties, the cemetery was half surrounded by the southern and western flank of dense pine forests. Only the prospects of the north and east remained clear. The wind crept among the towering pines creating that sound, its like a dark whisper. To go to the cemetery had to climb a narrow path crossing the forest. On breaks, crosses nailed to the trunks of the pines, the sad, powerful sound of the wind created the right psychological climate that preceded the arrival of a cemetery. A saying popular then, something cruel, to indicate that someone was near death was "ready to go to the farm with pines."

only twice a year Penco children stood before the sun will line: murtilla to go to Easter and to visit the cemetery on the first of November. Had powers: who came early to the place. The funny thing was that those early competitors as soon reached their destination they realized that people were already repairing the tombs and florists displaying their branches in the door.

The cemetery became a walk to visit the graves of loved ones and friends gone from this world. In the alleys was intense social activity. There was people who had not seen for a long time. The surrounding forests became a recreational environment, where hundreds of families to picnic and spend the holiday by sharing with others, having left flowers.

allowed forests protected from scorching sun of November, children scampered among the pines and the biggest advantage of slopes and slides to slide in "chalaca." The few trees left sufficient space for impromptu soccer games, in which all family members took part.

addition to the above informal trade flourished. Housewives became enthusiastic cooks delicious fried pies. But the product that were sold nalcas, some very fine and thin stems to which small farmers added lots of salt. Tan

informal traders were these improvised it was not surprising to hear offers like this: "Come children to buy, try the novelty of the day to ten pesos: nalcas with salt or if you want also I have sweet with sugar."

So passed the first of November and happy family, Penco everything became one big family gathered around the memories and images not forgotten loved ones.