In Peru Mother’s Day is celebrated throughout the country on the second Sunday of each May. Peruvian mothers are honored with family meals, parties and showered with gifts.
There is a particularly popular location where Peruvians gather to socialize, over food and drinks, in honor of their mothers: the cemetery. Thousands gather at cemeteries in celebration of their deceased moms. Such was the case at The Angel Cemetery in the Barrios Altos section of Lima, Peru.
Just outside the gates of the cemetery the streets were alive with vendors selling flowers and heart-shaped “Feliz Dia Mama” (Happy Mother’s Day) balloons, to a throng of family members, young and old. The air was filled with warmth and laughter as women, children and men entered the cemetery and sought out the grave sites of their mothers. A common sight is that of men balanced on large ladders set up against multi-level mausoleums; they’re hired by families to clean and place flowers as well as balloons on hard-to-reach graves.
While for some visiting the cemetery is a solitary event, for others it is a social gathering used to catch up on the happenings of each other’s lives as they celebrate memories of their deceased mothers.
Visitors to The Angel Cemetery make their way to the burial sites of their mothers.
Evelyn Bravo Mascaro, 18, left, her mother Rosa Luz Mascaro, 40, center, and Maria Soledad Mascaro, 55, pay respect to their mother (Evelyn’s grandmother).
Margarita Taxa Segundino, 70, places flowers on the mausoleum of her mother.
Anna Maria Ruiz, left, Johnny Ruiz Fernandez, second to left, Zoila Angelica Ruiz, right-foreground, their father Wideman Ruiz Bueno, center-right, and Carlos Bustamante Ruiz (Zoila’s son) celebrate in memory of their mother (Widiman’s wife).
Visitors come and go just outside the entrance of the cemetery.
A woman takes flowers to her mother’s mausoleum.
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