LIMA, Peru (AP) – A young woman caresses the grey marble urn containing her father’s ashes, other urns are seated, like people, placed in the seats of a bus that delivers them to their loved ones.
Burying a culture for both the indigenous Inca culture of Peru and the Spanish who colonized the country, but to avoid infection and gain space in the crowded cemeteries of the capital, other people began to incinerate the dead, fundamentally converting the rites and cultures surrounding death. .
Associated Press photographer Rodrigo Abd visited the awards houses to document how they created spaces for the remains of their loved ones. Many mourners were still in shock, shocked by the death of their mother, father, sister, brother or son, and by the unforeseen want a post for their ashes in the space where they had lived.
Some have created shrines for the dead, in places they enjoyed to the fullest inside their homes, others placed the ashes in an area of transitoryness waiting for burial in a cemetery, sitting next to everyday items such as bike portions or in a shoemaker.
Some say they like to have the ashes handy, where they can place new flowers or place food and drinks near the remains they have enjoyed; for others, the urn becomes the middle of an empty space, a reminder of their pain. and inability to perpetuate centuries-old traditions.
The ashes of Alejandro Flores Rojas, 76, lie tires, gears and equipment in his son’s bike shop.
“For now, my dad will stay here in the workshop because those days I don’t have time to place him in a major position,” said the 36-year-old son, Leonardo Neto Flores.
The urn with the ashes of a 68-year-old woman is located in a small room where she lived with her husband, the walls are covered in cardboard and there is some room to move between the bed and the table that bears the urn of María Cristina Carmen. Her husband, Rolando Yarlequé, who works as a carpenter, plans a food sale in the community to raise cash to buy a position in a cemetery.
Yarlequé, an evangelical Christian, said he waits for the day when he can bury his wife’s ashes, as required through his resurrection.
“God willing, he’ll give it back to me and we’ll see someone else back in a paradise where there are no tears or pains,” he said.