Celebrating Mexican Day of the Dead at Wahaca’s Fiesta
Many cultures around the world honour their dead relatives and ancestors with celebrations or ceremonies. In the Philipinnes, they build elaborate homes in cemeteries and families spend their weekends there.The Chinese celebrate the Hungry Ghost in the 7th lunar month. The Celts would offer food and drinks to appease spirits who are believed to return on All Hallows Eve, now known as Halloween.
In Mexico. they celebrate the Day of the Dead. This festival dates back to an ancient Aztec festival. Here in London, Wahaca put on a one day fiesta with Mexican food, music and art in Tobacco Dock.
My experience taking pictures with the Samsung S6
I was invited along by Three UK and Wahaca to be one of the official Instagrammers of the day. We were all given a Samsung S6 phone with access to their new 4G Super Voice service which brings better 4G signals to indoor venues. The phone has a bigger screen than my iPhone 5S and it doesn’t feel too big to hold. The image quality was superb. Since most of the events were indoor in dark rooms with strange lighting, I thought it would be difficult to get any sort of decent image. The camera on the phone was great at adjusting to the light. It took some high definition shots in tricky lighting. Taking actions photos of the wrestling was easy with the continuous option. If you like taking selfies, there is even a “Beauty” function when you turn on the reverse camera. I was quite impressed with the Samsung S6.
Together with other bloggers, Kasha, Erica, Leanne, India and Chris, we got stuck in with all that was on offer that day. The first thing was to get our face painted and some colourful flowery headdresses. It was great to see that most of the crowd was in colourful Mexican costumes.
There was Mexican street food galore, lots of different stalls and bars. We had fish tacos, Pork Pibili, Nachos and Churros with Chocolate.
A supper club hosted by Thomasina Miers and 2 star chef Enrique Olvera from Mexico. Only limited tickets to this was sold and they went really quickly.
Altars to fallen Mexican Journalists were set up with food and drink offerings and sugar skulls by the charity Periodistas de a Pié. This charity that helps Mexican journalists in danger, fight for freedom of speech. 10% of the proceeds of the day is being donated by Wahaca to this cause.
These images and skulls are of Ruben Espinosa who is a photo journalist who was killed along with 4 other colleagues for exposing some truths about local officials.
There were several Art Installations by the Saatchi Gallery dedicated to the Journalists killed in the line of duty.
And beautiful street art by a Mexican Street Artist, done the night before the event. This is about 10 feet tall, so that is no mean feat.
Other events and entertainment on the day
Fun for all the family.
Musical Bingo with the undead cast.
The Mexican Market with colourful wares, live tattooing sessions, chocolate chilli crickets and Frida Kahlo trinkets.
Through the day, there were talks on food, poetry and writing. Helena Bonham Carter made an appearance to read some poetry too.
This was also my introduction to the completely bonkers Mexican Wrestling Lucha Libre. Watching this ringside is quite an experience. I had a quick chat with Cassius (pictured here with his winner’s belt for Lucha Britannia.) They have just started hosting the UK version of this Mexican Wrestling.
All the wrestlers have strange names like the Viking, La Tigressa and Monkey. The fighting is real enough as there was blood and gouges. I have no idea how one wins but it was all action. You can even learn at their Lucha Britannia school in London.
Of course, there was music. We managed to sneak in to this as there was a massively long queue. There were 2 stages with a long line up of acts. We managed to catch the last set with Crystal Fighters.
What an unexpectly fun day. Watch out for the announcement of the fiesta next year and grab your tickets quick. They sold out very quickly this year.
EatCookExplore was a guest of Three UK and Wahaca.
