EFE.- Edgar Tezcatzin López remembers running among marigold flowers in the south of Mexico City since he can remember and now, After a hard year due to the pandemic, his family’s greenhouse is preparing for the Day of the Dead with enthusiasm for new opportunities.
In 2020, after several years increasing production, the Greenhouse San Marcos, in Xochimilco, the capital’s mayor’s office reigns in the cultivation of this emblematic flower, decided to plant 25,000 marigold plants.
They took a risk and “fortunately” they managed to sell them all. But this year, before the announcement of the authorities of celebrations and opening of pantheons for such an important day for Mexicans, they planted 30,000, and expectations are positive.
“Last year we did not know whether to put that amount because it was being handled that the Government was going to cancel the festivals for the Day of the Dead, the pantheons were going to be closed and therefore there would be no offerings. However, we gambled and decided to put that amount that was sold fortunately, “Edgar told Efe on Friday.
Like them, he said, the rest of the producers managed to carry out their crops with many efforts. It helped, for example, the maxim that necessity sharpens ingenuity, since unemployed people bought merchandise from them to resell it.
The 35-year-old man also wondered if perhaps the thousands of deaths from coronavirus in Mexico increased the need for families to honor their dead.
The marigold flower is perhaps the most important icon of the Day of the Dead, whose origins date back to pre-Hispanic times.
Find out: Xochimilco expects a sale of 100 million pesos per marigold flower
Its intense yellow and orange color is a symbol at this time of year and adorns the altars of houses, tombs, public buildings and the plaza, where it is customary to place a path of marigold petals to the door so that those who have already left can reach the earthly world and the place where their relatives left the offering.
HOPE AND CELEBRATIONS
Be that as it may, given the decline in infections achieved by vaccines, the Mexican capital will celebrate these dates in style and with great enthusiasm, although with all possible sanitary measures, as announced in previous days by the Head of Government of the capital, Claudia Sheinbaum.
That’s why Edgar and his family, who also grow traditional Christmas plants for poinsettias, they trust that there will be good sales.
“Lets put 30,000 marigolds and, given how the pandemic has been developing, we are a little calmer. At least in the producers’ union we believe that there is a little more certainty ”, he considered.
“There is no other mayor’s office in which there is this production with the size of Xochimilco,” said the mayor of Xochimilco, José Carlos Acosta, during the inauguration of the 2021 cempasúchil contest, in the Acuexcomatl Market of San Luis Tlaxialtemalco, one of the 14 towns that make up the mayor’s office.
For her part, Marina Robles, Secretary of the Environment of Mexico City, said at the event, in which producers were presented: “We believe that we will once again achieve 100% of the sale of marigolds”.
A “MORE PENETRATING” FEELING
Of those 30,000 pots, a small part will go to build the family offering, one moment that Edgar will be able to live this year with greater tranquility and that it will allow him to remember how much he enjoys the celebrations of these dates, that he lives in a somewhat different way from the rest of the Mexicans.
“We take part of the production to put our offering in the house. It is another feeling, because apart from the fact that you are putting the offering to your deceased you add the idea that you grew those flowers and the feeling is even more penetrating“, He counted.
What’s more, the San Marcos Greenhouse will arrive with its plants to hundreds or thousands of houses where they will celebrate, eat, dance and sing while remembering those who are no longer there, something that man considers especially rooted in these lands.
“There are many meetings with the family, a lot of food. And many pleasant feelings of remembering our deceased, and that (during the meetings) they are telling me about such a deceased that perhaps I did not know but they tell me stories from when I was young and sometimes they tell you ‘you look like your uncle such’ ”, He expressed.
Now, weeks before the Day of the Dead celebrations, its cultivation, which spans throughout three hectares, it already shows bright orange and yellow colors.
One more sample that, finally, Mexico will once again be able to honor their deceased without limitations. EFE
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