Bread-making and Day of the Dead in Ecuador

The volunteers had the opportunity to commemorate Día de los Difuntos (Day of the Dead) at the start of November with the children in the schools here in Ecuador.

After shopping for all the ingredients, they helped to make colada morada – a hot drink made from blackberries, blueberries and maize flour – and also the traditional bread – the guaguas de pan.


The communities really appreciated having the volunteers there, particularly this year, as the parents in both Huayrapungo and Muenala had decided they could not afford the costs of all the ingredients and so were not planning to mark this traditional day as a community – so they were delighted when we offered to help.

Our long time GVI driver and friend Jaime helped out at Huayrapungo with the large volume of egg cracking and got stuck in with making the dough into shapes.


Some impressive artistry was seen from the volunteers with creative bread shapes being made – horses, cows and elephants all went to be cooked and came back looking like…, well, their creators were able to identify them….sort of!! At least the bread tasted good!!

Bread-making and Day of the Dead in Ecuador