Holy Jesús Cristo y Semana Santa

(written 4/12/09)

Happy Easter everyone! I hope everyone is having a great day! The celebrations here have been great but I must admit it doesn’t feel like Easter without a Cadbury egg or at least a peep L This week was Semana Santa which is the biggest holiday here in Honduras. The majority of Hondurans have the entire week off and those who are not participating in the dozens of masses and processions are spending their time at the beach, so its definitely the time of the year that everyone looks forward to. It was a good week for us aspirantes (trainees) too because it meant we only had two days of training. The week’s activities started off on Sunday morning at 3am when selected members of the Catholic Church begin making their sawdust carpets for the morning’s procession. The carpets represent those laid out for Jesus on Palm Sunday and are made from dyed sawdust laid in large paper stencils. My family made a carpet and the whole process actually takes quite awhile (even though I did not go down to the plaza with them at 3am). The carpets were made down the center of the entire road that connects the two catholic churches in town and they were really beautiful. It was so surprising that some of them were only made of sawdust. Then at 9am a large procession began in the Catholic Church at the top of the hill. Everyone was holding palms and singing when the priest came out of the church with a donkey that was decorated and carrying a statue of Jesus. After some prayers the priest led the donkey down the carpet path to the church at the other end of town with everyone following behind singing. The procession completely destroys the carpets so I was really glad I got there early to see them because so much work went into something that was only used for less than 20 minutes. Once the procession reached the church everyone went inside for a 2+ hour mass. The whole church was so packed with people that there wasn’t even room to stand inside that many people just stood outside the church in the blazing sun for the entire thing. The whole morning was really beautiful and interesting and I am so glad that I was able to experience it in a small town that still practices old traditions like this.

Later in the week on Wednesday Peace Corps hosted a cultural day where everyone made a traditional Honduran dish/ drink with their host family and brought it to share. Someone must have warned everyone that I am no chef because my mom and I only had to bring Posol which is a traditional beverage made from cornmeal, sugar, milk, ice and cinnamon. But it was still good despite my previous disastrous kitchen experiences and we didn’t have any leftover so I guess it was a success. In fact all the food was really amazing so I hope I will be able to make some of these dishes when I am in my site. Aside from the food every Spanish class had to do an activity so my class did a skit. It was actually pretty funny because I was the mom and my teacher Victor was the dad and the three other boys were the aspirantes who couldn’t speak Spanish and just kept repeating phrases like “Tengo un gato en mis pantelones “ ( I have a cat in my pants) or “Donde esta la biblioteca” (Where is the library) for every conversational situation. Some of the other activities included a country line dance, a map game where all our families had to put our names on our home state without asking us direct questions, a song by the business boys and of course a piñata for the children. Afterwards a group of children did a traditional Honduran dance for us and then pulled people up on stage to dance with them. Of course I got chosen and had to try and replicate the dance in front of everyone haha. It really was a lot of fun and it was nice to do something for our families.

On Thursday I went to Teguz with my family to buy supplies for the big Easter dinner. My host brother drove my mom, nephews and I and then we met up with my host dad who got off work early form the airport (unfortunately he has one of the few jobs that don’t get the holy week off). We spent the entire afternoon there and by the time we got home I was exhausted so I went to bed directly after dinner. Unfortunately, I woke up at 1am really sick with the flu. For those of you who heard the details it was pretty intense for a few hours and now I am pretty much dreading being alone and sick in my site. So, I spent all of Friday in bed but phone calls from home and visits from my friends here definitely helped make me feel better. On Saturday I tried to lay low for a lot of the day and get myself back in business for the night’s activities because Saturday night is when Easter is actually celebrated here. Everyone spends the entire day cooking and decorating the house and then at 10pm they go to mass. I had originally agreed to go to mass with my mom because I wanted to see the differences in the celebration but when my host sister informed me that mass starts at 10:30pm and goes until 2am and that no one else in the family was going with my mom, I quickly reconsidered my decision. In the end I am glad I did because I was able to go to movie night with the other aspirantes and then get in a quick nap before everyone came back from church and the party started. Around 3am my host mom and about 12 family members/ friends came home to have Easter dinner which was really good. Afterwards there was a toast followed by some dancing and desert. Even though it was late, everyone was in a great mood and spent the night talking about who fell asleep during mass and how I only got up to eat and dance lol. I even got some meringue lessons courtesy of my host cousin because my mom tells anyone who will listen how much I love to dance and makes everyone dance with me! It was all so much fun that I didn’t end up getting to bed until 5:30am. Since everyone celebrates late on Saturday night, today is saved for relaxation and I am definitely enjoying it!

Tomorrow we are going camping on the beach as part of our tourism training and I can’t wait!!!!