Church in Honduras

There are a lot of “taboo” topics to beware of in conversations with your host family. Highest among them are: sexuality, marriage/relationships, drinking, and religion. Of course, you should be wary of others, but these are the topics that we encounter most often, and are most likely to create an awkward situation with ones host family. Most everyone has had the awkward conversation with their host families about religion, but I have been lucky enough to have two host families that haven’t questioned my personal beliefs. That is, until the Holy Week started, and then I blindsided by the question, “Are you Catholic or Evangelical?” Now, you can tell from the phrasing of the question that there aren’t many options to work with, and there’s most definitely only one right answer for the person asking the question. It’s rather interesting because I am probably the most “religious” person in the group and would have an easier time explaining my religious beliefs than those who are agnostic or, God forbid, atheist. So, here is my first encounter with taboo subjects in Honduras, kind of…

Now, first I should give a little lesson on religion in Honduras. As I have mentioned before, this is a very traditional, conservative country and a lot of that is because of the status of religion here. Catholicism is the most prevalent religion, but Evangelicals runs a close second it seems. They also have Mormons here, which I think is hilarious. In our first site we actually had one aspirante in a Mormon household. Of course, he was the only one who smoked in the group and wasn’t religious whatsoever. Anyways, as in the States, you have a range of devotion from people attending a couple times a week to those you only attend on major holidays. To be noted, there are only really two religions in Honduras (for most people): Catholicism and Evangelical.

Men, for the most part, don’t attend religious ceremonies, and if they do they are stationed outside. In Honduras, you can be a devout Catholic/Evangelical and still have a wife, mistress, and several girlfriends without breaking any of the Commandments. People pick and choose the religious norms that they wish to abide by, but such is life.

So Saturday, I’m just sitting there minding my own business, watching T.V. with my host sister, trying to follow the plot of the telenovela, and my host grandmother plops down beside me. Now, my host grandmother and I have yet to develop a relationship. She’s a quiet, reserved women and doesn’t really talk much to anyone, let alone the gringa. It doesn’t help that I can’t understand a single word she says. If I remember correctly, her asking me about my religion didn’t have anything to do with what we were watching, so you can imagine how hard it was for me to discern what she was saying. I knew it was a questions, but I also knew it wasn’t of the smile and nod persuasion. Therefore, after asking if she could repeat herself, I pinpointed the key words, “…Catolica…Evangelica?” Crap. Well I smiled and said, “Well, technically I’m neither.”

Blank stare. Clearly that wasn’t going to work. I stammer, “I need to go get my dictionary.” I run to my room, praying to God that Protestant is in the dictionary, and come back smiling, happy to be able to say “I’m Protestant.” She looks at me, and walks away. Guess that was the wrong answer. I was pretty bummed that that was the end of our interaction.

So, later, don’t remember how this came up, but she says something else to me. Now, conversations in Honduras can be very dangerous when you blindly answer “yes” to unintelligible conversations. For example, on the first day we were in our new homes here, my friend Becky was asked a question about drinking. Now, when you don’t know your family’s stance on drinking, best to just blatantly lie and say you don’t. It’s always better to go back on what you said than to make a terrible first impression. In any case, she answers very strongly with, “Yes! I drink a lot!” Now, don’t know what she thought the question was, but it turns out her family is chill with drinking; they just laughed at her, because the answer was still ridiculous. Dodged a bullet on that one.

So anyways, I start sweating because I don’t want to mess this up, but regardless of knowing better I just nod my head. I try to get a clearer idea of the conversation, and ask if she is going to church. She looks at me like I’m retarded (I get that look a lot), and says yes, yes she is. End of conversation and I’m still clueless about what’s going on.

So, me and a couple of other aspirantes head up to the Parque Central because apparently Palm Sunday is a big spectacle in Honduras. It was almost like a fair with people setting up food stands in front of the church and people trying to sell their wares, such as hammocks. There were soo many people walking around selling fancy little crosses made of palms. So we’re watching the Honduran women walking into the church with their halter tops and low cut shirts, while their husbands stand outside, ogling the other women walking in behind their wives and girlfriends. We were talking about the whole experience and who was going to church that night, and I said, “I think I might have agreed to go to church, but I’m not entirely sure exactly what the conversation was. I know something is happening at 6.” Funny thing is, no one questions that anymore because there is always someone in the group who has agreed to do something / eat something and they have no idea how it happened.

Well, I tried to make a break for the internet without eating lunch, and was caught by grandma and made to eat HOT SOUP in the MIDDLE OF THE DAY before I walked 15 minutes in jeans (I don’t own shorts) with my 10 pound computer on my back. Needless to say, I was a grump by the time I got to the internet, which luckily was working, because had it not worked after all that effort, I would have done my angry dance right on the street. Who’s a crazy gringa now?? SIDE NOTE: Here, instead of being known as the girl with the angry dance, I’m known as the girl who kicks a brick wall (after the backpack incident).

“Are you mad Hannah? Need to go kick a brick wall??”

Anyways, so as I’m walking out the door, and I clearly! catch grandma say, “Don’t forget we’re going to church at six!” HALLELUJAH I understood the woman! Confirmation at last!

So I get back, pass out on the hammock, and wake up just in time to start preparing myself for church. Now, mind you I never found out what religion Dona Empera is, so I just prepared for whatever and washed my face and put on my nicest clothes. I even ironed and then I went and got approval for how I looked. Well, it’s about 5:50 and I’ve noticed that my host mom and host sister are most definitely not in church appropriate clothes. CRAP. Trying to mask the fear in my voice, I walk up to Nolvia and ask, “Are you going to church?” She looks at me and says, “No, but I hear you are.” Segundo crap. Well, I decide to brave the unknown and still go because it’s a good cultural experience.

We leave at around 6:45 (that’s six o’clock for Hondurans) and I’m glad to see that my host sister is grudgingly tagging along. I can’t really understand her either, but it’s a buffer between me and whatever other disasters might happen over the course of the next hour. Oh yes, be sure that I checked how long the service would run. I’ve heard of the other trainees getting stuck in multi-hour long services and I was NOT about to do that; I still had homework left!

Oh, and I also checked what church I was going to. Iglesia Bautista Christo Viene (Baptist Church, Chris Comes). Ok, not so bad. So, naturally we’re late, and walk into the middle of the sermon. The church is very simple, folding chairs in rows in an all peach room. They really went overboard with the peach. Marjory and I sit in front of Dona Empera and I notice that everyone has their Bibles and a piece of paper. I have neither and start to sweat a bit, not knowing what the papers were for. People didn’t seem too interested in me, so that made me chill a bit.

There was one aspirante who went to an Evangelical service with his host family one of the first weeks we were in the country. They sat in the back, and he was relieved, thinking that this will help him go unnoticed. WRONG. As a gringo, you never go unnoticed. By the end of the service, they had him up front, introducing himself (he didn’t speak a word of Spanish), and getting the devil cast out of him. He had people speaking in tongues around him and splashing him with water of unknown origins. This was probably right after the Peace Corps doctors told us not to so much as look at water that didn’t come from an un-opened bottle for fear of parasites. He was scarred for a while.

So this story is running through my head as I try to figure out if the pastor is saying ridiculous stuff. After a few minutes I relaxed. Most everyone seemed chill and I realized the papers were a little test for people to fill out as they listened along to the sermon. We were there for like 40 minutes before I started to get nervous again. They were singing and women started to head to the front, just standing up there. For a minute it seemed like everyone was going, and I thought, “Great! I missed the part where he said, ‘Now lets save the gringa!’” Marjory, my plan B in case anything went wrong, clearly has no idea what’s going on, and I’m up shits creek without a paddle. Then Dona Empera went up, and I thought that I was done for. I decided, not matter what, I wasn’t moving from my seat. Well, apparently in the Bautista church you just go up front if you feel moved by the music.

More chilling, watching the kids running around screaming, when there’s more movement in the congregation. Movement is bad. Communion. Crap, I don’t know what the rules are and Marjory doesn’t know what the rules are, now what? Well, they offered, so I took it, immediately afterwards wishing I hadn’t, but no one gave me a nasty look. God, at that point I just wanted to crawl in a hole and die. That was just about enough for me and I didn’t know what else was in store. More singing. Service seems to be coming to an end.

Well, snot-rocket-fourth-grade-teacher comes up to me, and makes as if she’s going to talk to me, and I just about spontaneously combust. Nothing bad happened, but you are so constantly on the edge, stressing about your actions and what might happen to you, that the smallest incident puts you over the edge. Turns out it’s kind of like when people in DPC say, “Christ be with you,” and then everyone leaves. I was saved, and it didn’t involve casting out of devils and water. I’m lucky. Although, I did say, to save myself because I thought Dona Empera might have been mad at me for taking communion, that I liked the service very much. I think I committed to attending for the next five weeks. Tercero crap.