Tales of Semana Santa

Semana Santa both lived up to its expectations, and at the same time did not. I think I pictured the week to be much more religious than it turned out to be, but still there are stories impart.

Cultural Day

On Wednesday we did a “cross-cultural” exchange with our host families. The advanced Spanish classes had to organize the entire day from needing to find a place to host the event, a sound system, decorations, and people to be masters of the ceremony. All this had to be free too. It worked out well. Each Spanish class did a presentation for the families, and were as follows

1) La Bamba (my group) – Sing and dance combination
2) American Football – An explanation
3) Cotton Eyed Joe – Dance explanation
4) April’s Fools Day Jokes – Examples

So we all presented little five minute diddies on the above subjects. Our song/dance was definitely the most fun, and our families really enjoyed it. During the guitar solo we got families to come up and dance with us, and my host sister was very dismayed when I made a bee-line straight to her. She had to expect it though after she came to our rehearsal the night before and critiqued us up and down! Hah, no she was quite diplomatic and made some good suggestions.

We also had to make food with our host moms to bring to everyone to eat at Cultural Day. My recipe was pretty easy, thank god. We put little fruits, called jocotes, into a vat of sugar and let it sit there for three days. End of recipe. But seriously, the jocotes are kind of like hard plums. If you get them green, they are a bit tart, but the red ones are nice and sweet. We boiled the green ones and then let them sit in sugar. Other recipes were carne asada, fried chicken (native dish, eh?), pollo tostadas, etc. Kathryn got to go to her host grand-parents house to milk cows and make cujada, which is kind of like mozzarella, only not as good.

Also, some of the host families performed some songs and folk dances. I would just suggest looking at the pictures, because there really isn’t much I can say about it all without everyone having been there.

I will say, however, that snot-rocket teacher played a bird in a song about a bird that dies. I didn’t understand the entire song, obviously. But, she was having the kids practice this song in class when I was sitting in a couple of weeks ago and so ridiculously got whistled at (no, I am not over that yet). So this song comes on and I have flashbacks to that subtle whistle, but then I realize that she was the bird! I had seen her in the audience, much to my dismay, but didn’t know what was going to happen. She basically flitted back-and-forth on the stage before she fell over and died. That’s my story about snot-rocket/dead bird song. I hope I don’t get in trouble for this blog, but I’d call her by her real name (maybe) if she had introduced herself.

Our maestros also did a song. It’s called “Habla Espanol,” and it’s basically all lyrics of Hondurenismos (special Honduran adaptations to the Spanish language). So basically, this guy is poor, a drunk, and getting bit by dogs (this is a loose translation). And he decides to go “wet-back” to the U.S., and when he’s there he is told to go back to where he came from by a U.S. policeman. The end of the song is him yelling, “F*** you bich, I speak espanol! Yo soy catracho, pero hablo espanol!” He’s saying I’m Honduran (catracho), but I speak Spanish. It’s pretty funny, when you teacher is swaggering across the stage with a Grey Goose bottle, while your female teachers have stuffed their shirts with balloons and their butts with newspaper and shake it across the stage. The director of the Spanish program for us in Pespire, Monze, is a really quiet, all business type and her balloons in her shirt had these HUGE nipples drawn on them, and it was surprising. Guess you had to be there.

So, in order to show our gratitude for our host families’ hospitality, we served them first, before getting food ourselves. Now, at this time there are 16 Wat/San aspirantes and then some of our teachers made food with their families, so you can imagine there’s a lot of eat. Plus, Hondurans don’t seem to have picked up on portion control. So, it has become tradition at almost every meal for me and Nolvia to laugh over the amount of food that she puts on my plate. We have conversations about health and eating, and yet I continue to get HUGE portion sizes. So … I decided to exact revenge. Everything that was available, I piled onto her plate! She screamed when I walked over with the food, but she recognized that I was making a statement. I still get the same portion sizes.

After Cultural Day, we went to the hotel to get a couple of beers. Afterwards, we went to Hammock Land, to hang out for the rest of the afternoon. Hammock Land is our name for Carlos’ house. He lives in a compound that is owned by Randy’s host family, and we meet there sometimes and have a Spanish class there. Anyways, there are a bunch of hammocks that we like to hang out in, and we were just chilling out in Hammock Land before we all had to head home for dinner. That’s also where we have our soccer games.

So, Cultural Day was fun and I enjoyed interacting with the families. It didn’t seem like it was going to be fun, so it was an unexpected, pleasant surprise.

The River

So a river runs through Pespire and is constantly full during Semana Santa. Semana Santa is a holy week (obviously), and Easter is a big holiday here. So, on Friday – Sunday there was a “dry law,” where people couldn’t buy beer in the normal places, etc. Supposedly. Well, anyways, we were up in the Parque Central waiting for a procession out of the Catholic Church (apparently happened two hours beforehand), and were watching at cases upon cases of beer were carried down to the river. These little makeshift stands popped up along the river were people just sold food and drinks for all the river-goers.

Well, Juan’s family, had been trying to get us to go with them to the river for a couple of days. Most people go to the beach, but we usually don’t get permission from Peace Corps because the beaches are really crowded and just far enough to make it a chaotic security hazard. Therefore, most of our families couldn’t go, so they settled with the river instead. We went up river, which was apparently cleaner and had less people. Now, I’m going to put pictures along with this blog, but try to explain the situation here as well. I live in a developing country. There’s no way to argue otherwise.

A couple of times each week we run across the bridge into the aldeas (small towns around Pespire) to change up the routine. Every morning we pass the cattle drive taking the cows to drink in the river. On the Pespire side of the bridge is where a lot of people dump/burn their trash. It’s not clean by any means.

The day before this jaunt to the upper part of the river, we went to the bridge with Juan’s family. There’s apparently a dam upstream, and it was closed, so the underneath the bridge was dry and we could sit and watch the kids swim. My host mom bought me and Juan’s host mom a beer, which was exciting because I didn’t think she was ok with that. Anyways, people would go to these make-shift stands and buy packets of chips, and then just toss their bags into the river. Also, there are a lot of people drinking and hanging out all day. We all know what happens when people hang out, drinking liquids, near a body of water. We’ve all done it!

So, we head upstream about 15 minutes (driving, woot!), and walk across the river and set-up camp on a rock near the river. There was a deep part there where you could jump off a big rock without breaking your neck the bottom. Across the ondo (deep part), was a truck, with speakers and beer. Up a little ways there were selling snacks too. Because it’s the dry season, people just drive their cars across the riverbed and park right next to the water. Before they leave, they enjoy cleaning their cars/trucks in the water where other people continue to swim. Yum!

Now, I couldn’t ignore the scum floating near the shores, and all the trash on the riverbanks. I just hung back as everyone else waded in, and decided to guard my camera. Juan, another aspirante, was wading in and turned back and said, “Swimming is not an option Hannah, they’re going to make you get in.” And, within one minute of that comment, Juan’s host mom yelled for me to come in. My name is Hannah, and I swam in a dirty, dirty river in Honduras. I must add, my head went under because I slipped and fell into the deep part. After that, there was no denying the water any longer, so I decided to embrace the idea of a parasite and just have fun.

Now, people in Honduras generally don’t learn how to swim. People in Pespire may have learned, because they live close to the river, but most people just never learned. You know how in the States people just assume that you know how to swim, and if you were to say you didn’t, they are stunned? Well, it’s the opposite in Honduras. They were surprised that Juan and I knew how to swim. Nolvia and Marjory both know how to swim. Anyways, I saw THREE PEOPLE get carried away by the Red Cross because they were drowning. Now, that day no one died, but the day before a man died because he was wasted and hit his head and drowned in the water. Apparently, people just go to the river, drink like fish, and then past out in shallow water and drown. That’s what happened to these people. The funny thing is, the Red Cross was stationed about 100 yards out on the bank, so it took them a good 5 minutes to tread over the rocks in the dry riverbed to get to the people; the people who had been drowning for a couple of minutes already because no one had bothered to take notice. Ridiculous! It was a fun day though, and I don’t think I have a parasite. Good times.

This is boring.

Other than that, not much happened. They made a beautiful fombra out of wood-shavings in front of the Iglesia. A few teenagers spent all night working on this, and it was preserved until Friday morning. SEE PICTURES.

Que mas? I saw Jesus get led through the streets on Thursday night. Ate a lot of dried fish because Friday – Sunday you can’t eat meat. Honduran tradition I suppose. I was pretty distressed when I smelled the dry fish in my house Friday morning, but the soup wasn’t too bad.

Sunday we didn’t even go to church. No one did. Apparently, the Catholics go to Mass for hours the week leading up to Easter, and then when the big day comes they’re too tired of Mass to go on the most important day. I expected my host grandma to come get me, and it don’t even know if she went, but I didn’t go to church on Easter. Now it’s off my chest.

All in all, Semana Santa included some cultural experiences. Included some fiestas. Mostly people just swam in the river and hung out. Not so much holy.