What a Semana Santissima!

Ok so Holy Week was this last week, and here that is like the equivalent of Spring Break for the whole country.  Imagine a whole country on vacation!  Everyone spends time with family and goes to the Hot springs, the beach or the river "to bathe" aka to swim.  I too joined this Honduran Vacaition madness, accompanied by my brother Nathan, who came in from DC to visit!   We had some great times...
Snorkeling and seeing amazing amazing coral reefs in Utila, 
         

 

   

Going toCopan to visit the Mayan Ruinas, to go Horseback riding and to visit with some friends from Tegucigalpa

 

And Coming back to Santa Rosa to experience the amazing traditions of Holy week, including:

The Sawdust Carpets for the Way of the Cross

  the veneration of Jesus hung on the cross, the procession of the holy burial,  and the procession of the mourning of Mary

However awesome all everything was, one of the best parts this week, was on Holy Saturday, going to a tiny tiny town in the middle of nowhere that has no electricity.  We had the opportunity to go with the bishop and the sisters for the Bishop's pastoral visit.  It was amazing to see the faith so alive in these people who live in the middle of nowhere, and that they came from their houses some hours away just to sing, celebrate, and have communion with the Bishop.  They were all so generous, even making food for all of us visitors.  It was cool to see how much Monseñor Luis (the bishop) is a Bishop of the pueblo (for the people) because he loved them, and also just how genuinely they also loved him.  

Finally the culmination of the week came to the celebration of the Easter vigil mass, with a dramatization of jesus breaking out of a tomb they had constructed behind the altar!  
 

Unfortunately we were to tired to stay up to see the races of St John and St Peter Easter Morning, between 4 and 6 am they run with the statues of the saints all over town for two hours just like Peter and John ran to tell Mary Jesus was risen. oh well. After an excursion to Gracias, Me and Nathan finished off the trip sitting listening to some old men play Marimba music late Easter Sunday in front of the Cathedral para toda la gente (for all the people). It was a blessed week and I'm so glad I got to spend it with my brother!

"On Easter we're all fish!"

Having Nathan, my big brother, here all week was awesome, we got to have adventures on all types of public transportation in Honduras,
1. Rapiditos/busitos(15 passenger vans that they shove 30 people in),  this is a video Nathan took of one soo full they broke the door off!

2. Tuktuks/mototaxis- My fav because you can't shove too many people in one!
3. Normal taxi's -with sneaky drivers trying to trick you into paying more than normal along with some quite respectable drivers, 

A cute kid making faces as she sat on the lap of her mom

4. Normal buses - old school buses filled to triple capacity because you don't have to pay for children and always with people and their chickens(in boxes of course), and these buses stop at every single group of houses no matter how small, and you have to be prepared to stand for a few hours.

5. Un Bus Directo that stops at less little towns, and only lets random people on to sell things when the driver is hungry , hehe 

6. And once on a Luxury bus, that gave us sanitary food included in the price, and didn't stop at all until the final destination! 
So in all this adventures of public Transportation, I'll share with you one. 
       On Easter, we went on a day trip to Gracias and on the way back, we were on a normal bus and there were a few empty seats, and I thought Wow maybe because its Easter day less people are traveling....But I was wrong, we approached the river and there they ALL were, all the Hondurans filled the river swimming and enjoying the sun.  However as we passed over the bridge, **Boom** thunder and the rain started, and, well, everyone decided this was the moment to leave the river, and our bus stopped.  A huge hoard of people still dripping wet from the river poured into the bus. Men and women accompanied by their grandparents and ten children entered cramming into every crevice possible bringing with them mud and the smell of fish. Someone had put a bag dripping with muddy fishwater over the heads of the people sitting in front of us, while I had the good fortune of only having a really wet old grandma pressed against my side, and she said through her few remaining teeth to the people in front of us who were complaining about the fishwater falling on them that "La Pascua todos somos pescados!" (On Easter we're all fish!) She made me laugh.
     The vieja was just noting that everyone goes swimming here on Easter, but I thought how oddly true her statement is.  If Jesus called us to be fisher's of men, then men really have to be the fish!  I guess we have to realize that sometimes we are the dirty smelly fish that need to be caught up in the nets of Christ.  Than I guess we also have to go out with our nets and hooks of love to catch other dirty slimy smelly men and bring em to the truth.   Anyways Happy Easter to all!

Pictures from Gracias

The fortaleza

Nathan firing

He shot me!

          

Me and Nathy

The church at the center of the town!

Do you take this man...

Sooo, this Sunday, in front of all the girls I will be married to a Hondoran!  Dun dun dun duu.... I hear the music, and the words(or the spanish equivalent), "Do you take this man to love and to cherish for the rest of  ..."  Ok this is were I give thanks to God, that the girls will not ever be planning my real marriage!  and that the words of the celebrant will end "for the rest of the Kermesse."
     The Kermesse is our big annual carnival that we have to raise funds.  At one point they decided it would be a good idea to pay to marry people for the Kermesse, which means you have to walk together the rest of the carnival, or pay for a divorce.  Only God knows who will be the man I am going to marry, because everyday for the past two weeks the girls have been talking about who they are going to marry me to! Ahhh! Now I have to get back to grading papers :(  I just needed a break for a moment.  Good night, Pray for us here, and the situation with the teachers strike, there has been no classes inthe public schools for three weeks, some for more time, and who knows when the situation will end.  The situation in Honduras won't get any better if the people remain uneducated, so pray for a well thought out peaceful resolution.

People of few words

Sandra and Me

This past weekend, I went to the house of another girl in Corquin 2 hours from Santa Rosa.  This stay was much different than the past house I visited.  Instead of a house with dirt floors full of children like the last house I visited, her parents were in their late seventies.  Her father had worked as a farmer for 70 years to earn money to build and sustain the house, and it was relatively modern with tile floors, electricity, a refrigerator, and an indoor bathroom!  However, don't think that its like your house, it is still very much a Honduran house-- meaning the wood stove kitchen away from the house, the same water pila to wash your laundry by hand, very simple and small indoors, and a ton of chickens! same profession, .  When you worked that long outside, and you see the way things are, you don't speak much. I've found that this is also very Honduran, many people just pass time in silence.  There isn't a pressing need to speak for them, "there's always  tomorrow if God allows us" as they say.  It's an interesting way to look at things, and definitely more reflective than an American go get it and Just do it now type of attitude.  This is cool and nice for a while, but I realized as much as it is good, neither does silence really solve problems, it kinda just pushes them away and makes family life difficult if you don't speak much.

The house looks very modern!

The Dad always wears his working hat during the day so that if he has to leave to work, he has it, even though he is retired. hehe.

    Fittingly, you can imagine, I had a relaxing time this weekend away from the girls of the school, and the talkative Hermanas.  My friend showed me around her town and introduces me to her also very silent sisters and cousins and told me about her life. I'll just say she is 28, and in her second year (10th grade) studying Bachillerato in Admnisitration, and she has had to overcome some amazingly difficult obstacles to go to school and to move forward in life.  Its pretty amazing that she now has this chance to study here, and I'm very blessed to know her.

A lot of Chickens= Fresh eggs, mmmmmm

A normal Honduran stove

The Kitchen where we spent most of our time,
making tortillas and the food for the family

"modern" houses still wash clothes by hand, in the pila on the left.   Bottom Right
next to the Plantains, note that its the ONLY trash basket the house!

     On the subject of how campesinos talk, I just thought I'd share with you what one man told us just randomly as we were on our trip home from Corquin to Santa Rosa. Its a 2 hour trip but we went the first hour leg of the trip with some random policeman who offered us a ride.  For an hour, we didn't speak a word, until we said goodbye, take care, and God bless as he dropped us off at a bus stop to finish our trip, and he said "You too" smiled, and waved goodbye. We waited half an hour with a handful of people, and no one spoke, one was a middle aged campesino, he was still in his work clothes from working in the fields, and after a while, He asked us if we knew the man who dropped us off, we said "No, he was just a policeman kind enough to drive us half way to Santa Rosa."  Then we all waited in silence, after a while he says "Yeah, God does take care of us.  Look at the beautiful dresses the trees are wearing right now- how they are all nice and festive with flowers for Easter coming, and how the mango trees look so burdened with the sweet fruits for us to eat, but soon when the first storm comes it will all be gone, the leaves and the fruit and the trees will be barren looking.  It doesn't look so nice for us, but the trees like it because God knows they need the water, and sends us the storms anyways, the storms undress and unburden the trees, but only so that he can redress them even more beautifully.  See what I mean, God takes care of us with the flowers and the fruit, and then he sends us the water for the trees."  Then we didn't really talk and as we were getting on the bus, he added that he was friends with uncle of the policeman who took us. Honduras is a small but beautiful country, and I'm glad I had a little retreat from the city, but also glad to be back in the hubaloo of the school day!

Yes, thats a chicken in the tree, just hangin out!

The view from her house

Their dog Perrigro (sounds like "peligro"=danger) hehe