christmas in Honduras

As I write this I am compulsively checking the Delta Airlines website to make sure the flight is on time from Atlanta...I know that I wrote about patience the other day, but this morning might just be the longest morning of my life!! I am praying all goes well and that my parents and sister will be arriving safely at 1 pm right here in Tegucigalpa. My Honduran family seems adequately excited too (though we know communication will be a challenge!). Since I will be taking a week "off" to spend time with the family, I thought I'd post some reflections on Christmas here in my home in Honduras.

The 24th of December is the big holiday here...this meant we all slept in and were in our pajamas til about 2 or 3 pm. Trademarks of Honduran Christmas include tamales, torrejas, lots of fireworks (cohetes) and church. Here are some thoughts on each of those:
1. Tamales: major process to make a batch of tamales. You have to make enough for your family plus the relatives, plus enough to eat on both holidays, the 24 & 31. It takes most of the day, and a couple hours to cook over the fire. Since I was still working hard on the 23, I missed most of the process, but got to enjoy the "bonfire" out on our patio. It was a nice evening outside and I was having fun looking at the stars with my nephew (who has adorable, endearing moments every now and then).
I should also mention I do not love tamales, but its tradition to eat 10 or 12 during the holidays...somehow, I have made it this far only eating 1! The family is a little worried that I hate them b/c I dont eat them enough, but they keep giving me other options, so I choose to not eat tamales :)

2. Torrejas are another food related tradition, more delicious to me than tamales. Basically, you make french toast, using fluffy egg whites instead of the whole egg...than you cook a stack of bread in a delicious sweet syrup and enjoy it hot or cold. I ate this most of the evening (while avoiding tamales).

3. Fireworks are a HUGE tradition on the 24. I mean, we've been 'enjoying' them for the past month or so, always right outside the house, at all hours of the day and night...but on this night children of all ages are allowed in the street past midnight (this is really rare in our neighborhood) and they are allowed to use everything from sparklers and poppers to what I would call mortars and newspaper bombs...yeah, it gets a little crazy. around 12, one went off very close to our spectator spot and I thought I was losing my hearing...but it came back :)
They tell me it is nothing compared to the 31st....can't wait for that!

4. Church--of course, we knew all day long we had church at 6pm, but for some reason my host mom did not stop cooking food and start getting ready til 6:05...then my brother starts eating a tamale at 6:20... somehow, we made it to church by 6:35 and only missed some singing. There was lots of upbeat music, a rowdy drama, more focused on the arrest, death and resurrection of Christ than his birth (which was weird for me) and plenty of clapping and singing. It was very different from the quiet, more somber, candlelit Christmas eve services I know and love...but I guess adjusting to new cultural traditions is what this whole thing is about!

For me, this was the point in the day where I missed home the most, and was most strongly reminded that it was Christmas, and I was not with my family. But, it was a good experience in learning how others celebrate, and that the iconic things we hold as being quintessentially "Christmas" really don't matter all that much. Pretty much, it all comes down to sharing time with people you love. oh and food. I think those are the 2 common denominators world-wide :)

The other tradition I participated in is staying up really late...I mean, for me it was 2:30am, but some in my family made it til 5am...I'm usually the first in bed at 10:30 or 11, so I felt like I made a good effort.

Christmas Day was pretty quiet and relaxing. I was able to call my family to wish them a Merry Christmas (well, almost all of them :) and then enjoyed Christmas dinner with some other friends from the US, England and Denmark. What a fun way to enjoy the holiday.

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas holiday, blog reader, and that you enjoy a festive New Year celebration. I will be enjoying some vacation time with my family and will fill you in on the craziness of the 31st next week.
happy merry Christmas holidays!

esperanza

I have never really thought of myself as an impatient person. Ok, well, lets take driving/road rage out of this conversation for a minute :) I am usually a patient person, or at the very least, I think I'm good at hiding my impatience. 

However, being in a culture that does not reward punctuality has taught me a lot about patience--and probably more about impatience. Though I am pretty good at hiding it, I am often impatient...as I wait for my family to get ready to leave the house (when the set departure time passed 30 minutes ago)...as I wait for the bus to start moving at each of the 16 stops on the way down the hill...as I wait for an 8am meeting to start before the clock reaches 9:20...as I wait for an email to pop in my inbox while I work...the list could go on.

The amazing thing is, Hondurans seem to have endless amounts of patience. Or if they don't, they are really good at faking it! I can't even count the number of times I have seen women contently waiting for a meeting that should have started 40 minutes ago. Or looking out the window on the bus, never once worried about what time it is, or what time it will be when they get where they are going. I guess it's a requirement to survive in a non-time-oriented culture...but it still amazes me and inspires me every time.

The interesting thing is, the verb for 'wait' in Spanish is esperar. So often, waiting has such a negative connotation for me, or at the least, brings to mind sources of frustration. But this week of anticipating has especially reminded me that in Spanish, 'esperar' also means to hope. And I love that these meanings are so intertwined. Although I become exasperated waiting, I have a hope for so many things to come.

I have been waiting for some things in my life...but...not everything comes the way you want it. However, I have a hope that these things all work together somehow...and that each part of the journey, the fun stuff and the crappy stuff is somehow being worked together for my good. So...I continue to wait, but I wait with hope that God can do even more with all of this than I could even know to ask for, or imagine.

This week is an exciting week, as we remember the coming of Christ as a baby, and wait with hope for his second coming. May our patient waiting for his return remind us of the hope we have in Jesus Christ that sustains us in our impatience.

(I am also waiting for the arrival of some special visitors to Honduras! Please keep my family in your prayers as they travel here next Monday to spend some time with me. I am hopeful that it will be a fun time together and a time of relaxation and rejuvenation for me.) 

Oh, and a couple Christmas festivities I am waiting for...

>Making Christmas cookies with the host family tomorrow night (totally new for them, and they are stoked)

>2 more cuchumbos (gift exchanges w/ church group and extended family)

>December 24 (the big holiday-day in Honduras)

>C-mas lunch with some North American friends on Saturday

>Learning to make tamales...and eating lots of tamales

>cohetes (fire crackers) at all hours of the night and for the "old year" (año viejo) celebrations

water

Water is a scarce resource for most of the inhabitants of this world...but, in my North American experience, I have never found this to be a great concern.

For residents of Nueva Suyapa, water is a big deal. Water only comes to the colonia a few times per month, so when it does, you fill every available vessel to save it up. And when it rains, you store the rain water too. My friend and co-SALTer Elise wrote a post on her blog about how her family stores up water...they have a very elaborate system which even involves an old refrigerator that holds the H20.

In my house, we use our water carefully, but usually have confidence that the water will come when we need it. We have a large pila (cement sink/bathtub-sized fixture) that holds most of the water we need, a tank for the bathroom (only sink and toilet have running water. no shower :), 3 barrels of reserve water, and an assortment of old juice jugs and buckets as the back-up to the reserves. Typically, we go through the pila, the bathroom tank and by the time we just dip into the barrel, the water comes to our part of the colonia. When the water comes, you leave the faucet running and fill as much as you can!

I said that we trust the water will come, but this week has been a little tense. Not only were we out of drinking water (which has thankfully been remedied) but since Sunday the pila has been on 'E' and we are almost through all 3 barrels of reserves. My host mom said yesterday if the water doesn't come, we probably won't have enough to bathe. So of course that got my attention! This also means no washing of the clothes (by hand), and saving the bottled water for cooking. With 6 people in the house, its amazing to think how much water we use in a day--and that's using it conservatively!

So...you can pray the water comes soon. We would like to fill the pila...and I would like us to bathe. However, it is pretty chilly, so maybe I could start giving up my morning bucket shower.

In other water related stories, I got to see the Pacific coast of Honduras!
Although the water was salty, it was great to go to a warmer spot for a day and enjoy the beach with my coworkers. This was our office outing/Christmas party...rough, I know :)
We took a boat ride in the Gulf of Fonseca which is shared by Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador. Pretty awesome. Enjoy some of my favorite fotos from the day.

very thankful for water...potable and salty :)

parties, paint y mas

I'm just going to warn you that there isn't much cohesion to my post today...I've been trying to come up with some fun little tidbit to blog about, but really, the last week and a half has just been kind of hectic.

For one thing, there were 5 birthdays within the extended family within 7 days of each other. It is fun to celebrate with people, and of course, who doesn't want to eat cake every other day?...but I have to say that week was exhausting. The socializing and 5 hour long parties can be a little draining, especially when you don't know everyone and you kind of run low on small-talk (hard to believe, i know).

Thrown into that socializing craziness was an overnight "campamento" or camp-out with staff and co-workers of the ministry (MCM). The church owns a camp a little outside of Teguc where we hung out and spent the night. I was really not looking forward to going, but it ended up being a pretty fun time. Of course, there were plenty of awkward moments, like Allison and I being asked to sing a song in English for the talent show at the last minute, a gift exchange we found out about 10 minutes before we left the office, and a variety of other things...but it turned out to be really good. There was LOTS of volleyball time, good food, and it gave me a chance to get to know other staff who I rarely interact with.

I would like to pause here and make a comment in reference to my measurements of time like "last minute" and such...really, there is no last minute here. They are all Honduran minutes. And no one is given advance notice for anything...you just roll with it as its happening. So, even though it is starting to drive me crazy (like the fact that Monday is a day out for our office Christmas party and at 11am on the Friday before no one knows anything about it)...I'm trying to learn to stop asking so many questions in 'advance', and be a little less American. But its a struggle.

Ok. So...after all these social events, I was hoping for some down time this week. But...that wasn't really possible. In my household, we have been finishing the ceiling in the kitchen & dining area (it was just the tin roof, but now its closed in w/ drywall-ish material like the rest of the house)...putting ceramic tile down, and painting this same area. Of course, my host sister picked the paint color and the house was divided (boys hated it, the girls were for it)...but after 2 days of discussion, debated and general mayhem, we started painting (see photos below). However, once the "recorte" was done (all the edges and corners) and one patch of said color--we decide its not good enough. We need to buy a different color. So...yesterday was day 1 of the new color, and today they should be finishing up the kitchen. Aside from my opinion, and my height, the only thing I really contributed was the idea of taping the edges after the ceiling was painted. They enjoyed this idea. Overall, it had been a stressful, but also a rather dramatic part of family life that I was glad to be a part of :)

I also threw in a trip to the mall because I needed an obligatory gift for the office gift exchange. Still need a present for the family gift exchange and the one with our church bible study group (yeah, its just as bad as being in the states! so many random people to buy things for). And last night I went to a Christmas concert/fundraiser at the American School of Tegucigalpa. So...really, never a dull moment.

Here are some photos of the fam working hard on the house to get it ready for Christmas. Enjoy!

The before (kitchen...)

dining room

See! I can help too :)

Josue hard at work on the white ceiling

The middle stage...everyone was up in arms

Axel hard at work on the yellow details. and hating it.

the after stage:

post drama--we have pink walls now. 

somehow, this is more calming than the yellow :) but everyone is happier!

advent

Here we are on the 1st day of December 2010. I can't even believe its the end of the year already!
I've just started my advent readings that I got from MCC...here are some excerpts I'd like to share:

According to an ancient Jewish midrash, someone asked Rabbi Joshua, “Why did God speak to Moses from a bush?” Rabbi Joshua replied, “God spoke from a bush to teach that there is no place where the Divine is not present, not even in a lowly bush.”


A Hasidic story tells of a rabbi’s son who used to wander in the woods. The rabbi asked his son, “I wonder why each day you walk in the woods?” 
The boy replied, “I go there to find God.” 
“That’s very good, son. But, don’t you know that God is the same everywhere?” 
“Yes,” the boy answered, “but I’m not.”


And so it is with us. We need tangible signs of God’s presence. When we enter the emotional, spiritual and physical winters of our lives, no matter the reason, let us eagerly anticipate that day when a new branch will burst forth from the leafless icicled branch we have become. In this Advent season, may all trees be for us Christ-mas trees, signs of hope, worthy of our decorating and celebrating – Christ, the Righteous Branch, has come into our lives, Christ will come again.

Jeremiah 33:14-16 (NRSV)
The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is the name by which it will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’

I found this imagery of new branches really helpful. Even in the winters of life, we retain a hope for the future; for the inevitable spring that will arrive because of the hope we have in Christ Jesus.

I know that God is the same every place I go, but I am not. And so as I grow, adapt, and change in a new environment, my prayer is that I would continue to seek God and appreciate the new and different ways his unchangeable character is being revealed to me each and every day.

My prayer for all of my friends and loved ones this advent season is that you would find places where you cannot remain the same, and in those places, appreciate God for who He is, and how he might look different from your new vantage point.

Even though my images of advent include lots of cold and snow and cozy memories, I am learning to appreciate the anticipation of Christmas even in 75 degree weather :) Hope you are warm (sitting inside or outside) wherever this finds you.