We have had an unusually large number of party events these past 2 months, including those we volunteers hosted and those that Hondurans or Americans invited us to. There was the end of January eclectic themed party for Andrew's birthday: a combo high British tea complete with moose munch and Andrew's homemade scones, followed by his version of a Rave, which Anne and I didn't stay for due to lack of transportation, but I hear it involved glo-stick twirling, bad 80s costumes, permanent marker tattooes, and Andrew wearing a kilt, which he brought back specially for the occasion and brings out again at any moment when it is remotely appropriate to wear it. Yes, we are an eclectic bunch (in the photos also note the Postmodern spectacles that Jeff and Kandace are modeling... a la Andrew.) Another highlight I remember from that day was the first time we were offered a sample of anything in a Honduran grocery store... Anne and I were in the Santa Gema supermarket when a woman started pushing El Presidente samples on us. We were so delighted we not only sampled, took photos of ourselves, and then even frugal Anne practically headed up the group decision to buy the 8 for the price of 6 promo. We were then asked to pass our receipt to the woman with the clipboard outside the store, where the El Presidente truck was parked. Apparently they were deciding whether it was worth it to add Santa Gema to their list of distribution stores. After this, Jeff and Lacey were accosted in front of the store by a shady looking man asking if they had American passports and could take things back to the U.S. in their luggage. These are the moments when it's helpful to know a bit of a different Gringo language, like French: Desolée, je suis canadienne. Je ne peux pas vous aider. (Sorry, I'm Canadian. I can't help you.... continue your drug trade?) Yikes.
Next party was an invitation to dine with the Bishop of Juticalpa... Bishop Muldoon. A Boston man who has managed to retain his Boston accent even after living in Central America since his ordination 34 years ago (31 of which he has spent in Juticalpa), this man's spunk and humor makes him seem far younger than his age and health reveal. He just had surgery for circulatory problems, so please keep him in your prayers. He invited the Santa Clara American teachers over for his famous spaghetti and meatballs (Italian roots reach deeper than the Irish name). As an added treat, four nieces of his 102 nieces and nephews were in town for a visit, and they made us deliciously fresh piña coladas. We were also practically greeted at the door with Port Royals, enthusiastically handed out by the Bishop's personal driver and assistant, Carlos (who Mom and Laure remember from their fated travel fiasco trip from Tegus back in October). By the middle of the evening, Anne and I were attentively hooked on each side of the Bishop, learning a bit of his history and the past 30 years' development of the Catholic diocese and its missions in Juticalpa. His grand nieces are all teachers in urban areas in and around NYC, so it was interesting to hear how their teaching stories compared with ours in rural Honduras. Aside from our few meetings with the two PCVs in town, it was also the first opportunity we'd had to spend some time with young Americans other than our own now-shrinking group of 12. This party led to a second invitation to a marimba party at Carlos' house the following evening. It was a Wednesday night, but even a burnt-out teacher cannot turn down the opportunity for carné asada and anafré set to the tune of Caribbean style marimba music performed by a hired marimba band. We stuffed ourselves with Carlos' wife Lupe's homemade flour tortillas and Carlos danced the punta with Lacey, who is the only one among us who can actually dance it. By the end of the night, Jeff, Bridg, and Anne had knocked out several games of foosball and we took over the marimba band's instruments for an American white rock style band photo. (We think it was the same marimba band that played at the school on Dia del Niño, long long ago in September. They didn't seem too happy that we were handling their instruments, but they were very patient with our gringo excitement over these novel instruments.) After only two nights, I had the Bishop of Juticalpa calling me, "Hey, Grapevine!" and handing me the current month's issue of the Ft. Worth Diocesan newspaper, and Carlos was recounting tales of his trips to Grapevine with the Bishop, his love for Jeff & Yvette Crumly, the youth group ministers at St. Francis, my childhood church back home, and of teaching the punta to youth group kids at the gym there. Crazy what a small world it is, that I come all the way to Juticalpa, Honduras to find that there are residents who are well-connected with my childhood church in Texas!
At the end of February, in a strange sort of American culture meets Honduran culture celebration, we were invited to an American wedding in Honduras. (Sounds like a good title for a movie. Maybe Jeff, the aspiring cinematographer, will make that one someday.) There was a huge group of short-term volunteers visiting for a 2-week period in February, including a couple who had met while on a mission trip to Juticalpa a few years ago. They felt their experience here was so integral to their relationship that they wanted to have their religious wedding ceremony here. So, after a civil marriage in December, they trekked out to Juticalpa with a church group of various ages, including a few high school and college nursing students. The wedding took place in Jutiquile, a small village about 10 miles outside of Juticalpa, where Padre Ricardo has been the sole priest- Mass celebrant for years. The Jutiquile Mass is always full of joy and exuberant music, with lots of hand clapping and singing, several dogs and children roaming the aisles all through Mass, and a middle-aged man with Downs syndrome who is ever-present in front of the choir, walking at the foot of the altar throughout the Mass, eager to be in the middle of the celebration. One thing I love about the Jutiquile Mass is that the sign of Peace takes about 10 minutes to get through, as everyone squeezes out of the tightly packed aisles to embrace everyone else, from small children to old men with their canes, and everyone embraces us gringoes with a firm arm-to-arm shake. The little girls race up to me and I bend down so they can embrace me with the Honduran cheek kiss. Padre has done a lot for the small, poor community, and he frequently reminds them of the generosity of American donors and the teaching volunteers who commit their time to educate children of the surrounding community. It really shows in the people's loving embraces. It's sort of sad for me to admit this, but I feel more welcomed during the sign of Peace as a minority visitor in this church than I have in any church back home. Maybe U.S. churches need to revive the meaning of the sign of Peace! Anyway, back to the wedding. It was a very unique wedding, and although I have been to some very unique weddings so far in my life, this was possibly the most different. First, it was a part of Sunday Mass, something that would never fly in the U.S., but my talks with Padre have confirmed that there are very few sacramental observance regulations in Honduras compared to churchs under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Conference of Bishops. Second, it was a double-sacrament Mass, because Carlos' youngest son GianCarlos was also being baptized. Carlos is the Director of OAF, and his son is in Jackie's preparatoria class (Honduran Kindergarten). There was also a point where the couple danced a lively jig, and the Our Father was sung to the tune of Simon & Garfunkel's Sound of Silence. However, the ending of the wedding was traditional American style, and apparently equally Honduran style, as Hondurans also throw rice at the bride and groom as they exit the church. Then everyone in the wedding party + guests were invited to the liturgical and choral ministry director's house across the street for a Coca-Cola and vanilla cookie reception. There were so many of us that I stood on the dirt street outside the house and was passed my Coke and cookies from out the front door. The reception was held at the high school, Cardenal, which is located on the Catholic University's campus, along with Padre's house. I think Peggy & Maki planned and hosted the entire reception (oh the joys of the all-hats-wearing Honduran Catholic school director position!). Oddly, for a wedding in Honduras, there was only one small tableful of actual Honduran guests, plus of course our friend and neighbor Mario, who sat with us Santa Clara teachers as an honorary American. There was lots of Coke and dancing, and of course carné asada! Oh, and Anne and I helped (a little) with the table flower arrangements. You can see the pics on Bridget's blog, as I don't think I have any of my own from that event.
Next was Jeff's birthday at the beginning of March. In the spirit of back-to-back themed parties, Andrew decided we should have a Cajun-style Mardi Gras dinner (since Lent started so late this year), and Jeff wanted a Redneck birthday party. So we showed up in purple and green, made Mardi Gras masks with the feathers donated by large group of volunteers that had left us a big box of teaching goodies (hey, some of the donations need to fund the general health and happiness of the volunteer teachers, right?), and ate from big pots of Anne's Cajun corn and shrimp etouffée that Andrew had slaved on all day. Then we all stripped down to our best attempt of a white trash outfit (which wasn't hard for me to do, considering I have some white strapless Ts that look constantly dirty by now.) Jeff met a new friend while bartering for a cheap plaid button up that he could tear the sleeves off of, a woman who'd spent several years working in ski lodges in Colorado. Just an example of the strange sort of conversations gringoes have with Hondurans down here. The funniest part of the night was that we'd invited the Honduran teachers from our school, but were at a total loss as to how to explain the term Redneck. So Bridget told them it was a Country-themed party and they should come dressed in "ropa de la campana" (country style clothing). So of course the women all showed up in their high-heeled boots, skin-tight jeans and racy low-cut shirts. The guys actually looked like they were ready to walk into Gruene dance hall back home, in their pearl-snap shirts and jeans. I think someone even had a cowboy hat that was getting passed around. A highlight of the evening was when Jeff and Andrew tried to teach Honduran teachers Yoely, Karol, and one of their friends how to do line dances. Nevermind that they were teaching the Cotton Eyed Joe improperly... Yoely actually got the steps down pretty good by the end of the night, although they all realized they had to take off their stiletto heels in order to dance country-western style. The Honduran women, who are always fawning over Jeff, laughed at his bare feet and rolled up jean shorts, and even though I tried to step in to his painfully broken Spanish explanation of "what is a Redneck," I couldn't figure out a way to explain it without making it sound like we gringoes are incredibly condescending and mean towards certain economic classes. Which basically is what Redneck jokes are, but... some forms of humor are definitely lost in cross-cultural translation. Still, it was a source of humor and endless laughter for us volunteers for over a week, which was exactly what we needed to help us through the middle of the crazy-busy Spring. Bridg apparently loved my Redneck emails so much she posted them on her blog. It was a crazy night... see pics of Jeff and Bridg getting the party started with setting palm branches on fire in the back yard, and ending with several of us climbing the palm tree in the front yard. B and I even managed to climb a doorway... proud to confirm that at 29, I've still got that monkey-like agility, Dan! This will be beneficial when I go ziplining through the Costa Rican rainforest in a few weeks. ;)
The following week was Mary's birthday, and since it fell on Ash Wednesday, we celebrated the following weekend with another Honduran/American bash. This particular evening was loud and rowdy, as our school consejera and her fiancé left early on an "errand", and returned with her subwoofers and plenty of reggaeton music. Apparently they thought our gringo party was not lively enough. The night turned into a crazy dance party, as usual, and I stayed up later than I ever have here. Along with our usual Santa Clara bilingual crowd were the two Peace Corps volunteers in town, Ayel and Heather, plus another of their Peace Corps friends from a neighboring village, and also the 5 newly arrived American teachers from CECOM, another Catholic bilingual school in town. It was an interesting mix of people!
And yes, the parties kept coming.... our director, Peggy, turned a whopping 23 the following week. After several venue changes, Anne and I ended up hosting the party at our house. Well, Bridget did all the legwork, but we arranged the chairs and answered the door. ;) That was the second Saturday in a row that our power had been out all day, and this time it was out for almost 12 hours, from 8:15 in the morning until almost 8 that night. We were a bit nervous that it wouldn't come back on before everyone arrived, and while it is convenient to be waiting in the dark to surprise the birthday girl, the surprise part would have been a bit spooky without electricity. We lit candles and started decorating posters in the dark, but fortunately the power came back on before Peggy arrived, purportedly on an errand with Carlos to "check our broken washing machine" before heading to dinner with the current short-term volunteers who were in town. She was really surprised, since it was actually a few days before her birthday. We had invited a few of the Hondurans who work for the Foundation, including our M.C. of dancing, Tony the electrician, who can climb trees, chairs, and Honduran ladders like a monkey, loves Tina Turner, and has Gumby-like mad-dancing moves (and who still needs to return a 3rd time to finish fixing our washing machine). We had catered food, so it was a relaxing party with a lot of goofy dancing, since the gringoes were running the show. Andrew polka-ed me across our wide living room, and then we had to do a shout-out dance to the YMCA in honor of the shirt Carlos was wearing that night, followed by Bridg's great idea to show the Hondurans what American dancing is all about-- crazy mashed-potato dancing to Shout! Jeff, always trying to liven things up, insisted that I join him in shotgunning... so you can check out pics of me regressing to freshman year of college-level amusement... never a dull moment with my friend Jeff.
The moral to all of this nonsense is that when in Honduras, teaching more than 7 hours each day in what feels and sounds like a large tin can, you absolutely must find ways to laugh, eat good food, and act a little crazy on the weekends. It's a part of our mental and emotional health here. And all that dancing must be burning some tajadita calories, too, right?
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