Belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone! This blog post is over due! It's been sitting as a draft for two weeks, and I've finally decided to post it.
The holidays were definitely a unique experience for me this year. Christmas was fun, but very busy. Christmas festivities began a week before Christmas Eve with Posada. Posada is a tradition of going to a house or building to sing a song of Mary and Joseph asking for shelter. The song goes back and forth between people inside the building and those without until finally all are welcomed in to eat a snack. We did this every night for a week with different groups hosting. It was fun. On the 23rd of December, some people stayed up until 5 in the morning to make tamales for the 24th. Yours truly did not help with this. I fizzled out at midnight after helping organize presents and stockings (paper bags full of candy). Christmas in Honduras is celebrated on December 24th with tamales in the morning, presents of new clothes, and a fiesta with dancing until midnight. It was a long day, but it was fun. The kids were SO excited about their new clothes. Look how cute/handsome they looked!
Nothing out of the ordinary happened here on the 25th. It was a little sad for me and the other volunteers. Our gringo hearts were longing for our families, cold weather, fires in fire places, Christmas food, etc. We got through the homesickness attack though just in time to celebrate the New Year. On the 30th, some people again stayed up until 5 in the morning to make tamales. I helped until 2 this time. Making tamales is a very meticulous process… I had no idea. Gathering leaves, cutting the leaves, drying the leaves, washing the leaves, making the dough, boiling the dough, cutting up/cooking/preparing the chicken and other fillings, putting the dough in the leaves, putting in the filling, folding the leaves, boiling, and finally: tamales. I’m not sure if the finished product is worth the effort in my opinion, but I respect that they’re an important tradition in Honduras and that they’re essential to the holidays here. The New Year’s Eve celebration began with the tamale breakfast and eneded with a fiesta until 1:00 AM… lots of dancing these days!
The festivities wrapped up on January 6th, Three Kings Day, which is the day when the kids got “fun” presents, i.e. not clothes. This was a really cool day and probably my favorite celebration. It began with a special dinner and then a prayer service. During the prayer service, the kids chose a “gift” such as love or friendship to present to baby Jesus. Then we all headed out to climb the steep hill leading up to the white cross. The path was illuminated with torches and at the the top of the hill, we encountered a live manger scene, which included the Holy Family and the three kings. The 4-year-old little guy in my arms gasped, “Que bonito/how beautiful!” The three kings called the kids up one-by-one to present their written gifts and receive their gifts. There were baby dolls, barbies, remote control cars, dinosaurs, soccer shoes, backpacks, and marbles just to name a few things. The preschoolers were my favorite to watch. They were a little confused by the three strange men in king costumes, but the magic was in their eyes just like the magic of little ones who receive gifts from Santa.
And now… I’m back in the States, the land of hot showers, liquid handsoap, and cold temperatures! I’ve been here for just about two weeks, and it has been so good to see my family and friends. Though it's really tough to say goodbye again, I feel refreshed and prepared to return to the Amigos family in Honduras.
