The Saturday before Thanksgiving I flipped a coin to help me decide what to do; stay in Santa Barbara or go to the north coast. I felt torn because if I stayed in Santa Barbara I would get to dance at the opening of the Cultural Center, which would be attended by the president of Honduras and I would get to attend my first quincinera (like sweet 16, but 15, it’s a big deal here). On the other hand, I wouldn’t get to visit Mary and Raphael on the north coast or share in their holiday meal. In the end I flipped a coin and went to the north coast (in the end it was the right decision, the president didn’t show up, big surprise). Katie, my site mate, and I started off early Thursday morning and arrived at Mary’s house in Sonaguera about 7 hours later.
Translation=war zone
Although it was a long trip it went well a luckily we didn’t have to take the advice of this sign that was posted at the front of the bus…
Translation=Ask for a bag in case of vomiting (which unfortunately happens quite often on buses here).
We decided to celebrate on Friday, since not everybody could make it for Thursday. The next morning when we woke up I asked Mary if she had turned off the fan in the middle of the night and she replied that the power was out and she had been lying awake in bed since 6 am trying to figure out what we would do if the power didn’t come back on. The problem is that Mary has an electric stove and oven, so no power means to turkey. Well, Mary’s neighbors have a gas stove and oven, so they said we could use their kitchen to cook if the power didn’t come back on. Well, eventually the power came back on, then went off again, then came back on, then went off again, etc. until it finally came back on and stayed on in the early afternoon. Then the cooking began! We had virtually everything you could want on Thanksgiving Day: turkey, gravy, stuffing, roasted vegetables, mashed potatoes, green beans, cranberry sauce, sweet potato pie, pumpkin bread, pumpkin pie and apple pie! We had to go shopping all over Honduras to get the ingredients but we made it work.
The spread
From left: Me; Katie; Raphael; Dan (Raphael´s friend visiting from the states)
I was especially excited about the pumpkin bread, one of my favorites. I can’t buy canned pumpkin in my site so I had to buy it in Tegucigalpa, the capital, when I went to the Peace Corps office. Most people in my site don’t even know what a pumpkin is. When I tried to explain that pumpkin pie is a Thanksgiving favorite people seemed confused. First of all, the word for cake and pie is the same (pastel) and the word for pumpkin (calabaza) refers to a gourd or a calabash in general. So, I’m sure they were imagining a cake made out of gourds and it probably didn’t seem very appetizing. Katie made excellent pumpkin bread and pumpkin pie, although we had a little trouble with the pie at first. The crust around the edges collapsed and the filling started spilling out in the oven. We had to take it out, clean the oven, fix the crust and then bake it, but it tasted great in the end.
It was wonderful to be with good friends and enjoy Thanksgiving even though we were all far away from home.
Peace Corps volunteers, friends from home and Agua Pura volunteers
We also did lots of relaxing and reading. Here is Katie sitting in the hammock in Mary’s apartment reading. Why don’t we have hammocks in our living rooms in the states? They are so much cheaper than couches…
Katie relaxing in the hammock in Mary´s apartment reading Psychology Today
On Saturday a few of us headed up to Raphael’s site in Trujillo, which is right on the beach. From what Raphael tells me his site is scorching hot in the summer and raining constantly in the summer. Luckily we had amazing luck as it was absolutely beautiful the entire time we were there; clear blue skies and not too hot.
View from Raphael´s roof
While in Trujillo we of course at Thanksgiving leftovers (actually we ate most of the leftovers on the bus on the way from Sonaguera to Trujillo because we got hungry), visited some tourist sites, swam and relaxed.
This is an old Spanish fort located on the hills above the beach
On Sunday we visited Casa Kiwi, a hostel owned by New Zealanders a few miles outside of Trujillo. They actually keep their beach clean (unlike many other beaches in Honduras) so we took advantage and went for a swim (my mom would like it, the water is really warm).
Clean beach 
Dirty beach
The water is not super clear, so there wasn’t much to see, but Raphael did find a starfish.
Katie & I with a starfish on my shoulder
Another interesting attraction was the very large beached boat about a kilometer down the beach from where we were swimming. Apparently something went wrong during a storm and the boat got stuck and has been stuck for over a month (the crew we met assured us that they would have it out by next week and they were nice enough to give us a tour).
The crew that got left behind to deal with their beached boat, I think they were getting pretty bored...
Again, relaxing in hammocks, which is great until the wind dies down and the sand flies attack! They don’t hurt at first, but after about a day they itch like crazy.
The highlight of the trip for me was seeing and dancing the punta. The punta is a traditional dance danced by the Garifuna. We got to the dance club and at first they were playing reggaeton and reggae and people were just chill. Then, the punta band showed up with various types of drums, maracas, and a conch shell and the entire scene transformed immediately. Everybody formed a circle around the band and people took turns going into the middle of the circle to dance solo or in a pair. But before you could dance you had to give money to the band by dropping it in their bowl and then you can dance. Everybody that went in the middle to dance was great. The beat is incredibly fast and the dance involved moving your hips up and down with the music while keeping the upper body basically static. I was nervous at first to dance in front of everybody but I knew I would regret it if I didn’t, so I paid my 5 lempiras and went in the middle to dance, but only for about one minute because the punta is hard!
Overall it was a great weekend and I hardly felt homesick. I think the thing I missed most about Thanksgiving with my family in the states was sitting around after eating and just talking (and of course eating leftovers).
Translation=war zoneAlthough it was a long trip it went well a luckily we didn’t have to take the advice of this sign that was posted at the front of the bus…
Translation=Ask for a bag in case of vomiting (which unfortunately happens quite often on buses here).We decided to celebrate on Friday, since not everybody could make it for Thursday. The next morning when we woke up I asked Mary if she had turned off the fan in the middle of the night and she replied that the power was out and she had been lying awake in bed since 6 am trying to figure out what we would do if the power didn’t come back on. The problem is that Mary has an electric stove and oven, so no power means to turkey. Well, Mary’s neighbors have a gas stove and oven, so they said we could use their kitchen to cook if the power didn’t come back on. Well, eventually the power came back on, then went off again, then came back on, then went off again, etc. until it finally came back on and stayed on in the early afternoon. Then the cooking began! We had virtually everything you could want on Thanksgiving Day: turkey, gravy, stuffing, roasted vegetables, mashed potatoes, green beans, cranberry sauce, sweet potato pie, pumpkin bread, pumpkin pie and apple pie! We had to go shopping all over Honduras to get the ingredients but we made it work.
The spreadFrom left: Me; Katie; Raphael; Dan (Raphael´s friend visiting from the states)I was especially excited about the pumpkin bread, one of my favorites. I can’t buy canned pumpkin in my site so I had to buy it in Tegucigalpa, the capital, when I went to the Peace Corps office. Most people in my site don’t even know what a pumpkin is. When I tried to explain that pumpkin pie is a Thanksgiving favorite people seemed confused. First of all, the word for cake and pie is the same (pastel) and the word for pumpkin (calabaza) refers to a gourd or a calabash in general. So, I’m sure they were imagining a cake made out of gourds and it probably didn’t seem very appetizing. Katie made excellent pumpkin bread and pumpkin pie, although we had a little trouble with the pie at first. The crust around the edges collapsed and the filling started spilling out in the oven. We had to take it out, clean the oven, fix the crust and then bake it, but it tasted great in the end.
It was wonderful to be with good friends and enjoy Thanksgiving even though we were all far away from home.
Peace Corps volunteers, friends from home and Agua Pura volunteersWe also did lots of relaxing and reading. Here is Katie sitting in the hammock in Mary’s apartment reading. Why don’t we have hammocks in our living rooms in the states? They are so much cheaper than couches…
Katie relaxing in the hammock in Mary´s apartment reading Psychology TodayOn Saturday a few of us headed up to Raphael’s site in Trujillo, which is right on the beach. From what Raphael tells me his site is scorching hot in the summer and raining constantly in the summer. Luckily we had amazing luck as it was absolutely beautiful the entire time we were there; clear blue skies and not too hot.
View from Raphael´s roof
While in Trujillo we of course at Thanksgiving leftovers (actually we ate most of the leftovers on the bus on the way from Sonaguera to Trujillo because we got hungry), visited some tourist sites, swam and relaxed.
This is an old Spanish fort located on the hills above the beach
On Sunday we visited Casa Kiwi, a hostel owned by New Zealanders a few miles outside of Trujillo. They actually keep their beach clean (unlike many other beaches in Honduras) so we took advantage and went for a swim (my mom would like it, the water is really warm).
Clean beach Dirty beachThe water is not super clear, so there wasn’t much to see, but Raphael did find a starfish.
Katie & I with a starfish on my shoulderAnother interesting attraction was the very large beached boat about a kilometer down the beach from where we were swimming. Apparently something went wrong during a storm and the boat got stuck and has been stuck for over a month (the crew we met assured us that they would have it out by next week and they were nice enough to give us a tour).
The crew that got left behind to deal with their beached boat, I think they were getting pretty bored...Again, relaxing in hammocks, which is great until the wind dies down and the sand flies attack! They don’t hurt at first, but after about a day they itch like crazy.
The highlight of the trip for me was seeing and dancing the punta. The punta is a traditional dance danced by the Garifuna. We got to the dance club and at first they were playing reggaeton and reggae and people were just chill. Then, the punta band showed up with various types of drums, maracas, and a conch shell and the entire scene transformed immediately. Everybody formed a circle around the band and people took turns going into the middle of the circle to dance solo or in a pair. But before you could dance you had to give money to the band by dropping it in their bowl and then you can dance. Everybody that went in the middle to dance was great. The beat is incredibly fast and the dance involved moving your hips up and down with the music while keeping the upper body basically static. I was nervous at first to dance in front of everybody but I knew I would regret it if I didn’t, so I paid my 5 lempiras and went in the middle to dance, but only for about one minute because the punta is hard!
Overall it was a great weekend and I hardly felt homesick. I think the thing I missed most about Thanksgiving with my family in the states was sitting around after eating and just talking (and of course eating leftovers).
1 comment:
Amiable fill someone in on and this post helped me alot in my college assignement. Thank you for your information.
Post a Comment