Christmas in Honduras

After 8 months without seeing my parents they arrived on December 23rd to spend Christmas and New Years with me in Honduras. Rene, a Rotary Club member that I work with, had offered to pick them up at the airport so we wouldn’t have to take the bus, and he actually followed through on the offer! It was a lot easier that way since my parents (my mom) came with a pretty heavy suitcase (although I have to take some of the blame since they did bring me some Christmas presents). From the San Pedro Sula airport we came straight to Santa Barbara, my site, and stayed until the day after Christmas. It was good we were able to spend time at my house just relaxing because my dad was really sick when he got here and spent a fair amount of time lying on the couch, drinking tea and babbling incoherently. Once he was feeling a little better we walked around town so my parents could meet people, including Jose (the owner of the sports bar where the volunteers always have parties),

Jose, my mom and I

Telma (a retired teacher who volunteers with the HIV/AIDS Network), Yerry (Folkloric Dance partner), the owners of the new vegetarian restaurant in town, my landlords and the neighborhood kids. They all commented on how young my parents looked! We also visited peoples’ crèches (my mom loves crèches), which are much more elaborate here than in the states, sometimes taking up an entire room.

My mom, me, Telma & her creche (which is small compared to others)

We all stayed in my apartment; my parents slept in my bed and I slept on a colchon (guest mattress) on the floor in my second bedroom. It was fun to be all together, but also kinda funny…I had to continually remind my mom that throwing toilet paper down the toilet will ruin it (you can’t put it in the toilet, you have to throw it in the trash can). My dad kept shocking himself with the electraducha (thing attached to the shower head that sometimes heats the water) and did not approve of there being an outlet in the shower.

Christmas morning we sat around my little tree and I opened a few presents that my parents had brought for me.
After presents we went for a hike to the castillo (ruins of an old castle about 45 minutes up the mountain outside of Santa Barbara).
My mom & I

My dad took a picture of every truck that went by trying to capture the stereotypical packed pickup truck. The people in the trucks also got great enjoyment out of this and would all wave and shout to us, some of them even slowed down for the picture.
My dad also took some quality photos of Santa Barbara.
Here you can see two dogs stuck together and a bolo (drunk guy) sleeping on the side of the road. These are common sights in Honduras but to capture them together is pretty unique.
Then we came back and attempted to cook Christmas dinner in my tiny little kitchen. The mashed potatoes, stuffing, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce and pumpkin bread all came out pretty darn good. The next day we left for Copan so we couldn’t enjoy one of the best parts about Christmas dinner, leftovers. I was so sad to have to leave it all, but thankfully Katie ate it when she got home and few days later so it didn’t go to waste.