Okay so I have some stories to share from this past month (only one lonely post in December - to be blamed on the craziness of "the season"). I think the theme is something along the lines of "THINGS I WANTED TO TELL YOU ABOUT" and yes, you should always read ALL-CAPS words as shouting. Keeps things INTERESTING.
1. Feliz Año Nuevo! Celebrating the New Year in Honduras is a hoot! I had a great dinner with my adoptive sisters Bessy and Nohelia and about 90 of their cousins who were in from Tegucigalpa. One big plus to the holidays is food, without a doubt. I'm sure at this point you all realize that I am not one of those people who eats to live ...
Tamales , specifically nacatamales, are wonderfully plentiful this time of year. To my family, heirs to the grand culinary traditions of Ireland and North Philly, I would describe a tamal as a really dense, meat- and spice-stuffed cornbread (almost) that comes wrapped in banana leaves. Another noteworthy food item, torejas en miel. I kept hearing the neighbors talk about torejas and was so excited to discover that they are FRENCH TOAST. SOAKED IN HONEY.
Anyway, after dinner with the family, we all watched the neighbors burn a couple of años viejos. The viejos are scarecrows (sometimes effigies of politicians or other popular figures) that represent the past year and are burned at midnight on the 31st to welcome in the new year. Making a viejo is pretty simple: old clothes stuffed with fireworks, doused in gasoline and lit on fire in the street like a celebratory bomb. People here are always thinking about safety!
After the scarecrows were done, we lit some more fireworks. Actually the cousins lit the fireworks and I felt like a sheltered foreigner worrying the whole time that someone was going to shoot their eye out. Then we all went house-hopping to visit more family and dance, literally until dawn. It's been super interesting to see how Hondurans celebrate these two most recent holidays (Christmas Eve is almost identical to New Year's, if you add church services and subtract the viejos) because they are such a break from the norm in a culture I would generally say is soft-spoken, tranquilo and more reserved.
2. Item #2 happened most recently, a.k.a. last night, and I am equal parts indignant and amused. So we didn't receive an electricity bill for November. I interpreted the lack of billing to mean that no one was home when the bill deliverer came by (bills don't just come in the mail because there is no door-to-door postal service in Talanga) and the deliverer either forgot to come back (not likely) or he/she slipped it under our fence and it blew away (most likely) or he/she slipped it under our fence and Conde ate the bill (second most likely). We weren't too worried about it and figured somebody would stop by soon enough to demand payment. What actually happened was Brooke opened the door at 6 pm last night to find two guys from the power company climbing up the telephone pole on our street to PHYSICALLY cut the wires that connect to our house. No warning. Just choppin' those wires right down!
So after Brooke and I sort out with the guys what is actually going on, that we didn't pay last month's bill, etc., etc., I suggest that they just hold their horses because we can pay right now in cash and that the only problem was that we didn't know how much was due. So the guy looks at the meter, writes up the bill, and hands it to us. And then he informs us that he still has to cut the wires. Because we have to pay the bill at the office. And the office is just now closed (it's 6:05 pm). He acknowledges that he can do us a big favor and, instead of cutting the wires from the telephone pole which is very high, he can cut them right where they connect to our house and we can just attempt to reconnect them ourselves with some electrical tape as soon as he leaves. GREAT.
The end to this saga is that, after two quick snips with the wire cutters, our house is dark. It's not really that tragic because we have plenty of candles and I've always liked cereal for dinner. Also as I'm writing this it's now the next morning and Brooke is at the bank paying the bill and our friend Carlos is jerry-rigging the power lines back together (it takes a few days for someone to the power company to come back and officially re-attach them). The only truly obnoxious part of the story is something we just learned from Carlos: the power company actually pays a special commission to their workers for every line that they cut because the company can then charge customers a fee to restart the service. So the workers purposely come after business hours (when the bank is closed) to cut the lines and there is nothing you can do about it. Major lolz, no?
3. Well, I was going to do a #3 but I'll save it for next time. I've waxed long-winded as usual. Suffice to say that I miss you all and I love getting comments and updates from you, too. Big hugs from Honduras.
1. Feliz Año Nuevo! Celebrating the New Year in Honduras is a hoot! I had a great dinner with my adoptive sisters Bessy and Nohelia and about 90 of their cousins who were in from Tegucigalpa. One big plus to the holidays is food, without a doubt. I'm sure at this point you all realize that I am not one of those people who eats to live ...
Tamales , specifically nacatamales, are wonderfully plentiful this time of year. To my family, heirs to the grand culinary traditions of Ireland and North Philly, I would describe a tamal as a really dense, meat- and spice-stuffed cornbread (almost) that comes wrapped in banana leaves. Another noteworthy food item, torejas en miel. I kept hearing the neighbors talk about torejas and was so excited to discover that they are FRENCH TOAST. SOAKED IN HONEY.
Anyway, after dinner with the family, we all watched the neighbors burn a couple of años viejos. The viejos are scarecrows (sometimes effigies of politicians or other popular figures) that represent the past year and are burned at midnight on the 31st to welcome in the new year. Making a viejo is pretty simple: old clothes stuffed with fireworks, doused in gasoline and lit on fire in the street like a celebratory bomb. People here are always thinking about safety!
After the scarecrows were done, we lit some more fireworks. Actually the cousins lit the fireworks and I felt like a sheltered foreigner worrying the whole time that someone was going to shoot their eye out. Then we all went house-hopping to visit more family and dance, literally until dawn. It's been super interesting to see how Hondurans celebrate these two most recent holidays (Christmas Eve is almost identical to New Year's, if you add church services and subtract the viejos) because they are such a break from the norm in a culture I would generally say is soft-spoken, tranquilo and more reserved.
2. Item #2 happened most recently, a.k.a. last night, and I am equal parts indignant and amused. So we didn't receive an electricity bill for November. I interpreted the lack of billing to mean that no one was home when the bill deliverer came by (bills don't just come in the mail because there is no door-to-door postal service in Talanga) and the deliverer either forgot to come back (not likely) or he/she slipped it under our fence and it blew away (most likely) or he/she slipped it under our fence and Conde ate the bill (second most likely). We weren't too worried about it and figured somebody would stop by soon enough to demand payment. What actually happened was Brooke opened the door at 6 pm last night to find two guys from the power company climbing up the telephone pole on our street to PHYSICALLY cut the wires that connect to our house. No warning. Just choppin' those wires right down!
So after Brooke and I sort out with the guys what is actually going on, that we didn't pay last month's bill, etc., etc., I suggest that they just hold their horses because we can pay right now in cash and that the only problem was that we didn't know how much was due. So the guy looks at the meter, writes up the bill, and hands it to us. And then he informs us that he still has to cut the wires. Because we have to pay the bill at the office. And the office is just now closed (it's 6:05 pm). He acknowledges that he can do us a big favor and, instead of cutting the wires from the telephone pole which is very high, he can cut them right where they connect to our house and we can just attempt to reconnect them ourselves with some electrical tape as soon as he leaves. GREAT.
The end to this saga is that, after two quick snips with the wire cutters, our house is dark. It's not really that tragic because we have plenty of candles and I've always liked cereal for dinner. Also as I'm writing this it's now the next morning and Brooke is at the bank paying the bill and our friend Carlos is jerry-rigging the power lines back together (it takes a few days for someone to the power company to come back and officially re-attach them). The only truly obnoxious part of the story is something we just learned from Carlos: the power company actually pays a special commission to their workers for every line that they cut because the company can then charge customers a fee to restart the service. So the workers purposely come after business hours (when the bank is closed) to cut the lines and there is nothing you can do about it. Major lolz, no?
3. Well, I was going to do a #3 but I'll save it for next time. I've waxed long-winded as usual. Suffice to say that I miss you all and I love getting comments and updates from you, too. Big hugs from Honduras.