Where to begin… sorry I haven’t been more of an avid blogger. It has been brought to my attention via other asprirantes that I should try to step it up because I am leaving my friends and family back home hanging. I am going to try to be better… we will see- I make no promises.
OK- so I feel like so much has happened. I last wrote you before Semana Santa. Well… it was very fun. Semana Santa is the whole week long Easter celebration here in Honduras. It is based off the Catholic Church and consists of a week of church processionals, mass and people dressed up as Jesus doing the Stations of the Cross. On the Friday before Easter Sunday a lot of the major cities make these giant “alfombras” or rugs made of colored saw dust. They design them and make them all night Thursday going into Friday morning. It is very impressive. The rugs consist of many things… mainly the Stations of the Cross but also verses from the bible and pictures of Jesus and the family. They basically tell the whole story. It is so cool to see these people work so hard to make these extravagant works of art. We actually got to help a little because my Tulane friends Mary and Kendra were helping to make one! After they are all made then the procession comes and walks all over them and ruins them. The procession stops at each Station, reads the part in the bible and sings. Then the band plays the hymn and they continue on. Very neat!
It has been very hot here… so it was nice to go swimming in the river. I was a little weirded out by it at first. But, it seemed pretty clean and I was hot so Oh well!
Last week we have a cold front and by cold front I mean it was like 75-80 not the usual 95-100. Yea.. La Paz it hot.
I kinda got a cold thing going on. Sore throats are never fun, but I am on meds and getting better. My mom here won’t give me anything cold because they believe that when you are sick you shouldn’t eat anything cold because it will harm you. Very different from what I am used to because when I have a sore throat all I want is a popsicle! I have convinced her that it is ok and I will be just fine if I don’t have a steaming bowl of hot soup for lunch on a nice hot summer day when I feel crappy! They like to eat soup for lunch—I love soup, when it is cold- not when it is 100 degrees outside. We have made some compromises here…. instead of eating it for lunch, I just eat my soup for dinner when it is cooler outside (which is really weird for them because they also think that it also will hurt me).
I love learning all the different cultural things here… just learning about all the different beliefs they have is interesting. Alot of the main differences are the beliefs when it comes to illness...things you can and cannot eat. Very interesting. I try to come into it all with an open mind because these are their beliefs and I want to respect them. I am sure that there will be TONS more learning experiences to come.
Above pictures are:
OK- so I feel like so much has happened. I last wrote you before Semana Santa. Well… it was very fun. Semana Santa is the whole week long Easter celebration here in Honduras. It is based off the Catholic Church and consists of a week of church processionals, mass and people dressed up as Jesus doing the Stations of the Cross. On the Friday before Easter Sunday a lot of the major cities make these giant “alfombras” or rugs made of colored saw dust. They design them and make them all night Thursday going into Friday morning. It is very impressive. The rugs consist of many things… mainly the Stations of the Cross but also verses from the bible and pictures of Jesus and the family. They basically tell the whole story. It is so cool to see these people work so hard to make these extravagant works of art. We actually got to help a little because my Tulane friends Mary and Kendra were helping to make one! After they are all made then the procession comes and walks all over them and ruins them. The procession stops at each Station, reads the part in the bible and sings. Then the band plays the hymn and they continue on. Very neat!
It has been very hot here… so it was nice to go swimming in the river. I was a little weirded out by it at first. But, it seemed pretty clean and I was hot so Oh well!
Last week we have a cold front and by cold front I mean it was like 75-80 not the usual 95-100. Yea.. La Paz it hot.
I kinda got a cold thing going on. Sore throats are never fun, but I am on meds and getting better. My mom here won’t give me anything cold because they believe that when you are sick you shouldn’t eat anything cold because it will harm you. Very different from what I am used to because when I have a sore throat all I want is a popsicle! I have convinced her that it is ok and I will be just fine if I don’t have a steaming bowl of hot soup for lunch on a nice hot summer day when I feel crappy! They like to eat soup for lunch—I love soup, when it is cold- not when it is 100 degrees outside. We have made some compromises here…. instead of eating it for lunch, I just eat my soup for dinner when it is cooler outside (which is really weird for them because they also think that it also will hurt me).
I love learning all the different cultural things here… just learning about all the different beliefs they have is interesting. Alot of the main differences are the beliefs when it comes to illness...things you can and cannot eat. Very interesting. I try to come into it all with an open mind because these are their beliefs and I want to respect them. I am sure that there will be TONS more learning experiences to come.
Above pictures are:
#1-rug made of saw dust
#2-teaching the fam to color eggs at cultural day
#3-kids acting out the 3rd station of the cross
#4-little Jesus
