A White [Sand] Christmas

It had been precisely 4 months and 19 days since I had seen anyone from my family. And then, there she was – in all her tall, gingery beauty – my beloved sister. I was pacing back and forth in the waiting area and standing on my tiptoes to try to find her once I knew her plane had landed. I knew it wouldn’t be hard to find my fair sister in the crowd of Hondurans, but I was incredibly anxious. I was getting a lot of interesting looks from people because I’m sure they thought I was going crazy while bouncing up and down like that. As soon as I saw her I couldn’t help myself; tears came streaming out of my eyes as I finally got to hug her! It had obviously been way too long since seeing her and my whole being was ecstatic to be with her again. Our long awaited reunion was here at last and we took off right away to start enjoying Christmas together!

Katie and I made plans to spend Christmas week together in a coastal city named La Ceiba. We picked a beautiful, all inclusive resort, called La Palma Real, to just sit back and relax to the max for Christmas. We both had very long travel days to get there: Katie left Saturday at midnight flying from Denver to Miami arriving in San Pedro Sula Sunday afternoon. (Did I mention that I love my sister dearly for making that kind of trip just to visit me?) I left Copan Sunday at 7 in the morning morning on a bus to San Pedro Sula and then sat in the airport for a few hours waiting. Once we were joyously together we took a bus to La Ceiba which (in Honduras fashion) was late leaving and took a little longer than expected. When we got to the city of La Ceiba we learned that our hotel was on the outskirts of town so we would have to take an additional 45 minute taxi ride to get there. We finally arrived at the hotel by 9:30pm. Can you imagine how exhausted we were? Thankfully the buffet had no closed yet so we went there right away to fill our bellies, get a drink, and then hit the sack.

As I mentioned the hotel was absolutely beautiful. Honduras is not exactly a popular tourist destination (except for the Bay Islands, but we were not going to risk a severely rough ferry ride to get there) so the hotel was not very crowded. Interestingly enough, there is a direct flight from Montreal to La Ceiba so there was an unusual amount of French Canadians there! They represented about half of the guests and the other half were Hondurans. Basically, Katie and I were the only ones from the States there and we were surrounded by people talking in French or Spanish. (If only Katie had kept up with her French from high school, we would have been the dynamic duo!) Although we were at a top of the line hotel, I was reminded that we were still in Honduras. Some of the main attractions – the waterpark and all of the restaurants besides the buffet – were closed which was a big disappointment. The pools were not heated, but thankfully it was hot enough outside for the cool water to feel refreshing. Sometimes the electricity and water in our room were temperamental. But put all that aside and it was fabulous! I was in heaven with the big and cozy beds, cable tv, bright lights in the room, normal shower, buffet of food I had been missing, and soft towels. They had fun activities to do during the day like dance lessons, beach volleyball, water aerobics, kayaking, etc. There was an endless supply of tasty tropical drinks we could sip on. Hammocks were everywhere that we both took full advantage of for reading books and taking naps in. And the ocean; even though La Ceiba is on the coast, it is not known for its beaches but we had a marvelous beach and I can never get enough of that salty water.

Every night the animation crew put on a show for the guests, but I would not rate their ‘shows’ suitable for a ‘family’ environment. I personally thought they were hysterically out-of-the-blue and totally unexpected. Now I’m wishing I had pictures to show you but I was in such shock that I was too busy rolling my eyes and picking my jaw up off the floor to remember to take some. Christmas Eve they set up a manger scene outside of the cafeteria. Three of the workers were dressed up as Mary and Joseph (with a doll for baby Jesus), and a wise man. Then they had a little petting zoo-esque area where you could pet a horse, a cow (with a hump like a camel), a pig (although he didn’t seem to want to be petted), a (distressed) sheep with her lamps, and a turkey (who sadly lost his friend early on in the night and still lay in a heap next to him)! Every child’s petting zoo dreams could have been fulfilled right there. After dinner we went to the hotel’s theatre for the main event. Have you ever seen “Mean Girls”? Keep the girls’ “Jingle Bell Rock” performance in your mind while I try to describe what we saw next. The female dancers were dressed as Santa’s helpers in bikini halter tops with very mini-skirts and knee high stiletto-boots. The male dancers were shirtless of course and wearing some kind of spandex bottoms. From there they performed a few dance numbers that would make you turn red. Their hips move in directions that I never thought was possible and they certainly know how to be scandalous (while keeping classy?) on that stage. They also lip synced to a few songs to make us feel like we were attending the real concerts. It absolutely was not your traditional Christmas program and we will never forget it!

Two of the nights we were treated to the traditional dances of Honduras. One was very folkloric with big flowing dresses on the women and the men dressed as farmers and cowboys; everyone was adorned with flowers, bright colors, and intricate patterns. There was a lot of twirling and cheering as they waltzed around the dance floor. The other was put on by the native coastal people, the Guarifunas. It was a great beach party with drumming and dancing! The way they move their feet is even more incredible than the half-naked dancers shaking their hips. It just doesn’t seem physically possible! For each performance they picked people out of the crowd to come to the front and try to duplicate their elaborate dance moves. Katie and I were the unlucky ones for the folklore dance and we had to dig deep down to our latino roots and bring out our best dancing hips. We made absolute fools of ourselves and Katie got more votes than I did!

Every night the after party was worth the wait. After each show they opened up the dance floor to all the guests. Since every show had mind-blowing dancing it was always incredibly intimidating to join the pros and dance alongside them. I did make a few friends in the process trying to show off my cheesy dance moves and my groovy whiteness. Plus, Katie often went to bed after the show (she was too exhausted from trying to keep track of their insane hips) but I wanted to celebrate the night, so I flashed my cute smile and made friends with some of the dancers, Canadians, and bar tenders. I learned all sorts of new dances! I swayed my hips to Salsa, Merengue, Bachata, and Punta. Judging by my sore hips every morning, I know I had too much fun.

It would be an understatement to say that it was odd to be spending Christmas on the beach. It wasn’t until noon on Christmas Eve that we realized what day it was. That Christmas program threw us both for a loop. I felt goofy singing along to the Christmas tunes they were blaring because they just did not suit the environment! Our days were spent catching up on our rest and Vitamin D. Isn’t that normal for Christmas? I mean, I have a few memories of 60degree weather on Christmas day. We had a consistent routine of eating, reading, sleeping, swimming, and playing beach volleyball. Katie brought me some juicy magazines so I could catch up on all the celebrity gossip I had been missing; I also devoured the first book in the Hunger Games series. I picked out my favorite hammock to nap it – it wasn’t too tight to let my body slump into it or too loose to drop me to the ground, there were no holes that would let a limp slip through or make me strain my neck to hold my head up, and it was in a peaceful area with no screaming kids around. I took turns swimming in the ocean and then rinsing all that salt off my body in the pool. Katie and I carefully watched the volleyball court for any signs of a game that we could jump in on. All you mothers out there, don’t worry, I put on plenty of sunscreen and actually did not suffer from a sun burn once! The hotel also had a few tours organized that its guests could sign up for. They offered a variety of fun outside of the hotel that was simply irresistible. Katie and I signed up for two: Cayos Cochinos and the Canopy Tour.

Cayos Cochinos: There is a small set of islands off the coast of Honduras called Cayos Cochinos. Now, I am not educated enough to tell you all of their individual names, but I will share an interesting fact about them. They have been a popular spot for many international Survivor television shows. Only one of the islands is inhabited by the public so those tv shows have their pick of deserted islands to throw the contestants on (whom, once they get voted off, stay at the Palma Real hotel). The islands are breathtaking! They are surrounded by crystal clear waters that are just begging to be swum in. We stopped briefly on one island to look at the preservation efforts to keep the islands alive and thriving. We cruised around a few to get to an island where we were able to look for the rare pink boa. They made you feel like you were going on this special expedition to find one and you would be lucky if you did… However, the boas apparently don’t move very often so once you find one, you have a pretty good chance of it staying in that same spot for the next few weeks. We found four different ones and just marveled at them napping in the sun.

We had the opportunity to go snorkeling after the snake-hunt fun (which Katie was happy to be done with)! The guides made us wear the lifejackets upside down so that our hips and butts would be the parts that floated; didn’t you know that’s how you are supposed to wear life jackets? The first place we started snorkeling at had too many jelly fish in the water so you had this constant stinging feeling on your skin. Thankfully the second place was much more inviting. I did not really appreciate that we were in such a large group because people kept swimming into me and vice versa, but it was still a beautiful sight! We saw many brightly colored fish and coral swaying with the ocean’s current. Some of the group got to see a baby sting ray but Katie and I weren’t so lucky. After that we headed out to our final stop:  lunch! We ate lunch on the only island open to the general public and inhabited year-round. At any point in the year there could be between 100-200 people living on the island. Can you imagine living on such a tiny little island with that many people?! (And I thought La Unión was small.) We had a scrumptious meal of fried fish (the whole bugger too, bones and face and everything else), tejadas, beans, and rice. Some visitors to this island bring gifts for the people, so there was a woman there who was handing out simple Christmas gifts to all the little ones. It was so precious to see their faces light up over toy cars, dolls, and hula hoops!

   

The island itself is one of the “twin” islands. It sits right next to another island that once out of the year the water level gets low enough that there is a land bridge to connect the two. The other island is private so you aren’t really allowed to visit it. We had just missed this year’s ‘bridge’ but the water was shallow enough still that you could tell where it was. I imagined that this would be an ideal location for any swimsuit photo shoot because the backdrop was gorgeous and you could just stand in the middle of the ocean (plus there were a few people taking personal glamour shots to set the scene). A group of the islanders started playing the drums while little kids danced around in circles and shook their booties for us. I just love the beat of the traditional island music with the natives chanting along. That wrapped up our trip to Cayos Cochinos and before long we were on the boat to journey back to the hotel.

The Canopy Tour: We took another morning trip into the mountains. La Ceiba is an ideal place to live because you have the mountains on one side of the road and the beach with the ocean dazzling on the other side. This was both of ours favorite excursion. We rode up into the jungle and harnessed up for our grand morning. Again, we were with a big group but the guides kept the line moving rather quickly to make for a smooth adventure without much time wasted standing around. Katie had never been on a zip line before and was a tad nervous, but I was not about to let her wimp out on me. There were little kids in our group and if they could do it, then surely the grown woman that I call my sister could. It was a success, she loved it! We zipped through the tree tops on 18 different lines – some were fast and heart stopping, others were long and took the scenic route, and still others were short, sweet, and simple. The fun ended too quickly and I would have gladly done it all over again.

After the thrill rides on the zip line, we were treated to a couple of hours at the hot springs. It was a gift from the gods to be able to soak in those pools of hot water after spending the last few months in La Unión teaching my little rascals. As part of the package we received free massages and mud baths. Did you hear me? FREE massages and mud baths! Merry Christmas to Miss O! I was in pure heaven while getting the massage. While I was growing impatient, waiting for my turn, with the masseuses for giving the others fairly long massages, I wanted them to extend my massage by another half an hour. After being fully relaxed by their magical hands, they rubbed mud all over my body like a giant face mask. I felt like a mud woman, hear me roar! I could not keep my hands off myself afterwards, I felt so smooth and fresh.

Our quick week together had to come to a (sad) end at some point. We were forced to leave our slice of Honduran paradise and return to the normal world. I was broken hearted to say goodbye to the endless buffet of food, the hot water and comfy beds, the hypnotizing latino music, the warm kiss of the sun on my skin, and the salt water that always reenergizes my soul. I could not leave without one more nap in a hammock and dip in the pool. Katie and I boarded a bus back to San Pedro Sula where we spent the night before going on our separate ways. This time we took a much nicer bus that made our trip go by quickly and painlessly. We spent the night re-packing our suitcases to make everything fit, and I washed some clothes in the sink out of desperate need. Even though it was not home, I had a beautiful Christmas with my sister in La Ceiba.

I thank my parents for letting go of their baby girls and letting us spend Christmas away from there. It was a huge blessing to be with her for the holidays, but I have promised them both that I will never spend another Christmas away from home. I hope your Christmas brought as much joy and happiness to your holiday season as mine did!

12-21-12: The End of the World?

You are probably very familiar with the notion that the Mayans predicted the world to end on December 12, 2012. Since you are reading this you are also quite familiar with the fact that they were wrong. With the whole idea of the world ending I have learned an interesting fact about the Mayan prediction:  December 21, 2012 was not actually the date of the end of the world but the date of the end of their cycle. Their ‘cycle’ is something very similar to our ‘millennium’ and they believe that at the end of each cycle, the whole thing starts over again. It was all just a bunch of hoopla from the get go.Regardless, Harriet, Beth, and I still wanted to go to the heart of it all and be a part of the extravaganza. The first part of my Christmas vacation was spent traveling with my two favorite British people to the Copan Ruins. (They had plans to go and meet up with the rest of the volunteers in their program, so I tagged along for the fun.) We had the unique opportunity to be at the Mayan ruins on December 12, 2012. Who better to celebrate the end of the world with than the Mayans themselves?

If you got as excited as I did just thinking about how cool it would be to celebrate the Mayan prediction of the end of the world on the stomping grounds of the Mayans, then you will be just as disappointed as me to find out how big of a bust it was. I’m not talking about it being a bust because the world did not actually end (I never expected it to); I’m talking about it being a bust because there was no significant celebration there. When we first visited Copan back in October, we were promised an end of the world celebration that would be phenomenal. There were supposed to be ceremonies and reenactments galore. There was even talk of the event being on world-wide television! We were deceived and terribly misled. However, we wouldn’t allow the let-down to ruin our trip and we still had fun together.

We spent the day time wandering through the markets and eating delicious food. If you read my earlier post about this town then you will remember that it is a tourist’s dream. There are artisan stands up and down every street with more souvenirs that you would ever need. I completed all my gift shopping the first time around but I still liked perusing. I bought a few more things while enjoying the Mayan sun and a good bargain. The rest of the volunteers wanted to travel cheaply by eating basic local food, but the three of us were beyond ready for something other than typical food. We treated ourselves to the exotic cuisine of sandwiches and pizzas every day. We re-visited all of our favorite restaurants that we ate at on the first trip, and we found a few more hidden treasures. It’s just too hard to stay away from enticingly delicious food when we’ve been living in La Unión for so long!

The ruins themselves were the disappointing part. The souvenir-filled market and tasty food will always be in Copan, but how often does the end of the world roll around where the Mayans used to live? As I mentioned we were eagerly looking forward to any kind of ceremony or reenactment to show us what Mayan life was like. The ruins would be the obvious choice to put on such a show and, even up until the point of us actually going there to face the ugly truth, we were promised fantastic things. The schedule of events told us there would be a performance on the ruins’ grounds at 5pm because that is when the sun goes down which is symbolic for the apocalypse. So we went a little before that to buy our tickets, get amazing Mayan masks to add to our excitement, and to stand in line so we would not miss a thing. 
We did not see any documentary cameras or tv stations setting up, or an insane crowd filling the grounds, but we were still naïve and hopeful. The moment came when they finally started letting people in and we were preparing to start pushing people over in order to get good seats. But we quickly realized the hype was for nothing. We wandered into the ruins and waited for someone to usher us to a seating area or to be surrounded by men and women dressed up like the ancient Mayans and chanting, but there was nothing. We waited and waited thinking maybe they were going to do a surprise attack on all the tourists, but there was still nothing. Absolutely nothing. The only unique thing about the whole experience was that it was the first time that the ruins had been open to the public after dark so it was the first time people were getting the chance to see the ruins under the lights. Sorry to rain on the parade, but the ruins look better during the day than they do at night lit up. We could not admit defeat yet so we kept wandering and doing a goofy tourist photo shoot in our masks, but eventually we got bored and quit. We headed out, disappointed and heartbroken, after our Mayan end-of-the-world ‘party.’

Really, Honduras? You couldn’t pull it together to put on a one-of-a-kind event that the whole world was anticipating? We did confront the tour guide who had been promising us all of these wondrous things, and he apologized but admitted that we had been fooled and ripped off. He tried to convince us that there were supposed to be some ceremonies later in the night – one at midnight and another at 4am with the sunrise – but we had already learned our lesson. Apparently the town square did host traditional dancing at one point, but we completely missed it. We were tricked into thinking that this place, where Mayans left their mark, would be more alive and crazy when given the opportunity to celebrate the end of the world, but you and I are both very wrong. Oh well, we still survived the end of the world (just like everyone else) and we did it in style. You have to admit, our masks are pretty cool, huh? 

Feliz Navidad de La Union!

Christmas time in La Unión is vastly different from any other Christmas season I can remember. There is no snow or ice or sleet or anything resembling cold weather whatsoever. In fact, in feels more like summer vacation than winter break. (Which I cannot really complain about since I’m much happier to be getting a tan than frostbite.) Honduras is not the first place to find Christmas music filling the air or Christmas commercials bombarding the tv; decorations are sparse and there are certainly no Honduran-Christmas cookies. But! that did not stop us from making our own Christmas and bringing our traditions to the middle-of-no-where Honduras.

Most of the time I felt like I was forcing myself to believe that it was Christmas or feel filled with the holiday spirit but thankfully, it doesn’t take much to remind me of how much I love this season. Heather and I played Christmas tunes constantly in our house. I put up the best decorations that I could create in my classroom. We even had a special dinner between us foreign teachers that included decorating Christmas cookies! Here is the quick story of my Christmas in La Unión.

I’m used to stores like Walmart and Hobby Lobby getting an uncomfortably early start to fill their aisles with Christmas decorations way back in July. Here you are lucky to find cheap tinsel strands and sporadic blinking lights. It did make my heart smile to walk through the streets and see once-barren doors with a little sparkle of Christmas bears, bells, or bows adorning them. I wanted to bring a little of that Christmas cheer into my classroom so I collected as much green, red, and white paper as I could to start decorating! I hung tinsel and lights all around the board for that special twinkle. My students colored little Christmas trees to cover our door and they cut out their handprints to form a wreath. I also had a countdown until Christmas going on the door. They wrote all of their Basic English vocabulary words on strips of paper to make paper chains. Then for our massive Christmas tree I used seven pieces of poster paper to create it, which even included a cute little star on top. I had some amazing glitter foam paper that my kids were able to cut ‘ornaments’ out of and decorate the tree with for extra dazzle. It felt magical to be inside of our classroom (and all the other students were jealous).

All of us foreign teachers decided to bring a beloved tradition here: Secret Santa. We all agreed on buying three presents – the first two costing no more than 20 Lempiras, and the last one costing a maximum of 50 – for our Secret Santa, and then picked names. I picked Heather (my roommate). For the first present I bought her a coffee mug and her favorite candy bar. For the second gift I bought her a cheese grater and some cookies. Then for the big-mama present I got her a lunch tote bag, a lunchbox, and a cute little water bottle. Of course I exceeded the price limits on every gift, but she’s my roommate! She totally deserves it and I had a genuinely hard time controlling myself to not buy everything in the store for her. Jake picked my name and I have to admit that the delivery of the gifts was the best part for each one. My first present was a Snickers bar, but he had a group of 11^th grade boys deliver it while serenading me with “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.” Then he gave me Skittles which he had a little fourth grade boy deliver to my house; together we had a blast popping all the bubbles in the bubble wrap that came in the bag with the candy. Finally he gave me my own set of fireworks. Jake found a drunk man in the street to wrap them up and while I was unwrapping the masterpiece, a little cockroach wiggled its way out of the firework bundle. That was definitely not something anyone, even Jake, expected to see! Normally I would have nothing to do with fireworks because the ones in this town drive me crazy! But we took them outside and set one off, and now I see why everyone is obsessed with them around here. (However, Lenny almost lost his eye in the process so we’ll have to be more careful next time.)

We made an amazing dinner (if I may brag) together! We decided to do a kind of pot luck style where everyone brings at least one dish to share with the group, and it was beautiful. It was so overwhelmingly delicious, I’m not sure I can even remember what all we ate… Kara and Lenny made shrimp salad in avocados, pumpkin bars, and cheese, fruit, and nut plates. Cassidy made a veggie plate. Beth and Harriet made potatoes bravas. Heather made hummus with crackers. Carlitos brought Jamaica tea. Jake made a layered bean dip. Lori and I went to town making a fruit pizza, deviled eggs, cheesy pretzels, and French bread with bruschetta. As if that was not enough food for us all, we finished the evening with decorating Christmas cookies. I made some for each of my students and for our neighbors. I love when I get to be simply, uninhibitedly creative. What a merry night for us all! Eating, drinking, laughing, telling stories, exchanging presents, and decorating cookies (we even dressed up a little bit). Who knew we could throw such an awesome Christmas party in La Unión?!

To top everything off, the students put on a rather unique Christmas program for the whole community. The reason I call it unique is because it’s not your traditional Christmas program that you expect to see each year at church. There was no play depicting the journey Mary and Joseph took to give birth to Jesus; there were no shepherds (there was sheep though), wise men, angels, or barn animals in a stable.  And there were no Christmas hymns! We had a much edgier Christmas program with modern music and dance numbers, and a variety of short skits about random stories throughout the Bible (still, none of them about baby Jesus). Here’s how it works: every year our school in La Unión is sent the DVD of the Christmas program that the school in Tegucigalpa put on the year before (with the help of professionals) and we are expected to duplicate it. They send us a few things like a back drop and costumes, but then we are responsible for doing our best, with a few minor tweaks, with rest of the program.

All of the elementary grades are given the task of performing a dance. Lucky for me that meant I was to become my third graders’ dance teacher (yup, add ‘dance instructor’ to my resume). I had to take time out of my classes schedule every day to teach them their dance. Suddenly, dancing trumped academics. Oh boy, where do I even begin? I had no earthly idea how to even start teaching them how to dance! It’s a little hypocritical to ask my students to look coordinated on stage when I have very little rhythm myself (and they don’t even have the excuse of being too ‘white’). Thankfully I had the video to watch and mimic, otherwise they would have been doing the YMCA, Macarena, and Chicken Dance up on stage! The Lord clearly saw this day coming and that is why He blessed me with a small class of only 13 little uncoordinated bodies to morph into Honduras’ next best dance crew. But let me tell you, it was not easy. Have you ever tried motivating and teaching little boys to dance? I am now quite familiar with the caught-in-a-blender look. Most of the time they were more interested in kicking each other than swaying their hips. It was the day that I discovered bribing them with candy that everything started to come together and I actually believed they could pull it off. Somehow we all pulled it together – I taught my students their amazing dance, they learned the counts and steps, and they put on their dancing shoes for the night of the big show. Right before they went on stage, I surprised them with glow sticks to wear (which certainly gave them the much needed boost of confidence). They were such stars! In absolutely everything they do, they make me proud. Now also add ‘dancing’ to the list of skills my kids have. Check them out! http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152387733070591&set=vb.511815590&type=3&theater

Thank God for a great end to 2012. I would have never been able to tell you that I would be spending the end of this year in Honduras surrounded by dancing 9-year-olds. I have been blessed in countless ways by these little ones and my heart was so warm being with them for this holiday season. I cannot thank the Lord enough for bringing me here, challenging me in new ways such as teaching children how to dance, and then getting to celebrate little accomplishments with my kids. It was weird not being home for Christmas but I sincerely thank God for helping me find ways to still enjoy this time of year with my new family and friends here in La Unión!