Wednesday, January 16, 2013

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 11th 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! 

No comments:

Post a Comment