Pastores singing and dancing in church
This was my first Christmas away from home. I definitely missed being home with family. It just didn’t feel like Christmas here. No snow, no Christmas tree, no family dinner, weird food, most stores didn’t close, no gift giving and few feelings of familiarity. I think some of these feelings of familiarity are my favorite parts of the holidays. I really wanted a group of people to speak English with.
Not that it was a bad Christmas, just not like home. Christmas Eve was actually when most of the action happened. The day was very quiet and the people we’re staying with don’t seem to have family gatherings. They spent most of the day working on the construction of the new part of their house. There was talk of a shared dinner, but nobody seemed to make it happen, so in the evening we just drank hot chocolate with cheese. Weird combo, huh? And the hot chocolate here isn’t like Swiss Miss. It’s straight from the cocao beans, so it’s really weird and oily. Oh, and paneton which is essentially fruit cake but light and fluffy. It’s pretty gross in my opinion, but it’s a huge deal here. I taught class at night. I didn’t think sutdents would want class at 8 on Christmas Eve, but they did and I had free time so why night. Afterwards we went to church. It started like the same old boring Catholic ceremony, but at the end there were children who sang and danced what sounded like traditional songs. After church they go from house to house to visit people’s nativity scenes and do their songs and dances there. This all takes place after midnight.
Lily, Maibel, Carmen y Arnold our host family for Christmas day lunch
Christmas day was a nonevent really. There were a lot of people hung over in the streets the next day. We heard that the discotech was even open the previous night. Weird. Just not Christmasy. We had lunch with a family, but it’s not like there was any tradition or anything out the ordinary. Kim has a much more complete description, but really Christmas just didn’t feel like a big deal here.
Other than that the last few weeks have been quiet. It rained last weekend so we didn’t go anywhere. We didn’t watch TV at all for the first 3 weeks, but lately we have. A few movies and the Simpsons in Spanish mostly. The children have left for their “summer” vacation, so we don’t have classes in the morning anymore. Besides that I haven’t had any students show up to the evening classes in more than a week. I really has begun to annoy me a great deal how flaky people are here about being at places when they say they will. You wouldn’t believe how many people say, “I’ll definitely be there!” and then don’t show up. Even the people we live with sometimes say they’re going to class, even 15 minutes before class, and then don’t go. It’s like the more certain people sound when they say they’ll do something, the less likely it is. But what can you do? It’s the culture and they just don’t seem to notice when everyone is late or doesn’t show up. At least the children have been showing up to a new afternoon class that we’ve started. We’ll see how many continue to show up conistently.
One of the few things we want to do before heading back is go on a horseback trip to the Laguna de Los Condores. I think this will depend a lot on the weather though. Aside from this, I’m looking forward to getting back on the road again. A month with too much free time turns out to be a little too much for me. I’ve actually at times felt bored, something I don’t think I’d felt almost at all in the last few years. As soon as I’ve felt bored I’ve found something to do, but it’s not what I’d be doing if I was back home in my spare time.