Navidad en Honduras...

Celebrating Christmas in Honduras was definitely a different experience. First, the real celebration takes place on Christmas Eve, and much of it centers on visiting others and eating, and fireworks, of course.

Around 5 O'clockish, I took a taxi to Pastor Carlos' house. Nancy and Carlitos were pretty involved in their GameCube. Carlos and I spent a while talking. My Spanish has progressed to the point where I can actually have pretty decent conversations with people. Carlos and I were talking about the church here, and my church in Kansas. Soon it was time for dinner. Chela had prepared an awesome feast: beef, salad, rice and torreja for dessert. So, that was dinner #1 and my first taste of torreja.

Torreja is a special dessert made at Christmas. Here is the official definition, taken from the Dictionary of Honduran Colloquialisms, Idioms and Slang: "a piece or slice of sweet bread, with the crust removed, soaked in a batter of egg, fried, dipped in hot water to remove cooking oil, and served with a syrup made from unrefined sugar (panela) and cinnamon; there are two types of torrejas -- torrejas de pan de yema and torrejas de pinol." Here's my translation: torrejas de pan de yema is kind of like super sweet, sugar-soaked french toast. Torrejas de pinol is more like super sweet, sugar-soaked pancakes. I had both that night, and they're both great. Chela's was de pinol.

Shortly after dinner, we loaded up Carlos' truck and headed to Hector and Sandra's house. Carlos and Chela didn't stay, but their kids did. Hector, Danny and Leandra weren't home, so I talked with Sandra while she fed 8-month old Isaac. Hector and the other kids showed up. Hector got out his video camera for a whole. Sandra had prepared a wonderful roast pork. I sampled a little, but was full from dinner #1. After a while, we loaded up Hector's carrito with all 8 of us and headed to another family's, who were relatives of Hector and Carlos. While there we were served Coke and torrejas -- the french toast-type. We visited for a while longer and then made our way over to Gloria and Roberto's house.

Dinner #2 was served there: turkey, corn, rice, squash and salad. Shortly after dinner, Hermes served up the tamales. Oh, I was stuffed. I had already eaten two meals and two desserts, but these were tamales, made by Hermes' Mom (with a tiny bit of help from me). And I had been waiting since the day before to have one. So I did. And it was every bit as yummy as I thought it would be. Other people stopped by; more food was served. There was lots of laughter.

Finally, around 11:00pm I decided to head for home. I knew it was early, but I was pretty tired. Hermes and Pedro were going to walk me down to the corner so I could grab a taxi, but within about two steps of getting outside, a taxi passed right by, so I flagged it down. As I arrived at Enlaces, the guard even mentioned that I was getting home early.

I stayed up for a while longer. At midnight, the fireworks and firecrackers went off en masse -- for about 30 minutes straight. Then there was about a 15 minute reprieve before another huge round of firecrackers. I ended up going to bed around 1:30am and slept in until 7:00am. OK, I didn't really sleep much since I was so exicted about going to the airport to pick up Woody and Marla.

But that's a story for another day.