Thanksgiving Weekend
This is the first time in my life that I had to celebrate Thanksgiving away from home, but I definitely made the best of it. There was a plethora of Peace Corps volunteer celebrations around the country, and I decided to celebrate with a group nearby in my department, in the city/town Danlí. It’s only about an hour and a half away from my site, and it’s the closest place to me that has other volunteers. We ended up getting together the Friday after Thanksgiving, since it wasn’t exactly feasible for all of us to travel on a Thursday. As you might have guessed, it is not celebrated by Hondurans, and many of us had to work on the actual day.
I didn’t really know most of the people that would be there, but as usual all of the volunteers were really cool people. We had a great time preparing some food together (mientras disfrutando algunas cervesas). Traditional Thanksgiving foods are far from typical in this country, but thankfully most of the ingredients could be found at a large supermarket nearby. In total we had all the essentials: turkey, gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, and more. It was probably one of the best thanksgiving meals I’ve had. Also, in true Thanksgiving fashion, many Hondurans were invited to the meal (thus peacefully bringing together two distinct cultures). In total we must have had about 25 of us eating together.
After dessert, I knew it was officially Thanksgiving when I was so stuffed that I felt sick. Que rico!
Since we were all together as a group, we decided to enjoy our time off. Danlí is a much bigger place than many of us live in, so there is a lot more to do during the night. We wandered around town a bit, and spent most of our time dancing at a bar that was right next to one of the volunteer’s houses. The interior of the bar was actually quite nice, and for a moment it felt like we could have been back in the States. It was on the expensive side, with drinks costing what equates to $2 at the least. For a Peace Corps volunteer, that’s mucho pisto!
After taking a break from dancing I sat on the leather furniture and looked around the room, which was mostly lit by some sort of green strobe-light/laser display. I relaxed for a bit, listening to the pumping music and taking it all in. I spend so much time immersed in the poverty that exists in this country, and it just felt strange to juxtapose that reality with the ambiance of the bar. Just as when I get to visit the mall in Tegucigalpa from time to time, I realize that it’s not what I had imagined Peace Corps to be beforehand.
After a while we went to go home and stay at the nearby volunteer’s apartment. However, some of our group had gone into the apartment complex, and they couldn’t open the door to the building entrance from the inside! They slid the keys underneath the door, and we still couldn’t get it open from the outside! The main gate was broken, and there wasn’t anyone we could call for help at 1:30AM… We initially decided to worry about it in the morning and go sleep at another volunteer’s house (as there are 3 total in Danlí). At the last minute before giving up, we realized that there was a place on the balcony that was low enough for us to climb to, with the help of a boost from below. One by one we climbed up top, and were able to enter the actual apartment without a problem. We fell right asleep, and woke up to find that the lock had been fixed by the complex owner early in the morning. Only in Honduras…
On Saturday, I decided to stay in town for an extra day to help out with a project that one of the volunteers in town was doing. She was doing a project where she was painting a mural of the world map on the outside wall of a school with the help of students. About 16 middle school students showed up on a Saturday during their vacation, which I thought was a very successful attendance mark. In addition to painting, we helped lead some activities and games to test their knowledge about geography. The whole group enjoyed pizza for lunch, and then we walked home.
That night we went out to dinner. We went to a place that was supposed to have Mexican food, and I had a strong craving for some fajitas (or at least something slightly closer to the Central American food I had hoped for before I got here). The restaurant ended up being fresh out of fajitas (again, only in Honduras), so my friend Alex and I decided to leave the rest of the group and look for somewhere else to eat. We stopped by a small restaurant that is actually owned by an American man from Texas. I can’t remember his whole story, but apparently he moved here years ago and got married to a Honduran. Now he lives in Danlí and owns a small restaurant that serves ‘American’ dishes. I enjoyed some ribs, mashed potatoes, corn, and bread. It tasted pretty darn good!
We ended up going out dancing again to the same place as the night before. Thankfully, however, the apartment locks worked just fine and we were able to get home at the end of the night without incident. On Sunday some of us went out to get breakfast at the same American restaurant, and we all enjoyed some pancakes, eggs and bacon. I decided that I would try to come back and eat there as soon as I could. Around noon I was able to hop on a bus to go home. It was already full, so I ended up having to stand on the steps by the door the whole time. By the time I got back I was quite exhausted, and spend the rest of the day relaxing in my room.
Overall, did I miss being home and having Thanksgiving with my family? Of course I did. Even so, at the same time I couldn’t complain about the great time I had celebrating in my new home with my new friends and family.
More to come…
I have more to write about (since it took me so long to write this post), so expect some more posts very soon, possibly early next week. Between the town’s high school graduation ceremony, a Donkey Polo competition, and an upcoming Honduran wedding that I will be attending this weekend, I’ve been quite busy socially. Heck, I might even give some updates on work projects I’ve been doing lately, though they are admittedly sparse. I also just realized Christmas is coming in ten days…
El tiempo vuelve!
- Peter
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