Sawdust Carpets

Semana Santa, aka Holy Week, aka the week leading up to Easter, is quite the occasion here in Honduras.  Kids have the whole week off of school, a lot of businesses close, and families take advantage of the free time to travel throughout the country.  It is a time to celebrate Jesus' last days on Earth and the Hondurans sure know how to do that.  In Yuscaran, there were processions seemingly every day and night, ranging from parades with prayers and loud horns to an eerily silent parade.  The culmination seemed to be the big parade on Good Friday.  A handful of us eager to get involved in the cultural aspect of the week were lucky to play a small part in the preparations.

One of the many processions during the week
(Photo credit to Ryan Gever)

We had heard about Semana Santa and the famous alfombras when we first arrived in Honduras.  They really seemed to be a national point of pride and our host families were all eager for us to experience firsthand what they were talking about.  The word alfombra translates to carpet and the alfombras of Semana Santa are intricately designed 'carpets' of multi-colored sawdust laid out in the streets that generally have an image of Christ and/or other religious symbols in them.  In fact, Comayagua, one of the bigger cities that I have yet to visit, is world-famous for their vast array of alfombras, with Catholics from all over making a pilgrimage there every year.  Many other cities and villages throughout the country make their own alfombras in tribute, but none have reached the scale and detail that the artists in Comayagua have attained.

One of the many alfombras in Comayagua this year
Photo Credit to (Muni Comayagua website)

A dedicated youth group in Yuscaran has been dabbling in alfombra-making over the past few years and, as mentioned before, we were fortunate enough to be invited by one of the members of this group, Adam's host brother, to help out where possible with the creation of the alfombra for this year's Semana Santa.  After a day of soccer and lounging in a pool, I took a two hour post-dinner nap to prepare for the all-nighter; reason being, we had to wait for the Silent Procession to pass through the street we were to use as our canvas, and this wouldn't happen until around midnight.

This is dedication - walking through the streets
for close to 2 hours in silence and darkness...
(Photo credit to Ryan Gever)

So, the group of 15-20 of us got to work, first marking out the area with 2X4s - roughly 40ftX15ft.  We laid down an initial several layers of rougher, thicker sawdust to fill in the cracks of the cobblestone street and to serve as our canvas.  Being a bit timid and unsure exactly as to what was going on, we volunteers primarily helped out with this part of the design, as it was pretty hard to mess up.  We sprinkled the sawdust with water so that we could pack it in tight using heavy, large metal poles.  It was a tedious process, tamping 6000 sq ft with the end of a 12lb metal pole that had a surface area of maybe 1 sq ft.

Spraying and tamping, spraying and tamping
(Photo credit to Ryan Gever)

Once the base was set, the real artists went to work.  They started by building out the border with fine red and pink sawdust, then filled in the majority with a bright yellow.  Next, they broke into teams, some working on the floral designs in the border and one team working on the large, intricate designs in the center.  They laid down cardboard stencils that they had cut out earlier in the day, and filled them in with pink, red, black, brown, green, and blue sawdust.  To our untrained eyes, with the stencils still in place, we weren't very impressed and sort of scratched our heads as to the extent of time and effort put into making something that appeared to be quite amateurish.  But that was likely the drowsiness kicking in...  Around 4am, with no clear end in sight, the majority of us PC volunteers decided we had done our part and were of no use any more, so we called it a night, leaving the dedicated crew of 12-15 Hondurans hard at work.

I woke up around 7:30am like a kid on Christmas morning.  I was excited to see the final product!  I raced out of my house with my camera where I ran into a couple of the other volunteers who had been helping just hours earlier.  And there she was, in all her glory: Yuscaran's 2011 commemoration to Jesus during Semana Santa.  I'll let photos below tell the rest of the story.

Our alfombra, with some of the work crew staring on admiringly
(Photo credit to Ryan Gever)

Sawdust Jesus, pretty impressive!

One of the floral designs decorating the border

The moment we'd worked towards

A collage of photos of the building process
Click to enlarge, your reward for having made it this far...
(Collage credit to Adam Dittemore)

Talk about a unique way to celebrate the first hours of my 29th birthday!  The remainder of my birthday celebrations was also memorable, but in a considerably different way...

Beisbol, the Yuscaran Way

In case you were doubting the authenticity of the bigote (I can't blame you, sometimes I didn't think it was real...), below is a video of me/the bigote taking a swing at a lime with a machete (safe!).  Clearly, a fake mustache would have fallen off, no?

Meeting, nay exceeding, Peace Corps goal number two:

"Helping promote a better understanding of 

Americans on the part of the peoples served."

You're welcome, America.

(Video credit to Adam Dittemore)

Bigote Time Part Deux

Blog karma strikes again!  Took this picture this morning, roughly 12 hours after publishing the previous post.  Maybe it's telling me something?  I'd certainly fit in well here in Olancho with a mustache.  Vamos a ver.

Never had to use the excuse 'too scared to shave' before...

Bigote Time

Arguably my first success as a Peace Corps Volunteer occurred during training.  The idea spawned out of sheer boredom and a desire to amuse myself over six weeks, as well as to serve as an anti-piropo from the empleadas in my house.  Any Peace Corps experience is full of personal challenges and I decided to undertake my first one in the safety net of training; I dubbed it 'no-shave FBT' (field-based training).  Like any past beard or mustache, I grew it because I can.  It's good to embrace one's greatest skill, and mine happens to be growing body hair.  I was able to overcome whiplash-inducing double-takes and vigorous head-shakes from onlookers because I feel a duty to let those less fortunate, those unable, to live vicariously through me by growing as mean a stache as possible.  Regrettably, I didn't take photos of daily growth and compile them into an electronic flip book put to the Magnum P.I. theme song, but you'll find photos of various stages of growth sprinkled throughout the blog, including a few gems in this post.

To be honest, it wasn't all fun and games.  It was difficult having to answer the near-daily questions of my perplexed co-trainees: "But why?  You realize you're scaring women and children, don't you?"  There were a couple close calls where I was so frightened by my own reflection in the mirror that I came this close to shaving the fuzzy caterpillar off (trust me, really close).  The straw that nearly broke the mustachioed camel's back was when I was nicknamed Freddie Mercury by one of the local Yuscaran soccer players and people would sing various Queen songs when they saw me.  If you heard Queen in a Spanish accent, you'd nearly shave off your mustache too. 

I really don't know where the Freddie Mercury nickname came from...

But there were occasions where I was showered with acceptance and adoration by my peers and loved ones.  For instance, when we linked up with Wat/San for the soccer match, the younger male trainees complemented me to the point of embarrassment (funny, come to think of it, the female trainees didn't say anything.  At all.).  One time at home, Lacey asked my host mother, Leticia, what she thought of my mustache.  Her reply was very motherly indeed, “If it makes him happy, it makes me happy.”  These occasions helped me persist.

People were so impressed that they eventually
asked me to ride the town buffalo everywhere I went

After I realized that six weeks was going to be too easy, I decided to add another ten days so that the mustache could join in on the photo shoot after our Swearing In ceremony at the American Embassy.  It was funny, but Embassy employees were so taken aback by the squirrel tail on my upper lip that they treated me as if I was some sort of dignitary, not just a lowly Peace Corps Volunteer.  The second after the last photo was taken, I took a taxi to the nearest grocery store and cut short the stache's life in the handicap bathroom, using a newly purchased disposable razor and hand soap.  The pain and agony in that bathroom outweighed the pain and agony of the previous two months...

RIP Freddie Mercury II
Tues March 22 – Fri May 13, 2011

Who is this guy?!  Minutes after the big shave...
(Photo credit to Andrea Sorce, who made me
wipe away the tears before taking the photo)

N.B. - I feel I ought to explain the mesh tops in the first photo.  Might be helpful later on when I am looking for a respectable job, post Peace Corps.  Brayton, Jacob, and I were overcome with awe by the many construction workers in Yuscaran who proudly rocked the Right Said Fred-inspired mesh tanks.  In tribute to them, we spent our last afternoon in town searching for some of our own.  In fact, we went to every store that sold clothing.  Only one store had any and that store only had three in stock; the three that we are wearing in the photo.  You'll notice the size of the three of us and the size of the three shirts.  The store apparently only had two adult versions and one child's size.  Guess who was the only one who could 'fit' into the latter...

Honduras' Top Chef

While she may have been guilty of the fish soup incident, Leticia was by far the best cook whose food I've had the pleasure of eating in the 5 months I've been in Honduras.  Practically everything was home-made, from the tortillas to the tamales.  One night, I was lucky to be home when she started a fresh batch of said tamales.  The process itself is fairly simple, but time consuming and labor intensive.

The first step is to shuck corn, a lot of it.  Granted, seeing as she runs a restaurant, we were making tamales for what felt like hundreds of people.  Using a sharp kitchen knife, you then shear all of the kernels off the cob.  This clearly wasn't her first rodeo as she sliced up 4 times the amount I did in the same time, not taking the same regard for her fingers as I was...

Next, you pour the kernels into a hand-turning press and turn the press with your hand.  Seeing as I'm a fairly fit 20-something, I stepped up after a couple minutes to relieve my 60 year old 'mother' of this workout.  Big mistake, it's a lot harder than it looks, but pride wouldn't let me stop until the last kernel was pressed and I was sweating like a pig in the evening humidity.  The press squeezes the juice out of the corn and creates a yellow mash which you then pour into the previously shucked husks.  Fold the leaves up like a green Christmas present, stand them up in a big pot, fill it halfway with water, place it on the fogon, and let it steam for roughly 20 minutes.

There are a number of variations of tamales, some sweet, some savory.  Our's were filling-less yet delicious.  That night, I was fit to burst after being force-fed close to my body-weight in tamales lathered in mantequilla, fried tamale pancakes, and leftover corn-on-the-cob that tasted like a fresh batch of Orville Redenbacher's.

Helping and/or slowing down the process

Leticia, cooler than the other side of the pillow

Getting the batch ready for steaming

Leftover mash pancakes

Futbol

After getting our soccer legs underneath us through futbolito, we were invited to play a couple games of actual futbol by my friend Brayton's host father, Gustavo.  Some of the guys we played futbolito with were nice enough to run around with us on the field below, and considerate enough to mix the teams fairly, with Hondurans and Americans playing together.  All in all, we Yanks held our own, even contributed at times.  They were clearly better than us, (as will happen when both you and a soccer ball come out of the womb at the same time) with one guy hitting the cross bar on a shot from midfield...  Over the course of the two games, we probably tallied a third of the goals scored, though generally set up by good play from one of the Hondurans. 

The field on the side of the hill, Yuscaran

The main purpose of these matches with and against real soccer players was to prepare us for the big PC showdown, Business vs Water/Sanitation!  Bright and early one Saturday morning, Business gathered in the plaza in Yuscaran to catch the bus for Danli, two hours away.  After a quick meet and greet with the competition (it was really good to see them after a month apart!), we geared up to play.  I'm not sure how he did it, but Rojo managed to lock in a two hour slot for us to play in the local stadium.  Some of the Wat/Sanners, living in nearby El Paraiso, returned the next day to watch a pro match that was televised nationally from the same stadium!  Clearly, what we were about to do would be a disservice to the stadium, its caretakers, and those who have played before and will play after us, but we gave it a go. 

Catching Wat/San off-guard, Business came firing out the blocks and upheld serious pressure for the first ten minutes of the match, primarily through Che's relentless bursts down the right flank.  Wat/San's defense stood tall however and we were unable to gain the upper hand.  As the game progressed and the heat increased, we all slowed down a little bit and substitutions came fast and often.  Wat/San seemed to be the fitter of the two sides and were able to capitalize on our exhaustion, through a goal from Eric.  Quick side note - Eric did happen to play D1 college soccer for four years in college.  None of the rest of us had played serious soccer in a long time.  Just throwing that out there.  To be fair though, it wasn't just a match of Business vs Eric, the Wat/San team was quality through and through.

We quickly recovered from that goal though, and your's truly, after botching two very simple attempts early on, was finally able to sneak the ball past Roy to tie the match up.  That only seemed to ignite a fire under Eric, as he quickly replied with a rocket of a shot from 30 yards out that got the better of our goalie, Cruz.  In 15 minutes, three goals were scored.  Wat/San made some strategic shifts in positions and clamped down on D for the rest of the match, ending up 2-1 winners.  Besides Slater's hilarious uncalled-for slide tackles throughout the match, the game was played how it should be (minus the necessary skill level for the most part) and friendly beers were had afterwards.  All in all, a great success for all involved!

Wat/San - deserved winners

Business - how ever could we have lost?!

Inspired by the camaraderie generated from this match, Brayton came up with the genius idea of having regional challenge matches between Peace Corps groups in Central America.  The main idea is to have a team made up of PC Honduras volunteers team play against PC Guatemala, PC Nicaragua, PC El Salvador, etc.  Beyond that, we'd like to make it a true cultural exchange.  Say PC Honduras plays PC Nicaragua in Managua.  Besides the inter-PC match, we would also like to bring a local Honduran team to play against a local Nicaraguan team, organize host family stays, etc.  Many details yet to be ironed out, but interest seems to be there on several levels: players, observers, and higher-ups.  More to come as this idea takes shape.

Futbolito

As you all probably know, soccer (futbol) is a religion in almost all of Latin America.  And the flame burns strong here in Honduras, particularly after the national team qualified for and competed honorably in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.  If only I had been living here during that tournament...  That said, I was lucky enough to follow along as the Honduran national team did the country proud a couple weeks back in this year's Gold Cup soccer tournament played in the USA.  My town went nuts when they made the semifinals, and are still talking about their efforts in pushing Mexico to OT.

Once I received the invitation to serve as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Honduras, the first items I set aside to be packed were my rugby cleats.  No, nobody plays rugby here, but I knew they'd be put to good use in soccer games for the next 2 years.  Another pro of having 3 months of training with other Americans is that you have plenty of time to knock the rust off the old soccer skills before throwing yourself into a real match against actual soccer players...

As flat land is at a premium in hilly Honduras, a popular offshoot of soccer has developed that requires less space and fewer people.  I introduce to you the wonder that is futbolito.  For those familiar with indoor soccer, it's practically the same thing (rules, field dimensions, walls/nets to keep the ball from leaving the field of play), but played outdoors.  Many towns have a designated artificial turf cancha with lights and seating for onlookers.  Those that don't make due with what they've got.  In Yuscaran, we played on a fenced-in basketball court.  The ball is smaller than a regulation soccer ball and is made of plastic.  The game is fast-paced and can be rough, frequent body checks into the fences remind me of ice hockey.  Due to the conditions and small ball, the game demands ball control, deft touch, and fitness, something that this guy right here has never had much of.  But, no better time or place to learn, right??

Brayton, 23, is pinned in the corner by Diego, 9

Tiffany is a force in goal

Not going to let that 12 yr old by too easily
But he did probably get by

I was happy to learn that many of my fellow Business volunteers had played soccer before, and of those that hadn't, some recognized the value of learning as a way to integrate into the community.  When we weren't in the classroom, we were on the cancha.  Half of the time, we would play games with and against some of the local kids, ranging in age from 8-18.  These were good humor, chances for us to try things without a real fear of getting injured, although there was always a strong possibility that we'd clumsily hurt one of the smaller kids.  

The other half of the time, the adults would mix in with us and show us how the game is supposed to be played.  I was incredibly impressed by how a few of the guys played as if the ball was an extension of their body, they could do whatever they wanted with it.  Some of the games got pretty intense, with big body checks, cuts, scrapes, and bruises showing up; one guy got tripped up running full speed and ran into the wall face first, lucky not to break his cheek bone.  But in reality, the locals took it easy on us and were really good about passing the ball and helping us improve.  Just another piece of the cross-cultural puzzle and good training for the real test to come on the soccer field.

Quick clip of a standard afternoon in Yuscaran

Bienvenidos a la Casa De Osorio!

Host family and house #2, quite different from #1.  'Mom' is a 60 year old former mayor of the town who currently runs a hardware store and restaurant out of the house.  'Dad' is a 63 year old bricklayer.  They have 5 children and 12 grandchildren, most of whom live in the very same compound, which ends up being fortuitous for us volunteers.  The second I put my bags down, the youngest of the children, Jimmy at age 31, helped me nail my mosquito net to the ceiling, so I knew they had my best intentions in mind.  I took a tour of the house and quickly realized two things:  I've got to walk through the kitchen and half of the restaurant to get to and from the shower (which is right next to the Men's and Women's bathrooms) and the lone window in my room opens up directly onto one of the tables in the restaurant.  Hmmm, could be a long 6 weeks. 

Tipicos Monserrat - half restaurant, half home

Home #2, for 6 weeks

My room, the shelves came in handy big time

As previously mentioned, Leticia Osorio was mayor of Yuscaran from 1994-1998.  And she hasn't lost one bit of her politician personality!  She is the loudest Honduran I have met.  It doesn't matter what she's talking about, whether it's today's weather forecast or last night's beans and rice, she'll startle you into paying attention.  Santos, her husband, is the exact opposite.  In 6 weeks, outside of 'Buen provecho' (Spanish for bon appetit) and 'Buenas' (hello), I might have heard a total of 25 words from him.  Four of their five children, along with many grandkids, live in the same compound, making it a bunch of Osorios and one gringo in one large living area.  As it's much easier to talk to and relate to children when one has the Spanish-speaking ability of a kindergartner, I quickly became friends with some of the kids, namely Jimmy Jr (8) and Leti (4).  Leticia also had three empleados helping in the restaurant and around the house, two of whom are women in their early 20s.  They were nice enough, but piropo'd (cat-called) me tirelessly, making my house feel more like a confusing, backwards construction site than anything.  I bring this up for a reason, to be expanded upon further in a later post...

'Mom' in blue, with the youngest son Jimmy and his family
after a trip to the hot springs in nearby Oropoli

The advantage of living in a restaurant surrounded on all sides by immediate family was that we volunteers had a place to kick back and relax, without feeling the weight of the town's gaze on us.  The fishbowl effect is immense being a gringo in a Latin American country, especially in a small town like Yuscaran.  Multiply that by 18 and you can understand why we needed a safe-haven to escape to from time to time.  Chisme (gossip) is huge and spreads like wild fire so we really had to be careful with what we did, particularly late at night, which is a major reason why people were at my house/restaurant 6 nights a week. When all was said and done, we ended up spending around $1,000 on beer at my family's restaurant.  They must have thought the golden ticket had fallen out of the sky.  To be fair, if you break it down, $1,000 split between 18 folks over 6 weeks really isn't as bad as it sounds.  But we did take advantage of the setup and the quickly-dawning reality that we would all be on our own in a few short weeks.