The First Fruits and the First Week

Hey, there America!  Sorry  I’ve been off the grid for awhile... I still don’t have my own internet yet.  I’ve been borrowing computers (BTDubs, Spanish keyboards are kinda tricky to get used to...) or hanging out at wifi cafés.  Hopefully, I will get my modem today!

Anyway, Honduras has been treating me well so far (minus the first two days of travel, but I’d rather not relive those in writing...).  The original plan was for me to stay in an apartment close to the school, but when I arrived, the pastor insisted that I live with him and his family.  So I’m living in his daughter Grecia’s old room, which is painted pink with Disney princess wallpaper.  (“That wasn’t for me!” she claimed.  A likely story...)

So the Pastor and his wife Daisy have taken me in as their own.  They introduce me to friends as “mi hija, Melissa,” my daughter.  And they each have their own goal for me.  Pastor wants me to teach him English.  He has already learned “suitcase” and “headache” and walks around the house repeating the words over and over and over again like a broken record with a bad accent.  Daisy’s goal, on the other hand, is to make me fat.  Apparently I eat like a bird, and that will just not do here, no ma’am.

Grecia is fairly fluent in English, so she’s been helping to translate for me.  (This is especially helpful at times when the Pastor introduces me to the congregation and proceeds to tell them all “If you like her, you must speak English, love God, and come to me first!”  It’s nice to know why everyone is laughing...)  The oldest daughter, Maciel, is very sweet and tries to speak to me in Spanish, but even if I could understand the language better, she’s so soft-spoken I can barely hear her!  I barely see the younger brother, Tito, who is the typical teenage boy who locks himself in his room with loud music during the day and disappears with friends in the evenings.

 (From left to right: Tito, his girlfriend, the Pastor, me, Daisy, Grecia, Grecia's fiance Walter, Maciel)

This past Sunday was the first Sunday of the year—La Fiesta de las Primicias.  It’s the day when they celebrate the first fruits of the year, the first provision from God in 2013.  Everyone brings in fruit, vegetables, bread, etc., and they are arranged beautifully in baskets and on tables at the front of the church.  (Later that night I realized my bedside table had gone missing, apparently for this purpose... Still don’t have it back yet.)

(I think this might be my table... It's holding the milk, honey, and wine they poured over the offering of beans.)

Church services are usually about two hours long here (not bad considering Haitian services are between 2 ½ to 3 hours), but this fiesta went on a little bit longer.  I didn’t mind because it was an absolutely beautiful service.  The music is always good, but that night they sang several songs that I knew in English, so I was able to sing along.  A couple of songs also had very easy and repetitive refrains that I caught onto quickly and sang in Spanish.  They also have a special dance group—that Maciel dances with—that I really like.  I was told it’s some sort of mix between Israeli, Honduran, and Mayan dances... something like that.  They are simple but beautiful dances and often use flags, ribbons, or tambourines.  When I couldn’t sing along, I watched the dancers.  These people sure know how to party.

Apparently they don’t do this celebration at Lauren’s church, so I was telling her about it on Saturday.  We joked about what might happen with all the fruit afterward.  “Is there a feast?  Does it get left to rot?  Maybe it’ll all end up at your house, Melissa!”  (Since I live with the pastor.)  But after the service, everyone was free to take as much as they wanted!  I, of course, dove straight for the pineapple.  (BTDubs, all the leftover food did end up at my house... but Daisy cooks for the school, so we used most of it for that.)

And now for my first days of school!  Some people say it’s not much, but after teaching in Haiti, my classroom is paradise!  Tile floor, painted walls, a whiteboard AND markers (often in Haiti, they had chalkboards but never any chalk!), even electricity and fans!  So though you make think it modest, I was quite pleased.  The mess, however, did NOT please me.  My OCD kicked into high geared and started cleaning up the bookshelf that was is complete disarray.  Now everything is labeled and has its place and I can sleep at night again.

My kids are great, all three of them: Gilbert, Jensy, and Aaron.  I only have three because 4^th grade was just added this past fall.  Students can’t just enroll in 4^th either because you have to know a certain amount of Spanish.  In my class: no Spanish allowed!  (Partly because I wouldn’t understand them anyway, but mostly because they’ll learn faster that way.)  The kids have already become very well acquainted with the phrase “look it up!”

Gilbert (Heel-bert) is hilarious in that you’re-driving-me-crazy-stop-getting-up-and-yelling-out-but-you’re-so-funny-I-can’t-be-mad-at-you kind of way.  Today I asked him to finish the math problem on the board and he said, in his think Spanish accent, “Feeneesh ees my secont name!”  He has also started calling the little white boards I made them (computer paper inside a plastic sleeve) their boardsitos, little boards.

Jensy is a sweetheart.  She stands a head taller than any other student in the school, and myself as well.  Much quieter than Gilbert, but when she does speak, she’s almost always dead on.  Aaron is also pretty quiet, unless he’s with Gilbert, whom he apparently feeds off of.  He is my math whiz and artist.  He draws better than any kid I think I’ve ever seen.

Honduras and I will get along just fine because they...

-have a delicious ice cream shop.  (Holy crap.  So good.)

-sell giant jars of Nutella.

-listen to David Crowder Band.  (In Spanish, but no complaining here.)

-have fresh pineapple.

-make nachos out of plantain chips.  (I call them plantachos!)

-allow their teachers to wear jeans to work.

-are wonderful, beautiful people.  :)

Lessons from Honduras

I wish my pictures could do it justice.  The First Fruits service was absolutely beautiful.  All the colors and shapes and sizes and SMELLS of the food—I couldn’t stop staring.  If God put that much time into making the food we eat so beautiful, how much more beautiful are we?

PS Sorry this was unbearably long... I will start posting shorter and more regularly soon!  (I will also try putting pictures up, if I can.  But all my pictures are also on Facebook!)