¡Feliz Navidad y Feliz Año Nuevo a todos!
My New Year’s resolution is to do a bit more traveling, learn a new language perhaps, try something new like teaching, living a tad simpler...oh wait…
All jokes aside, it was quite the spectacle celebrating in a completely different place for both Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Remember how I was telling you that our friends in Central America know how to party? We had the ultimate party experience for Christmas, and dare I say it, it was absolutely the party of the year on December 31st.
Preparations began the 23rd, organizing gifts for all the kids and decorating for the fiesta. As we went through the donation bins, I scored big unearthing the trendiest silk robe ever with the words BRIDESMAID plastered on the back, a rubber snake, and a teeny yellow bucket hat. I sported that outfit for the rest of the night, and might I say, I looked mighty fine. There never was a lovelier snake-taming, sun-soaking bridesmaid. When all was said and done, Adam and a few of the other missionaries slinked and slunk around the Finca to put all the kids new Christmas outfits underneath the tree for Mass the next day. Despite their best efforts, these kids weren’t fooled and explained to us the next day how they heard them enter the house.
All our celebrating for Christmas happened on the 24th, allowing for a nice relaxing and task-free day. We began the evening with Mass in our chapel with the bishop of our diocese (I know. The freaking bishop!). Afterward we gathered in Colegio for a Christmas dinner sponsored by our local Finca oinker, Cura the pig. Rest in peace, Cura, well, more like rest in pieces. YIKES! Dinner was followed by a surprise visit from none other than the jolly soul himself, Santa Claus. To Adam’s and my relief, one of the Honduran men who works at the Finca volunteered to wear the suit (it just wasn’t very slimming on me and I wasn’t given enough advance notice to grow out my beard). However, we did offer to be Santa’s help as elves and boy was that a hoot. Each present was given to Santa in a more ridiculous manner than the last. I came up with the brilliant idea of carrying one of the gifts in my mouth like I was a seal, barking as one does when pretending to be a seal. Santa, being the good sport that he is, decided he would “play seal,” too, and prepared himself to receive the gift not with his hands, because, as you know, seals don’t have hands. I regret to inform all my past show directors that in this instance I was left with no choice. I broke character. I didn’t remember reading about a stage kiss in the script. The gifts were all distributed, and naturally, everyone wanted to try out the new toys or clothes they had just received. We cleared some space for this to happen while preparing to watch Home Alone on the projector. I forgot how good that movie is, and I think I might even prefer it in Spanish. Unfortunately, the disk froze on us halfway through the film, but not to worry. We have plenty of dancing we needed to do before midnight came around.
As things winded down a bit, we congregated in the chapel to end the evening in prayer. We sat there for maybe 5 minutes taking in all that had just happened, and it was silent, I mean actually silent. It was incredibly weird but at the same time so incredibly refreshing. I work all day with kids and am surrounded by what I swear is some of the loudest and most obnoxious wildlife I’ve ever encountered. Silence doesn’t frequently make an appearance in my life at the moment, but for those 5 minutes together, I was both shocked and in awe of the silence that blessed us that night. Every voice was soon singing Noche de Paz [Silent Night] because it truly was a silent night. And of course, in true Central American fashion, we ran out to the campo with a million sparklers and fireworks lighting the sky and now ruining the once silent night I found so beautiful. Así es. I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. It was such a fantastic celebration of Christ’s birth made even more special by sharing with such amazing people. I might’ve been more upset that the festivities were ending that evening, but as it turns out, we ended up doing almost the exact same thing to ring in the New Year. Slight differences included a heck of a lot more dancing, more fireworks, and floating lanterns. My party standards have sky rocketed since being in Central America. I fear any parties I might attend in the future outside of the Finca will prove lackluster in comparison.
I have to confess a secret I’ve been concealing for the last 5 and a half months since being on mission. I wasn’t working too hard to keep it a secret, so you may have noticed, but since August 3rd (yes, I’ve been keeping track), I have let my hair have its way with the world. In my 22 years of life, I am almost certain this is the longest I’ve ever let it grow, and I cannot begin to tell you the wisdom I’ve gleaned from this experience. First thing’s first, bed head is a major issue for long hair. What a buzzkill to have to shower or at least do something to tame that beast every single morning. Entonces, I own a comb now. I’m pretty sure I haven’t used one of those since maybe 2nd grade when my dad somehow convinced me I should want to look presentable every day. I use the comb to look suave like I’m in the 50s, and it hurts! Knots in your hair? No fun. I want to say that walking on the beach and having the luscious curls flowing like heather in the wind whilst rocking my Baywatch bod is a sweet perk, but you quickly realize that movies like Baywatch are fake and hair actually smacks you repeatedly in the face when it’s windy on the beach. I don’t particularly love the fact that my neck is constantly embraced by a fuzzy blanket that also increases in comfort when I sweat. Maybe if wintertime was a bit cooler it would be of more use to me. I want to believe people when they say that the ladies love “flo” on a guy, but so far I’ve gotten a lot of “Que feo!” [How ugly!] and “Cuando va a cortarte?” [When are you going to get your haircut?] or “Parece como una niña” [You look like a girl] from the niñas.
I making it out to seem like I hate the long hair and that it has close to know redeemable qualities. For the most part, I think that’s true, but it’s not all bad. Just recently, my hair has achieved a length that I can successfully put it up in a man bun. It’s just the cutest thing you ever set your eyes on. Someone even said I looked like a centaur (and it wasn’t me!). The long hair is like a built in play-toy when you have nothing to do. I’m constantly touching my hair (it’s ridiculous), mostly in disbelief that it’s as long as it is, but also because the urge to twirl it is way too strong. Just the other day I was supervising our house for the younger boys and had the closest thing I’ll ever get to a day at the salon. They got such a kick out of playing with my hair, strangely, and I was happy to let them. Things got a little out of hand when the hairspray made its way out, but pretty soon we were the finest looking bunch of gentlemen at the Finca.
Yes, it’s no lie, my glorious mane is a sight to see, but only for a limited time. Today, el babero viene a la Finca [the barber comes to the Finca], and the beast will be no more. It was causing too much stir in the Finca. I just couldn’t handle the gossip, the jealousy, and threats to cut my luscious locks while I was asleep any longer. In reality, I was told I should really cut it before school starts. Something about being an example for the kids who we expect to arrive to school clean-cut. At least I know it’s possible. Might be something to try again when I return to the States. What do you think?
One of the greatest parts of serving on mission, really when working with kids anywhere, is witnessing the pure joy they experience in just about anything. Right now, we have about 12 pollitos [chicks] running around the Finca, and they frequently make an appearance when we have some of our spiritual events outside. One of our boys couldn’t help but be distracted by them and he just HAD to catch one to hold during rosary. For the rest of the time he was busy enfolding the little chick in his shirt and giggling to himself as he snuck a peak to see the pollito underneath his shirt. This is also the same kid who while playing soccer the other day thought it was the funniest thing when he completely ate dirt trying to challenge someone. Did he get hurt when he did this? No importa [Not important]. He fell down, and it was funny (he didn’t get hurt, just saying). It’s always the simplest things. When we play the card game, “War,” the anticipation of who will win each round makes the kids so incredibly silly. They bring the cards close to their face and slowly reveal the top card to themselves because they’re too afraid to see if they’ll lose or not. I couldn’t help but chuckle the whole game, and when I finally lost all my cards, rather than eliminate me, one of our youngest gave me half of his deck so I could continue playing. Sometimes I’m just so impressed by our kids. I doubt I would have done anything like that when I was his age.
Here’s a cooking update for you. We recently received a donation of very large, kinda spiky, red fish. The creature sat in our freezer for at least a week because, of course, no one wanted to cook it. So, who do you suppose eventually tackled the scaly sea-critter? Yup. Do, Re, Me. Cutting up a raw chicken is one thing, but I couldn’t even begin to figure out how to best dismember this thing. My handy dandy Betty Crocker Cookbook was of no help either. Eventually I managed to get some sort fleshy substance worth cooking. I think it turned out alright in the end, and I was hoping that would be the only time I’d have to try my hand at cooking fish, but alas, her cousin is sitting in our freezer as I write this. Prepare yourselves for a saucy rendition of “Ryan Meets Fish: Reprise” next blog post.
A few weeks ago we traveled for retreat in the center of Honduras in Siguatepeque for a few days. Much of our community was feeling stressed with the beginning of school coming quickly, lesson planning, buying school supplies and uniforms, entertaining old missionaries and various other visitors, and maintaining our everyday chores and tasks required while living the Finca life. Suffice it to say, it was nice to be away for a bit. The retreat center, Casa de Retiro Madre Nazaria, was secluded and tranquil. For me, I spent a lot of time reflecting, praying, and just being in silence. It was weird, let me tell you. I’ve never known things to be so quiet. I had my own room there, and every time I settled for bed, the silence was incredibly eerie I could’ve sworn I was in a murder film. I’m serious! I didn’t help that we had the whole place to ourselves, and we were only seven people. The retreat accomplished a lot for us, however. We rested, grew stronger as a community, and were able to settle back in the peace of serving as missionaries here in Honduras.
Since we had traveled so far, we took advantage of being a hop, skip, and a jump away from Lago de Yajoa, one of the largest (and maybe the largest) lakes in Honduras. We rented a few kayaks and set sail for the high seas…er lakes. I was in awe! We started in this little channel connected to the lake. I paddled quickly because I really wanted to see the lake and all its majesty. I realized, however, that that moment was somewhat an anology of life (warning, these next few sentences get a tad deep) I was so eager to get to the lake that I firstly was missing all the cool things around me that presented themselves along the channel. The second thing is that by going so fast, I was exerting so much effort that by the time I got to the lake, I was gassed. When I finally stopped to take it all in, this analogy dawned on me about life. If I had slowed my pace down, I could’ve seen and appreciated all the beauty that surrounded me along the journey, and when I arrived to my destination, I could be eager to enter into all that awaited me instead of exhausted and wishing for a nap. Maybe it was all the retreat mumbo jumbo, but it just made me think. There. Philosophy lecture over. Here’s what I did end up observing from the lake when I slowed down a bit: the calm of the lake, the cool of the water, birds cooing and cawing, the mountains and the sun peering behind them, clouds low to the Earth and embracing the mountains. I loved every moment of that afternoon. When we located a good enough island, we parked our kayaks by some rocks and were flipping and jumping into the lake. I’ve decided I think I’d like to find a lake house somewhere when I return to the States.
And there you have it. Another month or so in the books for me here in Honduras. Life keeps chugging along, it seems. I don’t understand how time has all of a sudden started moving so quickly. I think it comes with not being so young anymore. I’m not waiting to reach an age or a specific day when something will happen or begin for me. A lot is up in the air at the moment, minus my responsibilities at the Finca, and I kinda like it that way. Maybe, too, it has to do with that cheesy saying that “when you’re doing what you love, you never work a day in your life.” I’d revise it to say that “time just completely escapes you.”
I miss everyone back home and I hope the new year is kicking off to a fantastic start for you all. This ends my longest blog post yet. As always, thanks for reading!
Cheers
Ryan
