littlewoodenman

Family, Fireworks, Faith Healing And A Feliz Navidad Posted 2006.12.27 by Matthew with 4 comments

Angel and I spent Christmas with our friend Carla, and her family, in San Esteban. If you thought Juticalpa was rural, well, make a visit to San Esteban sometime. It’s in northern Olancho, about halfway between Juticalpa and la costa norte, and takes maybe three hours to get there by “chicken bus” on a pocked dirt road through the mountains.

San Esteban has somewhat of a bad reputation. This road from Juticalpa is notorious for (literal) highway robbery, but we didn’t have any problems. The town of San Esteban is also best known for its legendary and violent family feuds. Tell somebody who isn’t olanchano that you’re from Juticalpa and they’ll invariably give you a look of concern for your safety. Well, tell an olanchano you’re going to San Esteban, and you’ll generally get the same reaction. What San Esteban should be known for, however, is its natural beauty. The Valle de Agalta is beautiful.

Life In The Campo

Carla’s mother has a house right on the main road, so when we got off the bus the family was already standing there waiting to greet us. Directly across the road is a large cow pasture, complete with turtle pond and a stunning view of the Sierra de Agalta.

Their house has no electricity or, on some days, running water. Carla’s mother cooks everything with firewood on an oven made out of clay. She has an outdoor oven, as well, where she made some fantastically awesome bread. The kitchen is dark, as there is only one tiny window and the ceiling (alright, the exposed roof) is black with ash and soot. When she cooks at night (the sun goes down around 5:00 PM) she does it with a flashlight or candle in one hand. Carla’s sister, Xiamara, lives next door in her own casita, and cooks on a gas-powered stove. Despite the logistics involved in cooking a meal, everything we ate was delicious.

When there is running water, you run around filling the pila and any spare container you can find, because you don’t know when the supply is going to be cut off again. For our sakes, they boiled some water for drinking, but I don’t think they usually do that for themselves. To flush the toilet, you take a bucket of water with you and dump enough into the bowl (splash!) so that it drains on its own.

At first I was a little worried how we would pass the time in the evening without light, but it wasn’t a problem. Hondurans love to just sit and talk. They were constantly laughing. I couldn’t walk two steps without being offered a seat, sometimes at someone else’s expense.

A house in the campo can get a little dirty. When it’s wet there’s a lot of mud. When it’s dry there’s a lot of dust. Somebody was sweeping or mopping the floors every five minutes and it was still a losing battle—like when the dumb Canadian would stroll in tracking mud all over the floor!

There are chickens, roosters, dogs and cats roaming in and out of the house at will (although the dog is not allowed in the kitchen). I occasionally did a double-take whenever I found a chicken crouched under my chair. I also got a kick out of watching Angel stifle cries of obsessive-compulsive agony when any of the children would pet a chicken or a dog and then put their fingers right in their mouth. Blech!

One Big Happy Family

Carla has a big family. Her parents had eight children—before her father left her mother for a woman half his age and fathered four (I think) more children. I really wanted to dismiss Carla’s father as a slimy philanderer, but honestly, he’s one of the finest gentlemen I’ve ever met in Honduras. You might find his picture in the dictionary next to the word “jovial”. When I met him he gave me a great big bear hug before I even told him my name.

The topic of fidelity in Honduras really deserves its own blog post so stay tuned. Suffice it to say that there are a lot of “extended” families, and it helps to have a notebook with you, to keep track of who’s related to who and how.

Because the wife is typically much younger than the husband, and either one of them might sleep around with someone else, the family tree can get a little chaotic. It’s very hard to delineate one generation from another. Take Carla’s father, for example. His oldest child is in his forties while his youngest child is two years old. His new wife is about the same age as Carla. Xiamara’s son, Gerson, is eleven years old and the half-nephew of a two-year-old baby. I’m getting dizzy…

You might think there’d be a lot of hostility between the families, but in this family, at least, everybody gets along really well with everybody else. And I guess they have to, since most of them live within ten minutes of each other. Xiamara’s house is right next door, Bertha’s (Carla’s other sister) house is out back, one half-sister lives a few minutes’ walk down a muddy road, another half-sister lives in town, Carla’s brother Fausto lives on a farm a five minute drive away, which is near the aldea where Carla’s father lives. I guess your family, no matter what its origin might be, is that important.

Any Christmas Traditions?

For starters, no eggnog. Waaaah!

There wasn’t really a sit-down Christmas dinner. Family is coming and going so often that people usually just eat in shifts. The two of us ate together with Carla while people who had already eaten chatted around us. What we did eat, though, was tasty. There was a roast chicken (no gravy!), but more importantly, there were tamales, filled with chicken. And of course, you wash it all down with your choice of refresco: Coca Cola or banana.

A lot of firecrackers. ‘Nuff said.

The weirdest thing we did was attend a Christmas Eve Mass—outdoors under a canopy at the pulperia two houses further up the road. What started as an attempt to be gracious guests turned into a three-hour (plus) Baptist love-fest. There was a lot of singing. We’re talking twelve minute long songs. Did you know that the only path to salvation is through Jesus Christ? Yeah, me too—because I heard it repeated a thousand fucking times.

There was even some faith healing by a teenage girl, who is apparently famous around San Esteban for her healing powers and ability to see the future. She announced to the congregation that she had just received a message from God, at which point everybody ran up to be healed. Things got interesting when people started falling to the ground moaning and crying. People were banging their heads on plastic patio furniture and everything. I’ve only ever seen this kind of stuff on TV before. When it was over, Magic Girl sat down and cried for a couple of minutes. This was definitely one of those moments in your life where you just sit there, bewildered, asking, “Where the hell am I?!?”

We even made an awkward cameo as “the Canadian couple”, whose attendance was clearly a sign from God, and not, in any way, coincidental. We must’ve been mentioned five or six times. At one point the pastor asked me, in front of everybody, if I knew la palabra de Dios (the word of God), to which I replied “Yes” because I wanted to get out of there, like yesterday.

Then he asked Angel, “Are you Hindu? Do you believe in Vishnu?”

“Yes. I believe in many things,” she replied.

“Well, you know, the only true way is through Jesus Christ,” he answered. Bam! Just like that. Vishnu don’t count for nothin’. Dude, you did not just say that. Angel was giving him the icy stare that is usually reserved for me. Uhh, check please!

By the end of it, also known as after 9:00 PM, even Carla, who has recently “found God” to a degree, was rolling her eyes and making Angel giggle like a schoolgirl. Before the pastor even finished his last sentence, the three of us were running for the exit. Carla was ranting, “Dios mio! Just say a prayer, sing a song and get it over with already!”

And that was our Christmas. Definitely a unique experience, for which I’m grateful, and I know we’ll be visiting San Esteban again very soon. Thanks to Carla and her family for taking good care of us. Next stop, New Year’s! So, how was your Christmas?