The week leading up to “Pascua” is much different from the Easter I am accustomed to in the United States. To me, Easter meant decorating brightly colored eggs, buying new Easter clothes (the frillier the better), and then on Sunday morning attending a sunrise service among fragrant lilies with a Easter brunch following afterward.
Things couldn’t be more different here in Tegucigalpa. Instead of protesting the differences, I decided to fuse the two customs together this year into a new Diaz family tradition. Here’s how it worked out for me, and my guide to celebrating Semana Santa in Honduras for North Americans.
DO:
Think ahead when it comes to dying eggs. Thinking ahead means asking someone to bring you an egg decorating kit from the US (because it will be cheaper than buying from Mas x Menos). Thinking ahead means boiling the eggs ahead of the day you want to do it…because the likelihood of power-outages is quite certain in my community.
Think ahead about Easter clothes. The weekend leading up to Easter, most of the stores (including the stores in the mall) were closed. However, Zara never lets me down.
DON’T
Go to one of the big, overplayed beaches. Last year we went to Los Delagitos in the South. It took an extra hour to get there because of the traffic….An hour trapped in the hot car, sweating out our need to go to the bathroom. It was so crowded with people, trash, thrashing music that a headache was always near. It was still fun, but we found a better option this year.
Expect to relax at the Mayan’s pool. This is one of my favorite spots because of $15 massages, ice-cream delivered pool side, and a beautiful environment to sun bathe. However, during Semana Santa my oasis becomes a latin frat party. There was a 20 foot tall blow-up corona and people videotaping girls in bikinis. My massage therapist rubbed my back to the beat of “Danza Kurudro” – the antithesis of relaxing.
DO
Check out Amapala. It’s not easy to get to the beach beach…You must park a ways away, board the hectic dock, crowd on to the right collectivo boat, and then jump in the back of the truck to arrive at one of the less-popular beaches (this takes roughly an hour). But it is worth it! I can’t reveal my secret spot, but I’ll give you a clue: it has black sand! The best part about it is that the moment we arrived on the uninhabited beach, a restaurant owner invited us to put our things down as his table under his make-shift tent. He asked what we would like for lunch, when we would like it, and our music preference. The water was perfect, the sand was perfect, and the company was perfect. It was a great day!
DON’T expect to find your Easter service back home. Church attendance is so low this week, in fact, that our Spanish service was canceled. Thus, my advice to you is:
D
O embrace the Catholic tradition. Palm Sunday they hand out palm branches all over the city. People tie them to cars, carry them around. I’m not sure what else. Next year I’m parking myself in mass at the Cathedral Metropolitano to see what happens. I also find the Good Friday celebration and funeral march down town instructive. There is a tangible grief that permeates the crowd. Good Friday is an important part of our Christian tradition that sometimes gets somewhat overlooked in Evangelicalism.
All in all, I discovered that my American tradition of decorating eggs and receiving things from the Easter bunny came from some pagan goddess of fertility (including the name, “Easter”). Yet “Pascua,” (as they call it here in Honduras), comes from the word Passover…the original holiday leading up to the resurrection of Christ. So perhaps I have some things to learn about this celebration.
So there is my guide to celebrating Semana Santa in Teguc (based on three years of experience). I would love to hear other expat comments about their experiencing during the days leading up to Pascua in Honduras.
Things couldn’t be more different here in Tegucigalpa. Instead of protesting the differences, I decided to fuse the two customs together this year into a new Diaz family tradition. Here’s how it worked out for me, and my guide to celebrating Semana Santa in Honduras for North Americans.
DO:
Think ahead when it comes to dying eggs. Thinking ahead means asking someone to bring you an egg decorating kit from the US (because it will be cheaper than buying from Mas x Menos). Thinking ahead means boiling the eggs ahead of the day you want to do it…because the likelihood of power-outages is quite certain in my community.
Think ahead about Easter clothes. The weekend leading up to Easter, most of the stores (including the stores in the mall) were closed. However, Zara never lets me down.
DON’T
Go to one of the big, overplayed beaches. Last year we went to Los Delagitos in the South. It took an extra hour to get there because of the traffic….An hour trapped in the hot car, sweating out our need to go to the bathroom. It was so crowded with people, trash, thrashing music that a headache was always near. It was still fun, but we found a better option this year.
Expect to relax at the Mayan’s pool. This is one of my favorite spots because of $15 massages, ice-cream delivered pool side, and a beautiful environment to sun bathe. However, during Semana Santa my oasis becomes a latin frat party. There was a 20 foot tall blow-up corona and people videotaping girls in bikinis. My massage therapist rubbed my back to the beat of “Danza Kurudro” – the antithesis of relaxing.
DO
Check out Amapala. It’s not easy to get to the beach beach…You must park a ways away, board the hectic dock, crowd on to the right collectivo boat, and then jump in the back of the truck to arrive at one of the less-popular beaches (this takes roughly an hour). But it is worth it! I can’t reveal my secret spot, but I’ll give you a clue: it has black sand! The best part about it is that the moment we arrived on the uninhabited beach, a restaurant owner invited us to put our things down as his table under his make-shift tent. He asked what we would like for lunch, when we would like it, and our music preference. The water was perfect, the sand was perfect, and the company was perfect. It was a great day!
DON’T expect to find your Easter service back home. Church attendance is so low this week, in fact, that our Spanish service was canceled. Thus, my advice to you is:D
O embrace the Catholic tradition. Palm Sunday they hand out palm branches all over the city. People tie them to cars, carry them around. I’m not sure what else. Next year I’m parking myself in mass at the Cathedral Metropolitano to see what happens. I also find the Good Friday celebration and funeral march down town instructive. There is a tangible grief that permeates the crowd. Good Friday is an important part of our Christian tradition that sometimes gets somewhat overlooked in Evangelicalism.All in all, I discovered that my American tradition of decorating eggs and receiving things from the Easter bunny came from some pagan goddess of fertility (including the name, “Easter”). Yet “Pascua,” (as they call it here in Honduras), comes from the word Passover…the original holiday leading up to the resurrection of Christ. So perhaps I have some things to learn about this celebration.
So there is my guide to celebrating Semana Santa in Teguc (based on three years of experience). I would love to hear other expat comments about their experiencing during the days leading up to Pascua in Honduras.
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