The link for the Sawdust Carpets is:http://picasaweb.google.com/evan.r.stanley/SantaSemana
Honduras is an overwhelmingly Catholic country and to that end they take Holy Week and Easter very seriously. Most of the country shuts down for the entire week. On base, if the locals weren't off for the whole week, they took off Wed through the weekend. We were given a three day weekend. Thurs evening I caught a movie at the base theater, it was Night at the Museum. It had been on the plane from Miami to Honduras, but we missed the last 20 minutes or so. The theater is fairly rudementary, sort of old style flip-up seats, but the floor is sloped. It is just a DVD player hooked up to a good quality projector, the downside is that if the movie is not in letterbox format, the top and bottom get displayed on the floor and ceiling.
Friday morning we all hopped into a van and headed into the town here, Comayagua. They hold an annual passion, which is really the stations of the cross, spread out through the downtown streets. It took close to two hours to walk the whole way, of course that included stopping to take a lot of pictures (170 total) some of which are below, I will post more as I have time. The pictures are sawdust carpets, it really is sawdust. I have no idea where it all comes from, but they start with a base of plain sawdust, then using cut out forms, they fill in with colored sawdust. Some of the carpets were sponsored by local business. Also along the way they had an altar set up for each of the stations. I imagine that they must have done a quick mass at each one. One of the gals from work stayed for the whole thing and took pictures, once I get mine posted, I'll post some of hers. The Chaplain (an Air Force guy, protestant, and the only one on base) did hold a Good Friday service in the afternoon, before running off to conduct a wedding! That evening I watched the movie Children of Men, it really was a very good British dystopic movie.
Saturday was pretty quiet, no services at the chapel. I woke up plenty early to take the wood shop safety class, then of course the guy wasn't there. I hopped in the base pool, which is really a very nice pool, except that it isn't heated and you really notice in the morning. With the sun so nice an bright, high in the sky, the water of the pool seems so nice an clear. I've been in the pool a few times and hope to start making it a lunch time tradition. This Sat morning the sun was high and by evening I felt the burn on my back. I had forseen this and had some aloe lotion in my hooche. It was feeling better by Sun evening. That evening I made a run to the pizza hut in town with a few of the Navy guys, before returning for an early evening.
Sunday morning was an early wake-up to make the Chaplain's sunrise service. In the great protestant tradition, it was quick, so it was off to breakfast with some of the aviation squadron folks. One guy was telling me about all the deals he gets at the liquor store out in town. At lunch, the chaplain held a celebratory bar-b-que at the chapel. It was a nice easy Sunday.
The one that I haven't told you about Holy Week, apparently everyone here has it affect them in their first month here. You never want to be too far from a latrine. The one enlightenment I did have was that if you think about the Simon and Garfunkel song "Sounds of Silence," Kaopectate fits nicely into the first line, as in "Kaopectate my old friend..."
Evan
