Thanksgiving Weekend and Elections

Tuesday December 1st 2009 9:00am

Merry Christmas Season everyone! And for my Hannukah adoring amigos, in the words of Kenneth Parcels "Merry Jewish" (it´s from 30 Rock).


Wednesday November 25th

This past Wednesday, there was a party at school to celebrate the end of the semester. Tons of kids came, and the office workers helped to operate games and prizes. I myself helped to work the prize booth, and was put in charge of making sure that the tickets were counted out correctly. I did a very good job counting to five.

There was a little bit of trouble around lunch time, when we began running out of prizes to give, and resorted to passing out what we could grab from the local pharmacy. The kids were less thrilled about getting soap and toothpaste, but the mothers of the kids seemed very pleased with the change in options.

After lunch, I headed out with Freddy, Nancy and Alfreddy to go to Monte Carmelo, a retreat center that we own outside of the city. Apparently, the offices for the CCD used to be located at Monte Carmelo, but due to its more remote location, the offices were moved to their present day location near the school.

On our way over, we stopped at a local tire repair shop, and they took a look at one of the tires in the vehicle we were driving. As one tire repairman filled our tire up with air, I became entranced watching the other tire repairman take a tire off of its rim with a machine that kind of just popped the tire off.

The machine was beautiful. When I was on staff, and we had to change the tires on the mule vehicle, we had to put a board on the edge of the tire, and drive our truck up the board until the tire popped off. It was a much longer, and I´m sure less safe practice. It was funny though how they kept on measuring the air pressure in the tires...usually you can just feel it.

We proceeded on from there outside of the city to a beautiful retreat center. Up in the mountains, surrounded by a forest of pine trees, the center has a few buildings and meeting places, but also has a lot of natural, outdoor recreational facilities. I hadn´t been before, and was glad I had the opportunity to go.

On our way back to the office, we drove nearby my apartment, so I hopped out and headed home a little bit early. As soon as I walked in the door to my apartment, I turned back around to go out and buy some measuring spoons, and a new can opener, because apparently ones that you buy for the equivelant of 25 cents don´t last long. When I was out, I also picked up some cheap Christmas lights, which I planned on hanging up around the apartment.

I got home and relaxed for a little while before making some dinner. I checked and double checked to make sure that I had all of the ingredients necessary for all of the dishes I was going to prepare.

I also went ahead and made another pumpkin pie, because after my misfortune with my second attempt, I knew that the third time would be the charm. With my make-shift rolling pin, and pie-pan skillet, I crafted a delicious looking pumpkin pie before heading to bed.


Turkey Day November 26th

I woke up early and spent the morning watching the Thanksgiving parade. Around 9:00, I called home and talked with my parents and my siblings for a while. It was good to hear from them, though a little sad to know that I would not be sharing Thanksgiving in Cincinnati with my family.

Previously, I had laid out a schedule of events, with a perfect timing on what I would need to prepare, set out, or cook. At 11:00, my cooking started, and as I got the turkey out, I was terrified to only find one of the alleged two bags of gizzards in the turkey. I kept looking and looking, but there are only so many places on a turkey that you can look for a bag of gizzards. I concluded that the company must have made some error and only included one bag of gizzards in the turkey. I also concluded that if I were wrong, it probably wouldn´t mess up the meal too badly, and I would probably find the bag when carving the turkey. That makes sense, right?

I set about getting everything ready, and after a few adjustments here and there, I got into the groove of cooking. Everything ran on time, as scheduled, despite only having one pot to boil things in, which made for a constant use-and-clean system throughout the day.

Around 3:00, Patty came by to help. By that point, I didn´t have much that I felt I needed help with, but she did help cut up some onions, and her small hands did wonders that my hands could only envy with peeling the small potatoes for mashed potatoes. Slowly the meal began to come together, and as each dish finished, I checked it off of my list.

At 5:00, Edgardo, Heidy, and Betza arrived, and I explained to them that it was Thanksgiving tradition for them to either sit around and catch up with one another, or to sit around and watch football. I took time between meal preparations to explain some of the finer points of the Cowboys victory, though I fear my speeches may have fallen on deaf ears.

By 6:15, the meal was ready, and we headed upstairs to the terrace on the roof to enjoy our Thanksgiving meal. My guests had discovered my cheap Christmas lights, and took the liberty of hanging them up around the terrace. It looked beautiful to me, despite the workout machines in the background.

When 6:30 rolled around, we finished our prayer for the meal and dug in. We had:

Turkey
Mashed Potatoes
Corn Casserole
Green Beans
Onion Casserole
Stuffing
Dressing
Cranberry Sauce
Salad
Rolls
Gravy

It was delicious. I was surprised.

We spent the meal talking about the history of Thanksgiving, and then sharing different things that we were thankful for. It was definitely a more intense round of "I´m thankful for..." than I was used to. My friends in Honduras were thankful for having jobs, worried about the possibility of dying loved ones, worried about their children´s opportunities, and the list goes on.

Freddy and Yasmine came a little bit later, and we all finished enjoying the Thanksgiving meal.

After the meal was finished, we headed back down to my apartment to eat some Pecan and Pumpkin pie! Personally, the pies may be my favorite part of Thanksgiving. Pies (if you can believe it) are not very common in Honduras, and so my guests were intruiged by the rare dessert. After trying both, they all found the pies to be delicious, and some even had seconds, which I was not too happy about because that meant less leftovers for me.

During the meal, I was asked if it was traditional for families to dance after their meal. I tried to explain that, at least in my family, we don´t dance after the meal for a number of reasons:
1. We are pretty white
2. You get tired after a Thanksgiving dinner
3. You also should be so full after Thanksgiving that you don´t want to move

After eating the pies, I asked my guests if they wanted to dance. They all kind of groaned and generally asked if I was a crazy man for suggesting that we dance after eating all of that food. They all looked very tired, and just sat around for about 20 minutes talking about the food, and more about what they didn´t understand about football.

Thanksgiving amatuers. Oh well, next year, I´m sure they will be more prepared.

After they left, I cleaned up the mess, called my family again, and then went straight to bed. That turkey can make you sleepy.


Friday November 27th 2009

We were only supposed to have a half day of work due to the pending elections, and because I would only miss half of a day, I felt just fine taking the whole day off to recuperate. I slept in a bit, and at lunch time, I found myself slightly perturbed by some of my Thanksgiving guests. Before they had left, I allowed them to take some food with them. I was left with salad, rolls, a few green beans, about one spoonful of the other dishes, and only the turkey that I hadn´t carved.

I had been looking forward to lots of leftovers, but was not so lucky to be able to enjoy them. I spread them out, and made what I had last, and did enjoy carving the rest of the turkey. I never did find that other bag of gizzards.

The day was spent mostly bumming around the apartment, and finishing cleaning up some of the mess.

I slept a lot throughout the day, and that night, I tried to work out on the roof, but still felt pretty full from the meal and the extra turkey left overs.


Saturday November 28th

Saturday was the day before elections, and I wasn´t sure what to do. The news that I had heard and read told me that Honduras was bracing for the worst. Each report included more and more armed guards, police officers, and army officials stationed throughout the city. The people, however, seemed to be very calm about the whole situation.

I decided to go to the store and stock up just in case. I wasn´t going to be caught eating peanut butter sandwiches for three more days straight. I shopped for mostly non-perishable items, as my refrigerator was still largely full of turkey, and as I wasn´t sure if the power would stay on.

I got back to the apartment and boiled some water, filled my pantries, and got myself ready for the next day.


Sunday November 29th - Election Day

Everything in the elections went as smoothly as possible. Despite a call for boycott from the ousted president, there was a high voter turnout, and Pepe Lobo was elected president. There were no protestors, no mobs, and no deaths. I was pleasantly surprised, and rejoiced by watching football all day.

I was, however, a little frustrated by the constant interruption of the football games to show updates on the election. Rather than just having a few channels dedicated to the election coverage, every so often, all the stations would go blank except for the three stations that showed the updates. It would only last for a few minutes, but if you are trying to watch a Titan´s game winning, and very exciting drive, it can be a few minutes too long.

It can really be frustrating when one is watching Sunday night football, and at the end of the fourth quarter, the station blacks out, and you have to wait 15 minutes until it comes back on to find out that the game is in overtime!

Other than those minor frustrations, Sunday went very well, and I was overjoyed that the elections went smoothly.


Monday November 30th

Monday I did some real shopping. I had cleaned out a good portion of the turkey, and needed to refill my refrigerator. I spent the morning at the store, and after lunch, I decided to head up to the roof to try and work off a little bit of the Thanksgiving meal that was hanging around.

In the middle of a stationary bike ride, when I may or may not have been singing a Flight of the Conchords song outloud, my next door neighbor decided that it would be a good time for her to come up to the roof. The attractive young Honduran woman introduced herself, and began to strike up a conversation with me. Me who had not only been singing outloud and possibly dancing slightly, but also, me who had been sweating profusely for about 30 minutes, and hadn´t shaved his patchy facial hair in roughly five days. It was a great time to meet people.

It turns out that my neighbor had been born in Honduras, but had moved to LA with her family shortly after she was born. She and some of her relatives were only back for a month or so for vacation. She spoke English very well, and was able to help me out when I got stuck with my Spanish. After talking for a while, she invited me to knock on their door whenever I was bored, (which was foolish, because I am often bored in the evenings) and I invited her to knock on mine whenever she was bored...as long as it was at a reasonable hour.

When I finished my workout, I headed downstairs and took a much needed shower. I spent the rest of the day hanging up some Christmas lights around the apartment and on the balcony. It doesn´t really feel like Christmas when its 70 degrees and sunny outside, but the lights help.

I made some dinner for myself and watched some Monday Night Football before heading to bed.