Easter Sunday Photos

It has been a while since my last post. A cold has been passing around the casa and I was feeling pretty lousy all week, but I am back. Here are some photos of our outing on Easter Sunday. The oldest girls were going to the cathederal in the center of town with Sr. Eva. I was going to take the boys so we hitched a ride with them. After the church service, Eva took everyone to Wendy's for breakfast.

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Jonathan and me . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Isaac and Jaime . . . . . . . . . . . Josue, David and Carlos

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Kids always find the video games! . . . . Breakfast at Wendy's

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Our solution to little kids peeing in the pool, get them their own mini-pools. They seem to like them better anyway because the water is not as deep.

Viernes Santo - Holy Friday

Greetings and blessings to everyone on this holiest of holy days, remembering the day that Jesus was crucified and died for the sins of the world. This entire week, Semana Santa (holy week) is a holiday and there are many events related to the churches in recognition of the significance of this week. Last night the local bishop and a group of priests went to the jail to wash the feet of the prisoners, symbolic for Jesus' washing of the feet of his diciples. Today was a reenactment of the procession of Jesus through the streets of Jeruselum to the location where he was crucified. The procession started at the Catholic church at 7 a.m. and went throuout most of the streets in our neighborhood, stopping at 14 locations for various ceremonies, reading from the Gospel of John. It finally made it back to the church grounds around 10:00 for the reading of the remainder of the Gospel and reenactment of putting Jesus on the cross and later in the tomb. Several of the older kids followed the procession the entire way, while most of the others joined in when it passed our house, near the end.
This was a very moving and symbolic procession and ceremony which they do every year. Today is the big day for holy week here, recognizing that it was Jesus' death on the cross that freed all believers from our sins. Easter Sunday is the day for celebrating the resurrection with parties and dinners, but today just about the whole country is closed down for a somber day of reflection and giving thanks. This is a 4 minute video of the end of the procession and crucifixion. I will post some photos a little later.

More pool fun

Sunday was another pool day. Here are a few more photos of the kids playing and enjoying an escape from the heat.

Semana Santa

Yesterday started the official week of Semana Santa, holy week. The week leading up to Easter is a holiday and all the schools are out. Wed. thru Sat. is a national holiday and just about everything is closed. The casa has to pay the workers double time for their hours on those days. They have always said that semana santa is the hottest week of the year, but I always felt it was worse in June. Well, I was proven wrong yesterday. Yesterday the temp got up to 39c which is about 102. The forcast for today is 40c, which is 104. I went to NPH is Tegucigalpa this week to visit Maynor and the return trip yesterday in the bus was terrible. Even though the bus was moving most of the time, the wind coming in the window was like having a fan in your oven blowing hot air at you. My water bottle got so warm is was not at all refreshing to drink 100 degree water. Now I know why the rich people pay 4x the price to go in the buses with a/c.

Yesterday they pulled out the swimming pool that they bought last year and filled it up to start using today. The little kids got to go first this morning and had a great time. Here are some photos and a video of them from earlier today. The kids are all taking turns to swim in groups. First the little kids, then the younger girls went and so on in groups. I thought they should have started with the biggest kids for sanitary reasons, if you get what I mean, because three of the youngest boys are still in diapers. I think I will dump some clorox in the water before I get in.