Surprised, or not surprised

Since I have lived in San Vicente, my host-mom has been talking about and planning a huge surprise party for her dad's 67th birthday which was this past Sunday.  She is very creative and hand-made all 150 invitations (as well as hand-delivered them all two days before the party), and she also made all of the decorations.  I have spent the past few weeks helping Leti paint and clean the house and yard in preparation.  On Sunday morning we just had to wait for Orlando, my host-grandfather, to leave for the day so we could start setting up tables and food and decorations.  Every morning he takes his daily walk around town to say hello to neighbors and family. When he stopped at our house I noticed that he was incredibly happy and later I found out it was because he was going to meet a long-lost sister for the first time that day.  For years he has been tracking down a sister that he knew existed somewhere in Honduras, and when he recently found her, my host-mom planned to have a family friend drive him there on the date of the party, which was a good excuse to get him out of the house while we set up the surprise.  So around 9:30am I was at my grandparent's house with Leti, when we hear a big commotion from inside and Dilia, my host-grandmother, comes out on the porch followed by Orlando.  Dilia is holding a folded up invitation to the surprise party and Orlando is angrily trying to take it from her, insisting that he saw his picture on it.  Apparently Orlando does not like parties and surprises and when he accidentally found the invitation to his surprise party at his brother's house, he got very upset and nervous.  He still left for the day to go meet his sister, and we all continued setting up as planned, but with a little less excitement.

The invitation said the party would start at 5pm and Orlando would return home at 6pm, but in Honduras everyone is late.  People started to arrive around 5:30 and throughout the night, even at the same time that Orlando arrived.  He was not very surprised since he had seen the invitation, but he could not guess to what scale this party would be so he was still a little overwhelmed with the size of the party.  There was a lot of food, of course, and a lot of speeches, and a band came to play.  Back in 1975 Orlando and some friends started a band, Combo '75, with traditional instruments like the marimba.  They eventually broke up as they got older, but recently Orlando's two sons along with some friends started the band back up and call it New Combo '75.  They are quite famous here and play all traditional music of Honduras.  They could not play at the party of course, because all of the band members were guests, so they hired another modern band from a different town to come and play their music.  So later on in the night there was dancing.

This entire party was a new experience for me, and I will never quite experience anything in the true Honduran fashion since I am American.  What I mean by that is people are always fascinated with me, where ever I go. If anyone has any connection whatsoever to the United States, they want to talk about it all night long.  If anyone knows a single word in English, they want me to teach them English all night long.  And then other people just stare and follow me around because possibly they have never seen blue eyes before, and some people have never even seen a white person before.  Also, the vast majority of Honduran males are picaflores, literal translation being hummingbird.  This is because they shamelessly jump around from woman to woman whether they have a wife and children or not.  We were actually given lessons about this in Peace Corps Training because it is such a common problem, having to deal with these men who think they are the best men on Earth and who are truly stunned when American women do not fall at their feet.  Clearly I'm disgusted with this behavior and having to fight it off all night long at what should be a safe family event is very tiresome.  The problem is, Honduran girls and women enjoy getting piropos (cat calls) because it essentially means they are pretty enough to look at.  So they respond, which just encourages the men, and then the men get frustrated when American women don't respond and they try harder.  They aren't harmful though, just annoying.  This is just a little example of the cultural differences.  Other than having to awkwardly turn down dances, the night was good because it was a new experience.

Helping serve the appetizers.

The moment of surprise.  

My host-cousin Roger playing a song for our grandfather.

Thanking everyone after the speeches.

The band marching in as a surprise.

Me and my host-grandmother.

My aunt, grandmother, and Leti

My little baby cousin!

Me and Leti :)

Me and Omar, my host-dad

A view of the band from the porch, with a full moon in the sky!

Dilia and Orlando dancing :)

Orlando singing one his original songs

Helping cut the 4 cakes.

Playing his new accordion, which was a really special present.  And yes, that is frosting on his face because tradition is to shove the person's face into the cake. 

Leti and my brother Manuel