It's the most wonderful time of the year! (In a singing voice)

Christmas season is my favorite time of the year in America, but I think I am going to choose a different favorite time of the year for Honduras.  Christmas is not that special here; people actually tell me that New Year's is more festive (meaning they party harder).  Some people in my town have put Christmas lights up outside their houses, like my family, my host-grandparents, and a few extended members of my host-family.  So basically just my family.  The big deal here are the nacimientos (Nativity scenes).  Most people set up a nativity scene inside their house because there aren't lawns here.  My host mom builds one on the staircase inside, going up to our second floor and my host grandparents build a giant one every year that takes up their entire living room.  We started the building process about 4 days ago and have not finished yet.  I don't know what all figurines they will put in their Nativity scene, but ours has some crazy ones.  Next to Baby Jesus we have the Hulk, dinosaurs roaming around the church, tigers and bears fighting in the sawdust, a few Santa Clauses relaxing under palm trees, and even an M&M Cupid.  My host mom warned me that some Nativity scenes get really crazy, and looking back on that conversation, I sure am glad I don't know how to say tacky in Spanish.  That is what I was thinking without realizing she meant her own Nativity scene would be just the same.  But it is still pretty, and we had fun setting it up together.  I really do enjoy learning all of the differences in between our cultures, as much as I miss home.

The nativity scene on our stairwell.  You can't see everything, but there are giant horses galloping in front of mini houses, an over-sized snowman in front of the church, and lots of little jungle animals roaming around the barn building.

Here are Mary and Joseph, along with a giraffe, snowman, polar bear, and a few Honduran geese.

Manuel being silly

Me with the Santa hat that Kacie sent me!

Thank you Carter and Coleman for your beautiful pictures!!  I hung them all on my wall!

My host-brother liked the drawings as well and wanted a picture with them to show that he cares!  :)

See the Hulk up in the right corner?  He's our little angel guarding Baby Jesus in the manger.

My host-grandparent's Christmas tree!  (It's fake, of course.  Although the national tree is the Pine tree....)

My host-grandfather playing his accordion!

The beginnings of the Nativity scene in their living room.  It will be much bigger, apparently with mountains and all.

Adding moss and plants...

And lights....

And more moss... It is getting prettier!

I also have some pictures of random things when I took a walk one afternoon.  Leti and I planned to walk after work, and we invited my 12 year old host brother Manuel and two of my little host cousins.  (Elder is 9 and Brian is 7).  Actually Brian and Elder kind of had to come with us because Leti was watching them that afternoon.  They live one town over but come to San Vicente every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to attend my English class so then they have to hang out in our town all day until their dad picks them up on the way home from work.  It was an interesting walk, and I forgot how much 7 year olds like to talk.

My little host-cousin Brian talking to the parrot.  The parrot talks a lot, as well as whistles and meows exactly like a cat.

The beginning of the walk.  Notice Elder is covering Brian's mouth, but he gave that up after 5 minutes because no one can stop the boy from talking.

This is a "jolote" not a "pavo" which means it is slightly different than a turkey.  

These pigs literally came crawling out of a drain pipe into the road and just ambled away like its every day business to walk through drain pipes.

Squirrels in a cage.  Imagine that... they don't have dogs on leashes, or horses with saddles, but they have squirrels in cages and pigs and goats tied to telephone poles.

Leti, Manuel, Brian, and Elder

This is the newest development in my town.  Literally, these are the newest houses that the mayor built. 

I don't know what kind of animal this is.

I like this picture because it has some kind of cow-goat animal lying down, then ducks were wandering on the ground behind the cow-goat, and then bunches of chickens were hanging out in the tree in the background of the photo.

Also, this is completely random, but I am going to tell you a few things about my day.  I realized that they are all strange things for Americans, but normal considering I am in Honduras.  Today was the first morning I have not been chased by wild dogs during my run, yay for not crying from terror!  (Although I stopped and walked anytime I was near a dog, so that probably has something to do with it...)  When I was walking to work, a man in the park told me he wants to steal me to be his wife.  (They do that here, men steal women from their homes in the middle of the night.)  Right before that, two little girls shrieked with joy when they saw me walking by their house and they stopped me in order to take pictures with me, using a broken/cracked/old camera that doesn't actually take pictures.  But they were very pleased with themselves.  On the bus to Santa Barbara, we passed a truck pulling a trailer full of men and horses.  The trailer was meant for the horses, but so many men and children were hitch-hiking on the truck that they were literally sitting on the horses in the trailer.  On the way home from Santa Barbara, a little boy got on the bus carrying a tiny piglet wrapped in plastic bags.  Walking home from the bus stop I passed a goat and a pig tied up to a telephone pole on the street.  And of course I passed dozens and dozens of children playing in the road with fire crackers and machetes.  A couple of little children, about 2 and 3 years old wearing no clothes, were even playing in an active construction zone.  They had toy bull dozers and I guess thought it was real fun to drive them across the same dirt mounds as the real bull dozers.  These are all things that happened in the same day, and I didn't have my camera on me, but I think the brief description is good enough to demonstrate the vast differences between America and Honduras.  This is definitely a learning experience for me!