Semana Santa With The Wiersemas

Our much anticipated "spring break" has come and gone and now it's the final sprint to the finish line of our first year in Honduras. Only about four or so weeks in the school year and then "recuperations" (students' last-chance-cafe to pass onto the next grade). Before we get into too much excitement over that its important to look back on the great break that we just had last week.

Semana Santa or "Holy Week" a big break for Catholic countries like Honduras. Unlike in the U.S. where schools have spring break and they often vary, pretty much everyone in Central and South America has all or part of the week before Easter off. In Honduras, it was practically official that everyone's work week ended on the Wednesday before Easter Sunday.

Anah and I couldn't get out of San Pedro Sula fast enough! We're into the hot stretch and hitting the beaches of Roatan (where we spent our belated honeymoon) is much preferable to the hot and dusty streets of Honduras' industrial capital, where daily temps hover between 90 and 100 this time of the year with the "feels like" temperature even higher.

We boarded our flight and in less that 45 minutes we were making our way off the runway in Roatan. We had arrived right behind Mom (Diane), Dad (Mitch), and my two sisters (Katie and Emily) and the moment we approached the gate there they were waiting in the customs line.

Being the part-Hondurans Anah and I are, we were able to skip the customs baloney and wait for the fam on the other side.

We all made our way to one of Roatan's finer establishments, the Mayan Princess. Only the best for my family!

The pool view from our room. With a baby blue sea just beyond, what's the point of being pool-side?

For Anah and I, Roatan was mostly about family and relaxation. We weren't looking for too much excitement and either were the Wiersemas. Days at the beach went by and with the exception of a little too much sun here and there, we were all content to sit around and soak in the atmosphere.

Anah and my middle sister, Katie, were in Roatan for other reasons, too. Both had been taking scuba diving classes in their respective cities and now were ready to complete their certifications exploring one of the world's best coral reefs. The two of them were off many early mornings checking out all of the underwater sites around Roatan and by mid-week, joined the exclusive club of scuba-certified divers. I'll let her tell more about that in another post.

Days on the beach were mixed with nice dinners around the island. Roatan experiences a population boom during Semana Santa and the islands power grid sometimes has a hard time keeping up. One dinner we finished by candle light!

The second day on Roatan was filled with a nice day trip across the island. Anah's sister Erin also spent her honeymoon on the island of Roatan a few years back (before we knew we were headed here... small world) and dined at a unique place called "Hole in the Wall." We weren't able to hit it up the first time we visited, but figured it would be a nice time with the fam.

A taxi-van ride for about an hour brought us to the edge of a bay where two old motorboats ferried people across to this rickety building hanging over the water. Story goes a trio of American hippies' boat died here and they set up shop on Roatan. Now they serve great big Sunday lunches for all-comers. Lots of food and drink? Sounds like a place for the Wiersemas!

It's a "hole" all right.

Katie demonstrating some important point to Dad. Emily looks skeptical (so does Dad, actually).

The beach, drink, and eat pattern worked well for all of the Wiersemas (and us too!) who were breaking out of their long winter slump. Its kinda of amusing to think that the Celsius temperature in Roatan (40) was roughly the same the Fahrenheit temperature back in Wisconsin while they were down here!

Obviously the most important thing was the we got to spend important time with my parents and my two sisters. Its been a long run since winter break and even though we've done some fantastic things down in Honduras, the best things are being able to see, talk to, and hang out with a bit of home right here in Honduras.




- Dan

The Train Set Dad and I Never Quite Finished

Sunday, March 22nd, 2009

When I was younger I loved model trains (well I still do) and I used to go to those model train shows a lot in Madison. Dad and I tried to build a set in the basement, but time constraints kept us from turning it into anything immense. It was an awesome set with a great track, a few buildings, and a lot of nature. I guess I had always hoped it would look something like this:



- Dan

Homesick Remedies #4645 (click here to comment)

Thursday, March 19th, 2009

Homesick happens. Its just a fact of living abroad. There's not necessarily rhyme nor reason to it. For Anah and I, its just been a particularly rough week at work.

How each person respond to homesickness is as varied as what prompts it. Anah usually calls her parents and that makes her feel better. Not that a good call home doesn't help me, but I tend to bury those sort of feelings altogether. Tough guy persona, you know....

At the end of the month two of our friends Amy and Craig are getting married in Austin, Texas, and despite our best efforts the timing (the weekend before spring break) and the cost ($600 per ticket to Houston... Chicago is only $300... WTF!!?!??!) was terrible. It was going to be classic. Many of the wonderful people that graced out own wedding will be out in force at Craig and Amy's and it would have been another opportunity to be on home soil with some of our favorite friends.

With those friends in mind, Anah and I cured just a little homesickness with a quick photo project. Its surprising how quickly one's spirits lift up when the ones you care about most are looking over you.


Just for the record... family pictures are on the fridge.

- Dan

Newness! (click here to comment)

Over Christmas, Anah and I bought a new toy. We had gone back and forth over whether or not we wanted a big fancy camera down here in Honduras. Pro: ability to take super-sweet pictures and pretend we're professional photographers; Cons: big fancy cameras make us stand out more than we already do.

We settled one getting the camera and just being smart about which vacations we took it on. Here's our new baby:

Okay, so living here is pretty great...

Non-frozen body of water.

Not to rub it in to those of you literally freezing in Wisco, but the weather has been gorgeous lately. Last weekend my darling sister came to town, and after one night in SPS we whisked her away to nearby Tela. Tela is only about an hour or so away from SPS, but for whatever reason we hadn't yet visited this tropical paradise. To be sure, it's not quite as lovely as Roatan but it does have a decent beach as well as cheap and comfortable hotels and most importantly, it is considerably more lovely than SPS.

Hotel view.

On the recommendation of friends, we stayed at the "MayaVista" which was a strange treehouse-like hotel that had a great view of the ocean and town below. The first day we spent at the beach where Dan was able to join a pick-up soccer game and Erin and I soaked up some sun.

The next day we woke early to venture out to "Punta Sal", a point of land just past Tela that is home to a large national park and several Garifunian (Indigenous Honduran) communities. We took a choppy boat ride out to the point, accompanied by some fishermen and our "guide", Juan Carlos. They dropped us off at the entrance to the national park (and to be clear, by "entrance" I mean medium-sized wooden sign stuck in the sand) and we followed JuanCa into the jungle. The tour literature promised monkey-spotting, so we were on the lookout for furry creatures but alas, saw none. We did however see lots of evidence of them as well as lots of funky insects and plants. Also, the hike led to a lovely lagoon where we found many crabs of different persuasions on a glittering beach.

You are here.

Juan Carlos (or as he like to say, "JuanCa... like the in the choclate factory") shows more lifesaving plants with his trusty stick.

We hiked back to meet the boat, where they then took us to a snorkeling area. Jumping out of the boat into the ocean was a little scary, but it was well worth it. The water was teeming with life and we were able to see lots of different coral, sea fans and plenty of colorful fish. We snorkeled up to another beach, which was home to a Garifuna family who for a small price made us a delicious lunch of fresh fried fish, red beans and rice and tajadas (fried banana chips). There were a few other folks on the beach, including a family who's kids attend our school, and they were playing some nice island tunes from their boat which made it all the more easy to relax on the pristine beach.

Beach.

Beach Babes.

The boat took us back into town in the afternoon and we found our way to the bus station. The "Tela Express" served as our chariot back to SPS and we were back with plenty of time to prepare for the school week ahead. It was a lovely weekend and a great chance to enjoy time with Erin. On Monday she was able to visit our school and meet the fabulous first graders (although I think their intensity scared her a little) and then on Tuesday she headed off to Roatan for the remainder of the week.

We're looking forward to our next trip to Tela- next weekend, maybe?

Click here to see all of our Tela photos!

Crusin' Copan

About two weekends ago (sorry for the delaying in posting!), Anah and I were joined in Honduras by her parents, PJ and Nancy. This is obviously a great thing to have a set of parents come down and experience just a little bit of what is going on down here (mine will be coming for spring break!). Having arrived on Thursday, with a departure on Monday, it was imperative that we get the 'rents out of SPS ASAP.

Anah left PJ and Nancy very specific and phonetic Spanish directions from the airport and to our school and so their arrival went without fanfare. Having arrived before school was out they happened, by chance, to stop in the school's cafetorium where the middle was having their Halloween Talent Show. Luckily they left before seeing myself and the shop teacher sing (another story at another time).

On Friday, PJ and Nancy joined Anah at school and were classroom helpers. I'm told that their assistance in the class was very nice and the kids seem to get a real kick out of having them around. Nancy read to the kids and PJ showed the kids how to carve a pumpkin.

After school we were off to Copan Ruinas, a small town about three hours from the city. Copan is set in the Honduran highlands about 8 miles from the Guatemala border. Even though SPS is cooler right now it can still be hot and Copan is even more so, providing consistent cooler temps.

We stayed at a place called "La Casa de Cafe" (The House of Coffee) which was run by a former teacher at our school (of many years ago). The hotel was very beautiful and not too expensive.

On Saturday morning it was early rising for us all (as usual for any occasion with Sikorskys). We even beat the morning coffee from the hotel. It was well worth the wait... very delicious. We drank so much I think the owner of the hotel, Howard, was annoyed when we requested the stuff at all hours of the day.

Getting up early also had its upside because it meant that we could hit up the nearby Mayan ruins and beat the crowds that fill up the place later in the day. Just outside of Copan Ruinas is the site of one of the greatest Mayan cities in all of Central America. I won't give you all the details (you can read a bit about it here), but it was an amazing sight.

I've never been super interested in ancient history. Most of the books I've read from these periods have been super dry, are usually ambiguous in their facts ("some believe" or "scholars dispute...") and thus make for poor reading. However, going to Copan hit all of my history-nerd buttons. We paid a guide to take us around the ruins for a couple of hours and he basically just told is the story of them. It was so fascinating and since (apparently) the scholarship on the Mayans is getting more solid and historians have learned to write, the books on them is supposed to be halfway decent.

Beyond the ruins, Copan Ruinas (the town) is a quaint little place. They are obviously trying to follow the model of a place like Antigua, Guatemala (our adventures there) and beef up the tourist industry with their small-town-nature-closeness-colonial-beauty-lifestyle-approach.

It goes without saying, but the best part of it all wasn't being able to see ancient history or cruise a nice little Honduran town, but to see family. It was comforting to have family nearby when, until this weekend, they were all so far away.

It only gets me more excited to start planning spring break when I get to introduce my family to Honduras.