Easter

I awoke on Easter morning at 3:00am to the sounds of blaring reggae music and banging on the doors. Max and Miguel were acting as our alarm clocks to wake us up for the ‘rancho’s’ Easter celebration. To commemorate the rising of Christ we had a humongous bonfire at 3:30am with everyone in attendance. The padre/priest carried the Easter candle, said some things, and then we all lit our own little candles and followed in procession to the church. Misa/mass lasted about two hours, with the Hallelujah song being sung right as the sun rose. We also baptized one of the babies, Benjamin. I have to admit, I was not really looking forward to all of this, but it wasn’t that bad. After misa I gave all my girls Easter gifts: a bottle of chile and a bag of salt tied up with a hair tie. They were really excited. They brought their condiments down to las canchas/playing fields, where all the kids were getting ready for Easter breakfast. It was a very typical breakfast of refried beans, bread, plátanos/plantains, avocado, and chocolate milk. I usually don’t like ranch breakfast, but after being up for almost five hours, it tasted really good. I passed out after breakfast and watched 24 during the day. In the evening we had a volunteer Easter barbecue. The boys rigged up a crazy grill to place over the bonfire and roasted chickens. Each person provided food – we had a great feast. The greatest thing about it was that we were all so tired from waking up so early and ate so much good food that we all said “buenas noches” at 8:00pm!