Dreaming of a White Christmas

Well here is my last update for the year. I have been in my site for about a month now and doing just fine. You are all probably wondering what I did for Christmas… well most of the people in my community are Catholic and so everyday at a different house in December they have a prayer/singing/ chanting to the Virgen Mary. For the last 15 years my family has hosted it on the 24th, Christmas eve the most important day. My dad said that if the virgin protected his house and family during the war he would throw and big bash every year in honor of the Virgin Mary. The celebration is well know around my community and well as surrounding communities as well. Every year they have about 500 people show up and in Nicaragua that means feeding them all.  So early in that morning my host brothers killed a bull for the celebration. As I was walking to the laterine that morning my oldest host brother was wacking away at something with an axe when I passed by he held up a bloody chunk of meat and bone and then told me with a smile that it was the head. I was just excited to get some meat in my diet for a change but was not expecting to get any interesting sections on my plate. Well how wrong was I. At lunch I was served and soup with various vegtables and a  big chunk of meat… alright! Then I took a closer look at the meat it was a big chunk of the head and brain. So I ate the vegtables and attempted to eat the meat chunk that was served to me. I took about three bites and then just looked at it for about a half an hour. I just could not eat it. It did not taste bad but it had a wierd texture and I just could not get over the fact that I just ate a brain chunk. All I know is that I did not get any smarter from eating it. Well so people started showing up at my house around 6 in the evening and they did not leave until around 7 the next morning… I was a long night to say the least. People stayed up all night just singing and chanting things the the Virgin Mary. It is pretty funny though a lot of the church type songs that they sing have the rythme of a type of music called ranchera. That is the polka type music that you might have heard while crusing downtown Yakima or while eating at your favortie mexican joint.  We had a generator brought in so we could have an electric keyboard which is pretty high class for the campo. The only problem was that you could hear the interference of the generator through the speakers so it was a bit annoying but the people loved it.  Most of my family members did not go to sleep until the next night While most of you will be freezing this New Year’s eve I will be enjoying a nice couple days on the beach in the hot hot sun.