Doggy Surround Sound

Happy Boxing Day. A cloudy, cool day here in Santa Cruz. I finished the ironing, had a nice mug of tea (my two litre blue pewter type mug that more closely resembles a thunder mug), read some Advent readings and, at the same time, worked on downloading some pictures sent to me from Canada. The downloading process is slow but, three hours later, it is nearing completion.

Christmas Day was relaxing. Most of the afternoon was spent swinging in the hammock and reading a novel. Lovely. My neighbours brought me two large pork-filled tamales and a cup of sweet coffee in the morning. They were, by far, the best tamales I have had. Generally, I am a wee bit leery of them as, several times, the pork inside them has not been well cooked and I have paid later. Tamales are a Christmas tradition here and all the vegetable stands had piles of folded banana leaves for sale the last few days.

On Christmas Eve, I went for a morning fitting of our new choir robes. A burgundy (a huge step up from the white ones we tried on to begin with) sort of smock that, more or less, fit. After that, three of the boys took me to find a black suit jacket to go with the white and black theme for the music group (when not featuring the burgundy theme). Fortunately, someone in the U.S. is my size and had cleaned out their closet. In the second hand clothes shop I found a jacket for the princely sum of $2.00 CDN. After that we headed down to another shop for a white shirt (sooner or later I will be dressed like a missionary – Mormon or otherwise). The first store had a nice shirt but very pricey. We headed to store number two which was more accommodating.

After seeing my shopping guides off, I continued on home via several stops for food and supplies. One stop was for some fresh pork. The meat was fresh and each portion came complete with the skin. At home, I trimmed off the skin and first layer of fat. Then, I popped it in my tiny convection oven for a supper treat. Fortunately, my neighbours enjoy fried pork skin so were delighted to share my off cuts. So nice to keep the best part and give away the best part at the same time.

Supper in the oven, I headed back to the church for a practice. I arrived only twenty minutes late and found that I was all alone. Just as I was thinking I had the wrong day or wrong time or wrong place, three other members arrived. Phew. As we sat waiting for others to show up, a few people began filing in and filling the first few pews. I looked outside and there was a hearse (pick up truck outfitted with glass sidewalls for carrying coffins well displayed) pulled up out front. Sure enough, two young men from the undertakers (I assumed by their handling of things) dressed in unfittingly unsombre t-shirts and jeans rolled the coffin down to the front of the church. Everyone who had been decorating the church disappeared and the priest came out to start the short memorial service. The four of us in the music group looked at each other and then got on with the matter at hand and began singing the songs for the service. Fortunately, one of the four was experienced and had a hymnbook (the hymnbook?) with her. Forty minutes later, the mourners left, the rest of the music group showed up, decorating resumed and we were back to square one.

The Christmas Eve service was relatively uneventful. We did a quick change artist routine in the small room off the front of the church that houses the tabernacle (for those of you readers who know what that is). Just as we were to go out for the choral part (featuring the burgundy robes), a bag of yellow scarves showed up which finished off the choir robe look so completely. After singing our numbers, we hurried back, did the quick change thing back to black and white and headed out for the rest of the service.

Midnight of Christmas featured lots of fireworks and loud noises. These tapered off soon after so the rest of the night was reasonably quiet. Last night I was awakened by dogs barking. The way they were situated around the apartment was exactly like an advertisement DVD for surround sound or the early type of stereo adverts. Although I might prefer other types of music for my system, this was actually quite fascinating to listen to.

One of the things that I have been thinking of the last week or so is how the current economic and political environment in Honduras (and many places elsewhere) forces so many families to be separated at various times. We ask the fighting troops of our countries to spend months in foreign places fighting, we hope, for some sort of resolution to injustice. Thousands of men and women are working as menial labourers in the United States and Canada so that their families will have some means of survival. Hopefully, our little efforts here to build hope and peace by providing education and knowledge will be one small finger in the dyke against storming ignorance and economic disparity.

TTYL - bb