La Familia y Semana Santa

It's been a while since I've posted on here. Time to get back on the blog post game I suppose. I've had a busy few weeks. On the 27th I went to Aruba. Long story short, the travel day was not a good one. I was supposed to be in Aruba by 1pm and have a nice relaxing day at the beach, but instead landed at 845pm. It was a long and frustrating day at the airport, topped off by taxiing out to the runway and turning back around to wait another hour and a half in the plane. Great times. Once I finally got to Aruba, however, life was good. It's a very touristy island just a 45 minute flight from Caracas in which all of the natives speak 4 languages fluently, which is so impressive. Papamiento is the native language, but by the time they graduate from high school they are required to speak English, Spanish, and Dutch as well. My family arrived on Wednesday afternoon and we went straight to the beach! The 3 days we spent in Aruba were a lot of fun, we got to go scuba diving two days, the first time we've been able to go the whole family together which was pretty cool. We left on Saturday afternoon to get to Venezuela. With two hour delays on both of our flights, we got here after midnight which made getting up for Palm Sunday mass a treat.

I can't help but be distracted by the nipple piercings when I look at this picture

The Palm Sunday service started at the redoma at the bottom of the hill probably a mile or so from the church, everyone gathered with their palms (actual palms) and processed up to the church. On Sunday we also went to el Parque Cachamay and saw some waterfalls and fed the monkeys. That afternoon we went to a big soccer game. Los Mineros are the team from here in Guayana and are quite good, currently in second place in the league I believe. The game ended in a tie 2-2. Lots of people, chants, fireworks, flamethrowers, etc.

Throughout the week the fam was able to meet a lot of my friends which was great. We went to La Llovizna with Andreina, Yusmaris, Greiicy, and Frans, one of my students. We were able to go to la Plaza de Navidad, to see the Sisters of Charity, to a sweet museum in the dam. We got to hang out with Jose Antonio a couple different nights which was a lot of fun, I'm really glad they were able to meet since he's such a good friend of mine. One night Gregoria invited us over to have dinner and hang out which was great, another night we went to Ruth's family's house for a while and delivered the bag that Ruth sent down with my family. Everyone really liked meeting my family and talking with them. Sometimes it was a little tiring and busy for me doing a ton of translating but it worked out pretty well. At Ruth's house Jose Antonio was there too so he was able to help which was great.

Mom with Davíd from the Casa Hogar

Dad showin the youngins that he's still got it. Also, Luis guessed his age at 36. 

Dani impressed the group a ton with being able to learn the dances really quickly

I, however, did not

And I'll let you guess how Michael did

On Wednesday there was a two hour stations of the cross through the barrio here in Guaiparo, but Friday was the big one. It went through all 11 barrios of the parish and took about 4.5 hours. I've never done anything like it. Overall Holy Week was much more interesting and felt more real here, but Friday's stations of the cross were what cemented it for me. Just after the 12th station, in which Jesus dies on the cross, it started to rain. This is the dry season and it hardly rains at all, that morning in particular was very hot so the rain was unusual. Definitely a powerful stations of the cross.

My friend Orianna loved Michael

I forgot to mention that we got a tour of the hospital here in Guaiparo. It's a 1000 bed hospital. Pretty big eye opener being inside it. As someone who has spent a fair amount of time in hospitals, seeing this one was a little scary. If I had been here when I ruptured my spleen I think I probably would have died. There were tons of people there, lines up and down the hallways waiting to be seen, 6 inpatients in a room, some with infection, the others soon to get infected. The patients spend a ton of time in the hospital, something that would take 3 days in the U.S. takes over a month to get done and recover from here. Quite the place.

My family left early Saturday morning, and made it home to Minnesota all in one day, with four flights in total that all left more or less on time which is very unusual. Lucky them!

Saturday night at the Easter Vigil mass there were baptisms and confirmations which was pretty cool. My friend Andreina asked me to be her confirmation sponsor so I got to be right up front for the actual confirmation. The mass started with the lighting of the big candle from a wood fire outside, followed by everyone lighting their own small candles off of it. The first half of the mass there were no lights on, just the candles. It was a very cool mass I liked it a lot.

Mi ahijada de confirmacion!

Part of the Brito family

Easter Sunday was not like any Easter Sunday I've had before. I arrived with the Britos about a half hour before the 8am mass was to start, but I ended up not going to mass which was weird. First Easter Sunday ever that I didn't go to mass. I helped get everything set up for the church festival after the mass. Angelo, Jhonny, Gustavo and I set up some tents and the sound system and that kind of thing. Easter Sunday is a big day everywhere, of course, but at this parish in particular because it's called Jesucristo Resucitado. Kind of the patron day of the church or however you call that. There was a party with lots of food and lots of people, dance presentations, etc, after mass. After that party, I went with the Brito's down to their house where at around 3pm they started another party. There were a lot of people there, some of the guys were grilling so lots of food, it was a great time. As it got later there was lots of dancing which was fun, overall just a great Easter and one unlike any I've ever had.

Yusmaris and Maria, Ruth's mom

Gladys with her bag full of money before the parish festival

The young Brito cousins!

Bishop Mariano greeting a few friends of mine, he's quite the jokester I like him a lot.

The group that is coming to MN in September performed

It was awesome having my family here. I'm really grateful that they made the trip, it wasn't an easy one to make. My siblings both missed some school, Michael 7 days I believe which is a lot. Both of my parents missed work, my dad in particular had to take a lot of days off. It's a tough trip to make and a very different place, kind of a difficult place, to be. Not speaking Spanish made things tough at times I know, sometimes I just couldn't translate everything. However, it meant a lot that even with all that they came down wanting to learn about where I've been living so that they can understand it a bit better. Thanks guys.