Easter Break

The fish I caught!
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Saturday night, the girls next door, took me "out on the town."  We spent most of the night walking or riding around talking about Hopkins, Guatemala (where both of them go/have gone to college), and the US.  I met their cousins, Sponge and Patrick (as in Spongebob and his sidekick), I don't remember their real names.  Sponge ended up giving me his bike to ride for the rest of the night because he was too drunk to ride anymore.

I went to church last Sunday for the first time since I have been in Belize.  It was interesting!  I went to mass with my neighbors and landlords.  Since it was Palm Sunday, we did a little processsion down the street holding palm fronds, ending in the church.  There were a lot of people there, all speaking in Garifuna, so I didn't understand much.  The service was in English.  It was weird because the priest was giving reasons why the story of Easter is invalid.  I don't know if people just weren't listening or what, but I found it really odd that the priest was basically telling everyone that it couldn't have happened!

My house. Waban Tou means "Our House," in Garifuna.
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Dave came up to Hopkins after spending a week in the Mayan Villages.  We cooked the fish I caught and hung out while I tried to set up interviews for my project.  We got yelled at one day by a police officer for double riding on my bike, even though EVERYONE else does! But apparently it is an offense in Belize and he should fine us for double riding.  Never the less, I don't need the Hopkins police department mad at me, so I got off the bike and walked home.  James and Ben came on Thursday for Easter, and Kalyn followed on Friday.  We slept in everyday, played at the beach, walked around Hopkins (double riding when we weren't by the police station), ate, cooked some more, and ate again.

Ben and Dave double riding.
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On Saturday night, we had a Seder dinner, since Kalyn, Ben, and Dave are Jewish.  It turned into a Belizean Seder dinner, as we had to improvise some of the ingredients and parts of the meal!  James and I kinda went along for the ride and tried to learn about Passover from their scattered stories!  At one point, they made us leave the house so they could hide the matza.  We eventually had to get up and find it.  And even though I saw it first (it was under to couch cusions, but I though it was just a piece of paper) James picked it up and "won!" The three of them sat around telling stories about past Seder dinners and what it was like being Jewish.  At one point this was the conversation:

Getting ready for Seder dinner.
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In reference to Jews having a long history of persecution and slavery.

Dave: We built the pyramids!

James:  It's not like you chose to!

I didn't know if I should laugh at first, but I couldn't contain myself.  It was hilarious!

Our night out.
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We went out that night and met Kennedy, a very drunk rasta man.  He talked with us about Rasta culture/religion.  Kalyn and I were invited by some guys promoting a new CD to go to San Pedro for the weekend, in their chartered boat, but had to decline and return to the boys who ignored us to play pool.  The sacrifices we make!

I was told that the Easter festival in Hopkins Village was a huge deal.  We didn't really experience that!  The couple of times we made our way down to the school grounds, it was in between events.  All I wanted was barbeque, and we got there too early and then too late for dinner, so it was all gone!  We went out for really bad Chinese instead.