Monday, April 09, 2007

*Updated* Semana Santa (Holy Week)

According to this article written in La Prensa, about a million flocked to the beaches in Honduras. It's what happens every year. The country basically shuts down and everyone floods to the beaches, the pools, the resorts to get away from it all. Prices are increased and higher security is set to keep things running smoothly, including the red cross.

I haven't posted about this yet, but Papa had the idea to have a little food stand on the beach at Puerto Cortes. He got a permit which the city gave to him along with a permit to sell beer and Pepsi products. I have not heard from him yet as to how things went. We decided that we should not talk for the last 3 days because he was going to be too busy over the weekend, it being the busiest time. He is a determined man and a hard worker so I can imagine that things are okay...but I'm anxious to find out how everything went!

I found a few articles on La Prensa, a Honduran online newspaper that talked about the weekend. Sounds like a crazy time with a LOT of drinking going on. Here is an article about that. 27 million beers consumed is the estimate. That doesn't include liquor. Check out other articles here & here about how the holy week went if you can read spanish. I had to translate using the Altavista Babel Fish translation tool :O).

The photo above is from the beach where Papa was working. He says, "it's like a sea of ants" when describing the beaches during semana santa.
*UPDATE -4/10/07
Unfortunately the weather took a turn for the worse this past weekend. The image above was probably from Thursday which was the last and only good business day for Papa and all the other beach vendors. I talked to Papa Thursday night before bed and he was excited about the good business days ahead. A storm ended up coming through on Thursday night and things never got much better after that. Friday was slow due to overcast weather and then a cold front came in on Saturday which kept everyone away from the beach. Papa said he was cold, and it had to be for Papa to say that since he's like a walking furnace most of the time! Everyone lost money and Papa's stand didn't take as big a loss as some of the others who invested a lot more money. He got great feedback on the food he was selling and his employees all worked very hard...but in the end. It was a loss. I'm sure there were many valuable lessons learned though. I'm proud of him for working so hard and giving it his best effort. A loss is never easy, but there's got to be wins and loses in life.

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