Happy Easter! Feliz Pascua de Resurrecion!

As Easter approached in a largely Catholic country (approximately 95%), so did Semana Santa –literally translated as Saint’s Week. Along with the rest of the DR we had a long weekend to relax and celebrate with our families. From what I understand most Dominican families either go to church or to the beach, a huge majority the latter, as it is also the time when it’s starting to get really hot in the city…as if it weren’t already above 80 degrees at mid day everyday. Semana Santa is also characterized by the consumption of habichuelas con dulce – literally beans with sweet – a drink about the consistency of hot cocoa, made of kidney beans, sugar, vanilla, raisins and probably some other things, but you get the general idea. It’s pretty delicious, but like most everything in this country would be better with about one tenth the amount of sugar, or less! They even put sugar in their fresh fruit juices and I can’t even buy cheerios without sugar in them!

Aside from drinking more than an appropriate amount of this mystery drink, I reflected on the reason for the season by watching the hour long crucifixion scene in The Passion of Christ, which was not only appropriate for the holiday but also the Spanish subtitles were good practice. Needless to say the crucifixion is extremely intense but it is touching and I highly recommend it, regardless of religion.

For Easter Sunday, Cecelia and I scoured the supermarket for something with which to pintar nuestros huevos -paint our eggs. Deciding that they sell neither egg dye nor food coloring in this country, as neither dying eggs nor having a giant bunny leave treats in your house are customs here, I remembered how well Kool-Aid stained my finger tips when we ate it out of the package with sugar as kids. Just as expected the eggs came out fantastic, there were no weird chemicals involved, the eggs didn’t smell like vinegar and some of them even tasted a bit fruity! Eat your heart out Martha! After dying eggs with our hermanitas – little sisters – Cecelia, our friend Amanda and I created an egg hunt for them. All parties involved in the first ever Dominican Easter-Egg Hunt had an awesome time, our sisters, my host mom and grandma ran around the house giggling and afterwards we feasted on the 17 eggs! And you thought I wasn’t going to get enough protein in the DR!