Honduras This Week Cultural

Monday, February 24, 1997 Online Edition 43 This Week's Trivia

This Week's Trivia, a Honduras This Week Online exclusive features a new question each week.

Readers are encouraged to submit their answers in the This Week's Trivia page which is updated in real-time. The first person to guess the right answer will be listed in the Trivia hall of fame.

ANSWER TO LAST WEEK'S TRIVIA QUESTION

Q. The most popular sport in Honduras is soccer. What is the name of the nation's most popular professional soccer club? How many national championships has it won? Bonus: In what years?

The 1992-93 first division soccer champions: (STANDING, L-R) Jose "Flaco" Hernandez, Belarmino Rivera, Arnold Cruz, Jose Garcia, Denilson Costa, Gilberto Yearwood. (SQUATTING) Alex Pineda Chacon, Nestor Peralta, Wilmer Velasquez, Ramon Abdeneve, Rudy Williams.

A: Club Deportivo Olimpia is Honduras' most popular soccer club. Since the creation of the National Soccer League in 1965, Olimpia has won 12 championships: 1966, 1967, 1969, 1971, 1977, 1982, 1984, 1986, 1987, 1989, 1992/93, 1995/96.

This Week's Trivia Question:

Q: What American writer lived briefly in Honduras? What brought him here? Hint: he wrote "Cabbages and Kings," a collection of short stories.

Honduras This Week In Pictures

Paya Bay is a charming, secluded resort of enchanting natural beauty

Houston, TX. Saturday, February 8, 1997 Online Edition 41

Catholics from all over the country gather to pay tribute to Honduras' patron saint

Hondurans celebrate 250th anniversary of Suyapa

By BLANCA MORENO

Hundreds of devout Catholics march with the Virgin of Suyapa during Saturday's procession from El Piligüín to the Basílica, which lasted over 9 hours. (Photo by Eric Schwimmer)

TEGUCIGALPA -- The 70 percent of the Honduran population that is Catholic spent much of last weekend celebrating and worshipping the country's patron saint -- the Virgin of Suyapa.

February 3 has long been Suyapa Day in Honduras and was sanctified as such by Pope Pious the 11th. This year's celebration was the 250th in honor of the little wooden statuette that was found by a poor farmer more than two centuries ago and has since, say believers, been the source of countless miracles. (See related article.)

Alejandro Colindres and Lorenzo Martinez sleep under the stars after darkness caught them on their way home, in this stained glass window of the Basilica. (Photo by Eric Schwimmer)

Honduran Catholics look to the Virgin of Suyapa for guidance and protection. The Honduran military have named her High Captain of the Armed Forces.

Located in Aldea Suyapa, a poor neighborhood on the outskirts of Tegucigalpa, the Suyapa Basilica houses the tiny virgin and is host to pilgrimages year round. But there are more pilgrimages than ever on Feb. 3.

This year's festivities began Saturday (Feb. 1) with a nine-hour pilgrimage to the basilica from a mountain village called El Piliguin, where legend says the virgin was found. Once the 6-inch statuette arrived at the Basilica after the 17-mile walk, thousands of Hondurans lined up to see her in person and pray for miracles.

Alejandro Colindres shows his family the small statue. (Photo by Eric Schwimmer)

Saturday's festivities also included masses, concerts, reenactments of the discovery of the virgin, military canon salutes and a midnight fireworks display. In addition, Monsignor Oscar Andres Rodriguez, Archbishop of Tegucigalpa, played the Suyapa Basilica bells, which were brought from the Netherlands in 1958 and have been silent for many years for want of repair.

As a prelude to the weekend's musical performances, a special tribute was paid to the author of the Song of the Virgin of Suyapa, Paco Medina, who died in Mexico last year. Also performing were Guillermo Anderson, Moises Canello, Albert Valladares, folkloric dance troupes and the Honduran band Trilogia.

At midnight, Monsignor Rodriguez led a prayer to the Virgin, asking that she, "show us a path to follow," because "Honduras believes, Honduras is waiting for, Honduras loves and Honduras will find something better."

During the Feb. 3 mass, which included the participation of six bishops and the clergy of Tegucigalpa, the Archbishop prayed for unity among Hondurans, especially in this political year.

The Virgin is housed in a special receptacle. (Photo by Eric Schwimmer)

"The unity that Maria de Suyapa provokes in our people is a strength that we must encourage this year," he said, adding that, "our nationalism has been the victim of sectarianisms of many kinds, especially political."

Armed Forces chaplain Anibal Montoya also led a mass in honor of the Virgin, praying for an end to violence and human rights abuses.

President Reina and Armed Forces Chief, Gen. Mario Raul Hung Pacheco, participated in all of the festivities.

The Virgin of Suyapa is visited by thousands of worshippers each year.

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The story of Suyapa

Night closed in fast as two weary farm laborers walked down the mountain north of Real de Minas de San Miguel de Tegucigalpa y Heredia on their way home to the village of Suyapa, 250 years ago this month.

Each week, Alejandro Colindres travelled to Piligüín to work on the farm of José Lozano, returning home to the village of Suyapa every Saturday. This particular Saturday, however, Colindres got a late start home, so he and 8-year-old Lorenzo Martínez decided to camp out under the twinkling light of the many stars overhead and resume their journey in the morning.

He lay down on the hard ground, ready for sleep, when he felt a hard object digging in his side. Taking the object, he threw it far away, believing it to be a stick or rock. However, as he prepared for sleep a second time, he felt something prodding him in the same place. This time, instead of throwing the object away, he placed it in his shoulder bag.

The next morning, the farmer and the boy continued their journey. On arriving home, Colindres and his family examined the object. It was a 6½-centimeter cedar statue of the Virgin Mary.

For the next 20 years, the people of Suyapa worshipped the small image of the Virgin in the home of the Colindres family.

THE FIRST MIRACLE

Close to the village lived José de Zelaya y Midence, a member of the upper class and owner of the Trapiche estate. Since his youth he had been suffering from kidney stones. Sometime in 1768, Zelaya heard about the small statue "that is health for the sick" and asked that it be brought to his home.

The Virgin was taken to Zelaya's house, where he promised to build, at his own expense, a chapel "to the greater glory and worship of the Mother of God," if she would listen to his prayers asking for better health. Three days later, Zelaya expelled three stones "that were the torment of his life."

Several years passed before Zelaya would fulfill his promise to the Virgin. On November 28, 1777, he received permission from church authorities in Comayagua to build a small shrine on his land.

The shrine was completed in 1780, undergoing several modifications and transformations until 1947, when the sanctuary received its present form -- two centuries after Colindres found the image.

In 1954, work began on today's Basílica (right next to the small church), which is the national shrine and one of the largest cathedrals in Central America. Construction of this enormous structure has still not been completed.

TWICE STOLEN

There have also been some turbulent moments in the history of the Virgin. Twice she has been stolen. In 1936, a woman called Dolores, better known as Lola la Loca (Lola the crazy), took the image when church authorities weren't looking. But it was soon recovered and Lola was put in prison, where she died two years later.

The Virgin was stolen again on September 2, 1986 and found later the same day, wrapped up in newspapers, in the restroom of the La Terraza de Don Pepe restaurant. That night, Héctor Enrique Santos, archbishop of Tegucigalpa, gave a mass of thanks for the quick recovery of the Virgin. To date, the thief -- or thieves -- were never caught and their identity is unknown.

Until 1925, celebrations in honor of the Virgin were held on Feb. 2. Through a petition of Archbishop Agustín Hombach that year, Pope Pius XI decreed that the celebration of a mass and religious offices especially for the Virgin of Suyapa would be held on Feb. 3. The Virgin of Suyapa was declared patron of Honduras by Pope Pius XII on April 25, 1953. -- Eric Schwimmer

Houston, TX. Saturday, February 1, 1997 Online Edition 40

Sr. Sabor, Carne Vor and Rica Tica split up, say goodbye

MEXICO CITY -- Sr. Sabor has been kidnapped by Santa.

Sweetie Pie Rica Tica here in the world's biggest city, trying to catch my breath in this way-high altitude while looking up at all these great big tall buildings and trying to keep from falling off the sidewalk and being smashed by one of these Mexican VW beetles. They're everywhere!

I'm also feeling a bit blue because I'm all alone. Sr. Sabor and I went to the States by bus for Christmas and spent it in the Arizona desert beside a raging fire listening to the wolves howl under a full moon. It wasn't exactly a typical Honduran firecracker Christmas, but we weren't TOO upset.

Then Sr. Sabor decided, without a single good reason (other than the fact that he got a real job), to stay up there in the Great White North, AKA Texas. So he's living on the Mexican border now, and I've been forced to migrate South alone.

Carne Vor, who stayed behind in Honduras for the holidays, is apparently going to stay put. I haven't decided what I will do, although I just might stay here in Mexico City -- "el D.F." as they call the Federal District (like D.C.).

You see, quite by accident I found the niftiest little pasteleria, or sweets shop, right in the heart of the capital. It's always filled with delicious chocolate and other goodies to make me feel fine when I need a lift, like right now. It's also always packed with other people looking for the same thing.

Last evening when I happened by, I picked up a ton of yummies for dessert and for today's breakfast, but I wound up so intrigued by the delicious designs and the nifty gift-wrap job the women had performed on my doughnuts and sweet bread and oatmeal cookie that I had to sneak a taste of each one.

And then, by golly wouldn't you just know it, I wound up eating each and every one of the little sweeties in one sitting! And now I feel much, much better, thank you.

Sr. Sabor would have been proud of me, though, because before I performed this number, downing enough fat to sink the entire Moby Dick family, I had eaten around the corner at a little health-food store/vegetarian cafe that advertises tortas (Mexican sandwiches, sort of) made with vegetarian chicken, ham and "milensa," whatever that is. Sorry, I forget the name of the place, but it's just around the corner, as I already said, from the Ideal's 16 de Septiembre location.

Missing Sr. Sabor (but not Carne Vor), I decided to eat there to honor his vegetarianism, which causes him so many problems in this machismo, meat-eating country. It's not easy not eating meat in a land where doing so at each meal is synonymous with manliness and procreative prowess. At least that's what Sr. Sabor always tells me, but I'm just a girl, so I wouldn't know.

I tried the tortas -- all three -- after the American-accent-challenged young woman behind the counter had assured me in a loud voice to make sure I could understand her goofy Spanish that they were made from all SOYA. SOYA. (She said everything twice, twice, you see.)

So I tried all three, as I have already so diplomatically pointed out, and they were delicious! Sr. Sabor would have disapproved of the fatty mayonnaise, but since I had done my heart a favor by not eating my usual meaty meal, I headed to the pasteleria, where the rest is history. They know me personally there now.

The next time you get to Mexico City, look up Sweet Cousin Rica Tica from Costa Rica and invite her to Pasteleria Ideal in the capital's colonial Zocalo district. She'll give you the grand tour.

And the next time you get to the border, up near where Ciudad Juarez and El Paso and the New Mexico line hit one-two-three like a Lawrence Welk intro, see if you don't run into Sr. Sabor scouring the streets for a good home-cooked vegetarian meal. He'll be there, on the prowl, and we'll miss him.

But he'll miss us even more.

Pasteleria Ideal

ADDRESS: 16 de Septiembre #18 and Republica de Uruguay #74, Mexico City

HOURS: It's always been open when we've gone by

PRICE: Cheap

FOOD:

SERVICE:

ATMOSPHERE:

OVERALL: