Christina Travels: Chile: Pascua

"Do you have Pascua in the US?" was the question of the week. Pascua is Easter and yes, we have Easter in the US.
The second most frequent question was "¿Tienes el conejito y los huevitos tambien?" Again, yup, we have the Easter bunny and the chocolate eggs he brings us.
The third most frequent question was "So you're Catholic then, right?" Um, no, I'm Christian. "But it's the same thing." People here don't really realize that Protestant churches are as much a thing as the Catholic church. In the US, the Catholic church is considered one of many different types of Christianity. It doesn't help that I go to a Catholic school where we have a Catholic prayer session in the gym for fifteen minutes at the beginning of every school day (officially titled Buenos Dias).
Despite the talk about religion, Easter turned out to be distinctly unreligious in my household. Some time around noon Easter day (keep in mind it's completely normal for literally everyone to still be in bed at noon on the weekends), my brother (the one who's my age) and my cousin (also my age, he stays with us on the weekends occasionally because he lives in Punta Arenas and he's close friends with my brother and his girlfriend is one of my classmates) hid the chocolate eggs in various spots around the living room then went back to bed. When my little five year old either woke up around twelve thirty, we told him el conejito had passed through the living room and dropped off his eggs. He searched for them while my host mom gave the four teenagers each a couple handfuls of chocolate eggs.
During lunch, we talked about going out to the Cueva de Milodon, a well known cave that was once inhabited by native people and is a common tourist destination. But it was decided that's going to wait for the weekend we spend in Torres del Paine park in the future. So it was a day of relaxing.
Cony ate all her chocolate and went absolutely crazy. Carlos played Minecraft on the computer and kept calling me over to translate the English info into Spanish so he could understand. Nacho went out to play with the neighborhood kids in the park. My parents went to go visit some friends and family in town.
In the late afternoon, Cony and I decided to enjoy the beautiful day (read: I asked my mom for permission to walk along the costanera and she handed Cony money for ice cream and pushed us both out the door). We went for a long walk along the coast and up through the center of town. On our way back to the house, we spent a good twenty minutes trying to find an open store so we could buy ice cream. That was not because it was Easter but because it was Sunday. Sundays in Puerto Natales are very quiet. Pretty much the only people in the centro are the tourists.
On Monday, I had the religious part of Easter that I didn't have on Easter. First in the morning with the elementary school kids (I was in my fourth grade class to help with English), I had a shortened church service in the gymnasium. Then later, there was a mass in the school's chapel for the high school students. I said the Lord's Prayer in English while everyone else was saying it in Spanish and all my friends turned to listen to me.
The best part of the day at school was the school version of the Easter bunny. The kindergarteners dressed up like bunnies with white clothes and bunny ears and they went around the school with their teachers delivering baskets of chocolate eggs to the classes. It was adorable.
Also on Monday, my host dad left the house for three weeks. He works for the army and he has a three week training session where he's going to be camping outdoors and doing physical training. The house is oddly silent without him. He has a very big personality and it's obvious when he's gone.(For those of you who know my dad, imagine the same personality with a touch less sarcasm and more exuberance. But similar enough that I hadn't gone into dad withdrawal until my host dad left. Now there isn't anyone to annoy me and tease me until I die laughing.)