Reflections On Honduras Dayz and Nightz
March 1-8, 1997
What follows are the sights, smells and sounds I remember of Honduras while visiting my daughter there last week. My wife and I flew from San Francisco to Dallas then Miami and on to San Pedro Sula where our daughter met us. We then drove three hours to San Juan de Opoa de Copan where our daughter lives while working in-country with the United States Peace Corps. We then drove back to San Pedro Sula where we spent two nights before flying to Roatan, a Caribbean island off the Honduran East Coast.
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Bananas, bananas, bananas!!! The Eskimos, it is said, have over a hundred words for snow. The same is true in Honduras for bananas. Baked bananas, peeled bananas, fried and dried and poached. Banana bread, banana fritters, banana chips, cakes and fries, not to mention banana cream pies. Banana trees, banana bugs, banana republic, banana slugs.
Coconut palms, pineapple plantations, rice fields gleaming in the sun for miles.
Airport jet-ways going nowhere. Can't land at night - no runway lights.
Men with automatic rifles patrolling the airport, hotel and other public places. Wonder how safe it would be if they weren't?
Men with machetes walking the roads to town. Machetes are everyman's tool; used to clear away brush, trim trees, mow the lawn, slaughter the family pig and chickens. In America, we can't be without our cellular phones and pagers. How different the cultures seem when seen through our tools.
Boys perched on piles of cut cane atop a scrawny underfed rib-showing skinny horse.
Brahma bulls fat and plump.
Mile after mile of teetering cardboard and mud hovels clinging to the side of the road.
Mud caked barefoot naked kids playing on dirt floors while mom washed clothes in a nearby stream. If you don't have anything, do you know you're naked poor?
No running (let alone hot) water, no toilets, no outhouses, no electricity, no phones, no refrigeration. A world lit only by fire.
Smoke from burning garbage, smoke from kitchen fires, smoke for light and heat at night. Smoky smell, smoky sky, distant smoke-blinded mountains.
Dignified well dressed women walking along the road balancing heavy loads on their heads. Sure beats carrying a Dooney-Burke, don't you think?
Over-fed elite window shopping at the mall which seems so out of place amid all the surrounding poverty. Wendy's, McDonald's, Burger King and Pizza Hut each teeming with screeching children. Proud parents and grandparents trying to look as American as Americans , abandoning their Mayan heritage, trading their culture for ours. Selling themselves short?
Saturday night jam-packed-stadium soccer game.
Sunday vespers - marimba concert on the square.
Monday's smiling toothy teachers herding uniformed school kids all in a row across the street to lunch?; blue-white and brown, blue-white and brown, blue-white and brown. The future of Honduras passing by.
Smelly buses belching black soot-filled fumes gaily painted with flames along the side. Owned by "Mario Andretti" Hernandez-Garcia, driver, ticket agent, baggage handler, steward, bartender and mechanic.
Horse-drawn cart farmer peacefully plodding to market surrounded by honking taxis, belching buses and other roaring machines.
Bottled water, bottled beer, canned soda, bottled wine - don't drink the water or you'll surely die. And no ice either or the critters'll get you for sure
Dysentery, malaria, typhoid, cholera, dengue fever, hepatitis, worms, parasites, mosquitoes - if the machetes and guns don't kill you, these will.
Old at 35. Ancient at 65. Life is hard. Old age and death come early.
Bold cockroaches the size of small children.
Heat, sweat, cool down, dry; heat, sweat, cool down dry; heat, sweat, heat, sweat, heat sweat; no place to hide from the scorching 90 degree noonday sun. 100% humidity.
Cabbies scrubbing their cars on the street in front of the square. Wash the tires, scrub the mats, lift and prop the windshield wipers away from glass. Splash the wheel wells, splash the tires. Off to work to get another hire. These are the lucky ones with the means to earn a living.
Life so simple without many dreams, living with few material things. No bills for heat, electric, garbage or phones, no sewer assessments, pills, college or life insurance bills. No need for books, deodorant or lotions. No Easter candy, Mother's Day or Valentine flowers. Unless it grows, you don't need it. Unless its free, you don't buy it. Life seems so much simpler less complicated than at home. Is there more peace in living a simple life?
Lempira - Honduras official currency. 12.8 "Limpies" to the dollar. Affectionately called Limpies cause your sweat causes them to lose their stiff. Dirty filthy money, old bills, wonder which machete farmer last had them in his pocket?
Walking to the market without the security of heavily armed men down streets and alleyways losing all sense of place and time. Cheap trinkets, cheesy tee-shirts, pathetically poor arts and crafts, terrible workmanship, awful quality, too many sellers, not many buyers. Women laboring over hot stoves cooking bananas and tortillas. Sweat on their brow and a dullness in their eye. Meaningless labor for menial wages just to survive - only to survive.
Trees all gone to fuel home camp fires. Denuded hills now covered in scrub. Once proud mountains sheered like sheep.
Once newly paved roads now broken and worn. Passing on blind curves without fear. Pickups crowded with pigs, chickens and families, buses groaningly overloaded with the baggage of humanity. Bus driver - KING! Owns the route from here to there. If he doesn't care to drive the bus today, there is no bus and no one else can work his route. There are villages, I am told, that have no buses in or out because the owner of the route hates buses and won't allow anyone to operate on his route!
Roads - the lifeline of every community. Life happens along the road. Good friends sit talking on the side of the road watching friends and relatives walk by. The occasional tourist, bus or truck motor past in open-windowed luxury.
A brief glimpse of lovers clutching at each other in the pale moonlight while home-fire shadows flicker through the doorway of their windowless hovel.
No glass windows, no screens, no carpet on floors; bench for a table, cloth for a door.
Community water runs right out back to drink, to bathe one's body and possessions, and to take away life's daily dirt. Heaven to some. Something to aspire to for others less fortunate.
Survival is what life is all about. No money, no job, little or no schooling, no hope. Living in the moment each and every day. Despair.
Our Daughter’s Town - San Juan de Opoa de Copan
Kids everywhere following us around town like we were aliens as daughter showed us the sights. Kids barefoot, kids on mountain bikes, kids dressed well, kids with soccer balls, kids dirty and scruffy. I felt like the pied piper.
Money - there is none. What's important isn't what one has (no one has anything much anyway) but what you do and how you care for your family. Family is everything and the "for the sake of what" they all live for each day. Two one pound bags of M&Ms as a gift to daughter's “family” in San Juan de Opoa. What a luxury! How thoughtful, they said, and truly meant it. How rich we Americans are in the eyes of the world. Why isn't what we have ever enough?
Religious worship is important, but not really. There is a priest-less church that's lost its following to fundamentalists who wake the town up with their singing each morning at 4:30 AM! Even the roosters don't start until 6:00! Pigs wander where ever they want; dogs roam at will through anyone's house. Animals mingle and are a part of life.
Head lice, fleas, roaches, 'squitos, bugs. Lizards large and small, green and black slither and scamper everywhere.
Daughter’s very own aqua-green stucco bungalow. Built a ceiling over her bed to keep the bat guano from dropping onto her head. Cleaned it, scrubbed it, made it home. Planted a garden for food and flowers. Hung drapes and pictures and things to remind her of home. Found old desk and table and chairs to make it cozy.
Daughter's place is "the place" to visit. Peace Corps pals drop in to spend the weekend rather than staying at the "safe house" in the city. Daughter's place is the talk of the Corps. And her work shines out like a beacon around the country. Teaching other volunteers how it’s done, training and encouraging them to not give up. Showing farmers how to get higher yields and teaching housewives to grow food for home. Women making money taking excess crops to market! Engineer is what daughter's called. Our once little “engineer” is making us proud!
Santa Rosa de Copan - Home of Santa Rosa de Copan Cigars
Peace Corps safe house up steeply-rutted dirt street near edge of town. This is where volunteers, when traveling to the big city from their assigned small villages, spend the night once a week or so. Sharing news, books, stories, experiences, commiserating, comforting, renewing, being safe in the company of others living the same experiences. Making friends, avoiding difficult people and situations. Celebrating holidays with friends - Fourth of July, Christmas, New Years. Getting medical treatment, healing. Maturing, growing, becoming autonomous. Or failing. Going home. Leaving before one's tour of duty is over. Daughter took us there and introduced us to several who have become some of her best friends.
Roatan - Caribbean Island Perfection
Starry nights so clear, you swear you could see other universes.
Shooting stars streaking over pitch black lands I know are out there just over the horizon. Wondering how many stars are in the Milky Way. Wondering if other intelligent life is out there.
Waves leaping over the reef, then crashing ashore.
Wind rustling through coconut palmed leaves. Sounds like a lizard trying to sneak up on you.
Palm trees and coconuts everywhere. Coconuts lay where they fall - a dime a dozen. We busted one open and drank the juice; a brief afternoon diversion in between books and sun.
Woodpeckers hammering holes into old palm trees. Cockatoos, Spanish speaking parrots squawking like chickens. Peacocks stretching and strutting and spreading feathers each morning in a testosterone-driven glorious display of royal blue, shimmering golden aquamarine green and blue diamonds on black backgrounds.
Fat Monkey LaLa lizards camouflaged black and white hardly distinguishable from the lava on which they sit sunning themselves eating leaves from native trees. Scary looking, mean and fearless. Shoo them off the porch with a broom and keep a sharp eye out for them as they try to sneak up on you. Keep our thatched hut door closed, please.
No glass in windows, just louvered slats and screen. Overhead fan beating the humid air onto your skin.
Fish some the size of railroad cars, others quite small. God’s own great aquarium. Grouper, barracuda, clowns, and shark, parrotfish, needle nose gars, tuna, and pufferfish. Coral of all shapes and sizes and colors - brain coral, red and white and green and purple, fire coral – best not touch. Barrel sponges, sea fans, lobsters, eels, octopus and dolphins. Every living thing imaginable under the sun seen and heard through this miracle of a breathing apparatus, the snorkel.
Volcanic lava formed reefs. Water teeming with life. Clean and clear, warm and buoyant.
Snorkeling, diving, horseback riding. Canoeing, kayaking, boating, sailboarding. Eating, dancing, laughing. Enjoying, relaxing, playing. Monkey LaLa's, Banana Dianas, Port Royal, La Selva and Nacional Cervezas. Ice tea better than any Southerner ever dreamed of. West End, Coxen Hole, Half Moon Bay Cabins. Dinner serenaded by a rasta cowboy band.
Lazily reading one book after another in a progression of endless nothingness. Just being. No "have to do this, have to do that." No shopping!
White sand beaches, blue skies, deep blue sea, aqua-blue shallows, just you and me.
Big white smiles on dark faces. White faces trying to get dark.
Trip Back Home
Hurry, hurry, your flight leaves at 10:00 - not 10:30!
Why are we landing in LaCeiba? I thought this plane was going to San Pedro Sula? What are you doing with our bags? Where are they going? Why can't we get back on the plane? Why does our boarding pass say Guajuaia? Snarling and snapping at everyone - baggage handlers, airline manager, airport manager, airline pilots, policeman, civilians, innocent bystanders. We were a spectacle, a sight to see. It was as if the circus had come to town or a tornado had hit without warning. I'm sure we were written up on the front page of the LaCeiba Times. People will undoubtedly be talking about this for the rest of their lives. Crazy Norte Americanos! Viva Honduras!
Ticket agent snapping back telling us the next flight didn't leave until 2:00 (our flight to Miami scheduled to leave at 1:30.) The thought of having to spend another night in this pitiful place caused a brain-snap the likes of which you never ever ever want to see. After reducing the heat to a slow simmer, we finally were allowed entrance to the boarding lounge after refusing to pay the airport's extortionist departure tax. The flight left on time at 11:00. Missing bags were safely waiting for us in San Pedro Sula. So were insincere apologies from the pilot who threw us off the plane.
American Airlines Boeing-727. Never thought an airplane could be such a welcome sight. Freedom, escape. Oversold, no seats!!! Another Kodak moment. Offered us $600.00 each to stay behind - no way, make it $6 million and maybe we'll think about it. Got seats, got on, got out of there. Left daughter pack-muled with her 100# heavy greatly overstuffed, vastly overloaded, saggingly-groaning backpack filled with leave-behind books, shampoos, soaps, magazines and other hard-to-get things to take back to her village. Tearful good-byes were the order of the day (but secretly I was pleased as punch to get the hell out of there.) Had a mechanical in Miami leaving an hour late, but made it home with all our bags and memories to last a lifetime.