Noli Me Tangere

Honduras Travelogues - Vol. 6

Farewell, Honduras.

Now that I am leaving your borders, I want to say that you were kind to have me. My time with you was sweet like mango pulp and warm like the afternoon bus ride. You are lush and colorful, and easy-going to a fault. I will miss the life you give.

After Larry dropped me off at the airport early Tuesday morning, I thought I was home free until the Taca guy pulled me out of line to tell me that "the plane was full", and that I had been put on a later flight. Ok, I say. As long as I can still make my connection.

As it turns out, this delay made possible my debut on the La Ceiba local news. I can't be sure what the story was about, but I suspect it was an expose of Taca airlines. Even so, you'd be surprised how unexciting it is to be on TV when nobody you know is watching.

They also put me on a tiny single engine plane, which probably would have been okay and even kind of thrilling, except for the fact that there were no facilities. Which is risky for someone who spent the previous day sprinting to and from the paperless bathroom. But it was a great day for flying.

I came to Honduras to see TKO, primarily, and to taste what they've been cooking over here for the past year. But I also came because I've felt increasingly trapped on the American treadmill lately, and it's been speeding up. And I know that there is more to life than what I see from the HOV lane, or at Phipps Mall, or on my TV. There is such a rhythm to city life that I think we all get lulled to sleep sometimes, and forget that we are creatures, and we have to live. We need food, water, and each other. We don't really need information, money, or entertainment, though I live like I do.

And so Honduras was like an afternoon dip in the swimming hole--refreshing and restorative. The pace and focus of life is so different for these people that I can't help but, at least for a while, see more clearly. In fact, Honduras is sort of like, uh, the soft cotton cloth on the lense of my life. As if to drive the point home, an alarmingly thick pile of incomprehensible mail notifications was waiting for me upon my return. Every now and then, you get a glimpse of what matters, and how clogged your days are with things that don't.

Many of these facts and stories I lifted from TKO. And I have written in admiration and imitation of Jeremy's travelogues. Please visit them and you will learn much.

Thank you, TKO, for having me. It was was well worth Taca, and I return to my life glad for your faithfulness and the things that are happening around you. Pet Mocha for me, and I will see you soon.

Honduras Travelogues - Vol. 5

A wispy fog was dissipating as we climbed on the bus for our return to school. In these steep hills it made for spectacular effect, though I was too sleepy to drink it all in. I sat next to a cute girl of about 15 with a face that seemed placid but permanently preoccupied. Since she was already on the bus, she likely lived in the city. While the other kids buried their heads in books, she simply covered her eyes with her arms and was silent. I asked Tom if she was okay.

"There's a good chance she's crying. I think her home life is pretty rough."

Later that day, she and the rest of her class would make a presentation for the school assembly. It was sort of a special day at the school, so the latter half of the day was spent playing games and listening to a 30-minute presentation on--of all things--personal hygiene.

After a demonstration of how to make homemade deodorant and toothpaste, Ester the headmaster stood up and offered a rebuke. "Some of you come to school and when you raise your arms you're killing your classmates," she explained to a smattering of laughter. I hadn't noticed a B.O. epidemic at the Instituto El Rey, but Ester knows best.

As part of the celebration of the end of exams, the kids played some games, including one where a guy and girl are chosen to stand in center of the pavillion (surrounded by the rest of the school) and do a silly dance while the crowd chants:

EL POLLO!!!!
El pollo con una pata (step with one foot)
El pollo con las dos patas (step with both feet)
El pollo con las alitas (flap arms)
El pollo con la colita (shake booty)

Then it dissolves into fits of laughter and cheering. The kids are particularly fond of putting the awkward nortamericanos in the center for this exercise, and didn't hesitate to choose Kelly, Tom and then me before the game was over.

Many homes in Honduras have what appears to be palm roofs, but are actually thatch manaca roofs. As the bus passes some of these roofs, Tom explains that there is a parasite that lives in those manaca leaves that can bite you and deposit eggs in your system. The egg hatches, and the parasite then lives silently in your body until middle age, when it stops your heart and you die.

You'd be surprised how many things there are on your arms that look like bites.

Nothing refreshes (and removes biting parasites) like an afternoon swim in the river. TKO and I were climbing on the rocks when we saw a head bobbing upriver. It was Peter, so we talked to him. He is not a typical Honduran. Peter was a New Hampshire dairy farmer who first came Honduras to clean up after hurricane Mitch. Upon returning to the States, he sold the farm, packed up his things, and moved to Las Mangas. He has lived here ever since. Now he spends his time teaching music at the school and investing in farming projects. He also spends a lot of time with the local youth, which sometimes necessitates swimming in the river 5 or 6 times a day.

People here talk about Mitch sort of like we talk about 9/11. They tend to think of life in terms of the way it was before Mitch, and how it was changed by the storm. 11,000 people died (nearly 6,000 of them Hondurans), and the face of this river valley was permanently altered. The main bridge on the only road was washed away, preventing any aid or supplies to reach the residents further up the road. Larry, whose residence at the time was destroyed by flooding, says that the river grew new banks and huge boulders appeared where none had been before.

At dinner, Larry reached for another serving and wearily announced, "Yamileth went home today." Just months after her husband Santos succumbed to the same disease, AIDS sucked the last bit of life out of her as well. And she has 6 kids who now will most likely be dispersed to different homes for the remainder of their childhood. AIDS seems to still be sort of a silent killer here, largely unknown and unconfronted.

I would be leaving in the morning, so TKO and I took care of remaining business, including delivering that maple Alvarez to its new owner. Peter, an organist by training, had wanted to take up guitar but found himself discouraged by his slow progress. No doubt the instrument(s) on which he was trying to learn was also an impediment. So we sat in his closet-sized living room and talked to him for a while before Tom finally announced that the guitar was for him. He didn't seem to get it at first, but later I think he was appreciative of the gift. Peter loves to sing hymns, and I pray that guitar would play many hymns, and that Las Mangas would produce much good music. And who knows; maybe there are future Santanas and Segovias in these hills.

Honduras Travelogues - Vol. 4

No sooner had I showered and shuffled into the kitchen when there was some noise at the door. We opened, and suddenly there in the bright morning light stood a wiry man with a weathered face and coffee skin that seemed to be stretched extra tight around his head. He wore a cowboy hat and carried nothing but an old guitar slung over his shoulder.

It was Cruz. Juan Timoteo Cabrera Cruz. He was going to play some songs for us and we were going to like it.

And for the next 75 minutes or so, we sat in that empty concrete room and he played his guitar. How he played it, I cannot say, for he played unlike any other. I can't even say what was different, but I can say that I was unable to play along, even in a supplementary role. He used the same chords, but the rhythms were all different, but not so that they sounded wrong, or off, but just enough that I couldn't follow.

Juan lives about 2-3 hours further up into the hills, and he was known in the area for being a good player. He turned out to be a fine singer and songwriter as well. Most of his songs were about God. When he asked me to play one of my songs, he couldn't seem to follow along, either. But he asked me to send him a CD of my songs.

After a while, the conversation turned to me bringing him a "requinto" when I returned to Honduras. Though I had never heard of it, nor did I plan to return to Honduras soon, he insisted I bring one next time, and he would pay me for it. At least we think that is what he was saying; his dialect is difficult.

It was Sunday morning, so he asked to meet with all the Americans and delivered a little sermon. Then, Juan donned his big hat, perched his guitar on his shoulder, and set off down the road. I think I was a little surprised that his guitar didn't at some point spring open to reveal a semi-automatic weapon, a la Desperado.

Loani Lobo lives down the street. She was turning 18, so she threw a party, and TKO were invited. I tagged along because, what else am I going to do in Las Mangas?

Honduran birthday parties are usually DIY affairs, and there are two basic elements: loud latin music and a pinata. The rest is just hanging out. For this particular party, they went all out by serving some red meat, a real treat in these parts. I was honored, but it was probably the worst hamburger I have ever tried to eat. It's not clear if they like them that way, or if we've just been spoiled by BK. Either way, I drank a lot of Tang trying to wash that down.

The partyers were from the area, and spanned several generations. A group of shady-looking hombres--when not leering at the girls--played cards at the table, and Tom identified two of them to me as brothers of a man involved in the shooting of the troubled stranger in the soccer field. After surviving the revenge shooting, he left town a wanted man but his brothers remained, some of them seemingly on a similar path. The youngest has not yet been in serious trouble, and Peter is heavily invested in his life.

The real fun of a Honduran party, I've learned, is the pinata. First, in keeping with tradition, the birthday girl took a few whacks at the papier mache Pooh. Then a skinny little girl in pink took that stick and began swinging for the fences. She was brutal, would not rest until Pooh was dead. Each strike produced a sharp "THWACK!", a new dent, and screams of anticipation. The energy in that little hut crescendoed with each successive strike until Pooh, his skull crushed and limbs broken, was no longer able to dodge blows. And with one last strike, Pooh's side split open from hip to pit, spilling candied guts on the dirt floor, and the kids pounced, squealing with delight.

The Las Mangas youth gather on Sunday evenings at the campus for bible study. I don't know what a typical study looks like, but this one seemed serious. We sang for a long time, and again, the teenagers didn't grow restless, even when we sang all five verses of unfamiliar english hymns.

Lesbin, a conscientious 16-yr old, wanted to pray because he "could not avoid God any longer". Burdened by his continued resistance, he sought to make some peace with his Creator. I wasn't there to see it, but Larry said he left "a new person", his countenance undeniably brightened.

I know that not everyone will find the same joy in this story. I don't know Lesbin, or the exact nature of his experience, but I know that feeling of keeping God at arm's length, as if to sustain my independence and rebellion for just a few more seconds. There is something in my soul and Lesbin's soul, that needs to know that peace has been made, and that that which was wrecked has been mended.

Honduras Travelogues - Vol. 3

Since it was Saturday, and I said I wanted to buy a few souvenirs, TKO took me into the city in the early morning. When I say that they "took me", I mean of course that we rode the 7:30 yellow bus into La Ceiba, which took its name from a giant Ceiba tree near the port that gave shade to the dock workers years ago.

First stop: breakfast. At a tiny little smoothie shop they had frequented before, we sucked, and the sucking was very good. I, for one, sucked until the very last drop.

"The fruit in Honduras is really good," Tom explained between sucks. That much was being vindicated by each successive suck. And it is also evidenced by the fact that La Ceiba is the main shipping port for Standard Fruit Company (Dole) and United Fruit Company (Chiquita). And here I was drinking said fruits before they ever got on a boat. They tasted like they were never even in a truck, or a market, or a box.

Downtown La Ceiba has some nice old buildings, yet they also have a Wendy's, Pizza Hut, and (don't ask why) a Church's Chicken. I wanted to see the ocean, so we walked down to the pier. While it's not a recommended swimming spot, the water was clear and blue and the beach, encroached as it is by the city, was pleasant. As turned back towards the city, the strains of music touched our ears and suddenly there was, inexplicably, a marching band coming down the center of the boulevard toward us. They were small but loud and made me feel like marching.

At La Mercada, the Honduran Publix, I bought a few food items and took great joy in the shopping cart. Are Hondurans really that short? Or are they just looking out for midgets? Maybe the kids do the shopping.

One of the things I noticed on the ride in from the airport is how many pickups there are. Everyone had a pickup, and now I know why: so you can fill the bed with shady strangers and drive them up into the mountains at unwise speeds. They even have a word for this: jalon. We took a jalon back up to Las Mangas.

That afternoon, we undertook the hour or so hike to La Moralla to visit Santos and Rubenia Ramirez, a farmer and his wife who share a rather unbelievable existence with their four boys. I sat under their roof (to call it a room would imply walls) for 45 minutes or so before I realized that the pile of potatoes hanging in the hammock in the middle of the room was actually a baby who was either a) dead or b) asleep. Fortunately, this little wonder woke up and made funny faces for us all. Routinely, chickens would stroll across the dirt floor. A pig came by but didn't stay. Rubenia stood contentedly in her 'kitchen' working the corn while an earthen oven seeped smoke that stained the grass ceiling black.

Santos is a very industrious man--you have to be to survive as a farmer in these montains--yet, he is very tiny and has some health problems. He looks like a mini-Juan Valdez. You may recall that TKO have written about his extraordinary heart defect that has limited his ability to do heavy manual labor. Doctors have say his condition is so rare that they will treat it at no cost, but the details are still being worked out.

After a bizarre Catholic town meeting in which 6 of the 7 people present were elected officers, we went down to the swimming hole. The Ramirez kids have absolutely no fear, hurling head-first off 12' rocks into water that seemed less than a body length deep. I went off too (though feet first) and deemed this the best water hole I've ever seen. I slipped behind the waterfall (because back there your voice sounds funny), and there on the rock, at the end of my nose, was a spider with a 5" legspan. After the kids had soaped up and rinsed, we ate Rubenia's tamalitos de helotet (sweet corn tamales) and hit the trail much refreshed.

Just after the trail empties into the road and crosses the river, we passed by Maria's house. Her handicapped boy was outside so we talked to him, and then Maria came out. She looked tired. When she smiled it was a very incomplete smile, because her eyes resisted. She asked TKO how much longer they would stay in Honduras because, she said, "many Americans don't stay" and I don't know that they could bring themselves to answer honestly.

As we walked away, Tom whispered that her son Angel was the child mowed down in the street only a month ago. Her husband is too drunk to be of much support, and she has grown very depressed. Amazingly, someone has arranged for her to see a therapist in the city. I may never see them, but I hope that her eyes learn to smile again.

Honduras Travelogues - Vol. 2

The night before I asked Tom what time the bus usually came.

“Usually 6:20 or 6:30.”

“Yikes.”

And so it was that by 6:30 that morning, we were on that same gravel road, making our way further up the mountain, over the ridge, then down into the valley to the Instituto El Rey, where TKO teach. In Honduras, the teachers and students all ride the same bus. It starts in La Cieba, and stops at each village along the gravel road that follows the river up into the mountains. When Tom and Kelly and Chris and I got on, it was already full of students, each bedecked in their banana yellow school uniforms. This was exams week, so it was relatively quiet and most heads were buried in notebooks. Tom explained to me that most of the kids hadn’t really developed study habits and did much of their prep on the bus. Kelly sat next to Frances with her bible opened.

It was dark when I arrived the night before, so I was seeing real Honduras for the first time. It was green, as you’d expect in the tropics, but I was struck by how sheer the mountains were. There are farmers in those hills, and it made me wonder how they could harvest land so vertical.

It’s a rough ride. The road would be harsh in a nice car, but in a recycled school bus with worn-out shocks and a full load and you tend to feel it in your bones. On two occasions, which Tom could predict like clockwork, a terrible screech came from the floor as it scraped bottom before chugging back up to speed.

Last I heard, Tom said “I sing cheese” when he meant “how much do I owe”, but now he and Kelly were speaking fluidly (from what I could tell) about a range of topics. They introduced me to the class as “hermano de Thomas” and asked if anyone had any questions for me in English.

A “no” here usually produced giggles and some murmuring en Espanol. Tom asked them who wanted to get married and the conversation veered into Spanish before I heard Tom say, “I guess we’d better have a conversation about that, then.”

Ronald, a burly kid of about seventeen, had just announced that “it’s better to just live with a girl for a little while, because if you have problems, it’s easier to leave her. Then, after many years, if you are still together, you can get married.”

Ronald is blunt enough to spell out what is commonly held. At school, PDA is not permitted, so coupling is not obvious, but it’s not uncommon for these kids to disappear from school in pairs. They call it “robbing”—a boy talks a girl into running away with him—and they’ll set up house and start having kids. Sharon told me it usually doesn’t last long, but it is always the end of education for these kids.

Kelly took one class out to a shady area outside the school to sing some songs. After a few choruses, often in English, Spanish, and Spanglish, she baited them with “do you want to hear Tom and Abe sing a song?!” And of course they did. And of course we did, though we weren’t really prepared, we were able to piece together Harrod & Funck’s “Come Clean”. The end of the song was met with applause and cries of “Otros! Otros!” During “Bitter Divorce” Tom broke out into that Run DMC breakdown we used to do:

I was born
Son of Byford, brother of Al
Bad as my mamma and Run's my pal
It's McDaniels, not McDonald's
These rhymes are Darryl's, those burgers are RONALD'S
I ran down, my family tree
My mother, my father, my brother and D
(beatbox to end)

The kids jumped up off their log seats and started dancing and striking mock hip-hop poses. After that, the “Otros” only got louder. Our genre-shattering folk-rap forays would cement Tom’s legend at the Instituto.

The beautiful thing about this scene, aside from all the silliness, is that these kids were mostly 14-18 years old, and were singing along with mucho gusto. And I tried to picture fifteen American teenagers in an enthused singalong with their classmates. Whatever. This class is, like, ultra-lame.

Before the day was over, I was gratified to teach one guitar class. They made pretty good progress for one day, and I wished that I could stick around to turn them into little Santanas.

Friday nights, TKO (and the other Americans at the campus) usually host a get-together for the youth in the area. Since the shootings a few weeks ago, most activities wrap up before dark, so this afternoon we played Sharks and Minnows in the river. What a great game. It was a lot of fun until Tom hit his headon the river.

Some of the kids cajoled me into going down a swift section on an inner tube. Not only could these kids move across the rocks like cats, but they also managed to stay on their tubes for the whole chute. Having already damaged my feet trying to walk upright on the rocks, I was able to add deep buttock bruises to my resume by sitting a little too low in the tube. I shot into the swimming hole behind the others, laughing and howling. It hurt, but it was a good kind of hurt.

Honduras Travelogues - Vol. 1

Three weeks ago, I was talking to my brother's wife's parents about their trip to Honduras. Specifically, I was asking for tips, and they gave them willingly, apparently still a little ticked about their experience with Taca airlines. Tom had warned me that they "tend to lose luggage" but Mrs. Clarkson, in particular, used words like, "horrible" and "the worst" to describe their experience with Taca. "Just get to the gate as soon as you can, because if you're not there within, say, an hour of departure, they just give your seat away."

This warning was ringing in my head as I power-walked through Miami International Airport on my way to the Taca counter. I had 2.5hrs to get on the flight; should be no problem. Then, I got in the "express" line.

Over the next hour, I waited. I watched as a livid latina woman screamed at the face of a poor Taca agent. Apparently, she lost her seat. I envisioned losing my seat, missing the last flight out, getting stranded the next day by the oncoming Frances, and then simply flying home to Atlanta a few days later having wasted my money and my vacation.

The man behind the counter looked at my ticket, typed, and then said with a concerned face, "This flight is full."

"What?"

"I'm very sorry, sir. The flight is full."

I looked at him incredulously and then announced very forcefully, as if I was trying to physically burrow the words in his skull, "But I have a RESERVATION."

He reluctantly typed a few more things, then eventually, his face relaxed and he produced a boarding pass and instructions to hurry. I have no idea what changed, but I didn't stick around trying to figure it out. I only had about 75 minutes to reach the gate, which is perilously short when you've got to go through int'l security. When I approached the gate, the Taca guy ran up to me questioningly.

"You are Okie?"

"Si," I replied, surely impressing him with my grasp of Espanol.

He seemed relieved to have found me and pointed me to the closing gate. I was the last person on the plane. I said a prayer of thanks as we pulled out, truly relieved to have dodged that bullet.

In San Pedro Sula, one must board a smaller prop plane to make the short hop to La Cieba, which is the city below Las Mangas, which is the village where TKO reside. Because the plane was so small, I couldn't carry on the new guitar I was bringing as a gift for Peter. I reluctantly let it go, and told the baggage boy to be careful, as it was fragile in its softshell case. He smiled as if he understood.

Sure enough, in La Cieba, the guitar was waiting for me on the tarmac when I deplaned. And once the rest of the luggage appeared, so did TKO, much to my merriment. It was Tom's birthday, and I was glad to be there for it. They wisked me away in a beat-up 80's-era Toyota pickup complete with a brand new wooden bed.

As dusk descended on La Cieba, Kelly took a hard right on the gravel road that winds up through the valley to Las Mangas. She didn’t slow down for the potholes or other impediments. Tom and I sat in the back catching up, and the Honduran evening air was cool on our heads as we jostled and jerked our way up the mountain. It hurt, but it was a good kind of hurt.

I'm back

I'm alive and well, and seem to have picked up no serious parasites. Some of you have asked about the trip, and let me tell you that it was muy bueno -- truly a good time in every sense of the word. I have much I want to write about it, some of which will only be of interest to my family or people very curious about the plight of the Honduran mountain farmer. So forgive if this gets a little long-winded and self-indulgent.