Chris & Linda
Cholas
21 Craigside Place #3B
Honolulu, HI 96817 USA
Tel: (808) 537-9526
For Mahogany – Feature Article
Part II: Journal Notes from Travels to Gracias a Dios:
Mitch Stories:
Jueves, 12 de julio de 2001: We left La Ceiba for Palacios on a SOSA
flight at 6:30 in the morning on July 11th. The view of the
mountains with the green foliage of pine trees and abundant plant life was
extraordinary. Where rivers came flowing
out from the mountains toward the Caribbean we saw the lingering scars from
Hurricane Mitch, when rivers overflowed their banks and carried away bridges,
homes, trees and anything standing on the river banks. Three years after Mitch most of the major bridges
and roads have been rebuilt. We could
see examples of new bridges below us as our fifteen-seat plane rose above La
Ceiba. My son-in-law, Santiago Crisanto,
pointed out a barren hillside on the edge of the city. He told me that a colonia
existed there before Mitch and was swept away by mudslides.
“Mitch” stories remain a part of
daily lore in Honduras—everyone has their memories of the terrible ordeal that
overwhelmed much of Central America for several days taking some twenty
thousand lives, destroying much of the agriculture, tourism and infrastructure
in Honduras and a portion of neighboring Nicaragua. One evening in La Ceiba while enjoying
tortillas, frijoles and huevos in the home of one of Santiago’s sisters, we
watched a report on television about one village, Santa Rosa de Aguan. The reporter interviewed a few of the lone
survivors, who three years later still mourn the loss of life in their
village. Almost everyone died in Santa
Rosa de Aguan. Santiago told me that he had once lived in Santa Rosa de Aguan
briefly and bluntly said it was a village sin fe (without faith).
According to Santiago, primarily sailors had supported the economy of the
village and people spent their time in discos and diversions; few adhered to
any religious discipline. Santiago was
not surprised that Mitch would devour such a place.
Mitch changed life in
Honduras. In addition to the loss of
life, livelihood and property, the trauma of the storm still affects many
mentally and emotionally. Some saw loved ones swept away on top of their homes,
never to be seen again. Many bodies were never recovered: some washed out into
the Caribbean, many buried under mudslides that covered whole neighborhoods. In
place like the capital, Tegucigalpa, many bodies that were recovered had to be
buried in black bags in large pits, because it was impossible to properly inter
them in cemetery plots. Hundreds of
carcasses of dead livestock were left to rot across the land.
The tragedy brought about by Mitch
also gave rise to many acts of self-sacrifice and heroism, as unnumbered
persons endeavored to help one another and save as many lives as they
could. In Palacios much of the small
population took refuge on the grounds of the local Hospital Bayan, which also
maintained radio contact with the outside. Built to endure winds and high
water, the facilities at Hospital Bayan protected many of the area’s families,
whose homes and property were damaged.
After Mitch moved out of the area on its northwest course and eventually
lost its strength over southern Mexico, survivors throughout Honduras searched
for family members and friends. In
Palacios some who had left their village roots to try their luck with city life
returned to see if their parents and relatives had survived the storm. These reunions improved the spirit of family
life, as grown children, some who had been away from home for years, showed
renewed concern for the welfare of their parents in the villages. Home were repaired or rebuilt.
Calamities have their odd tales,
too. While we sat one day by the beach
at the Hotel Parthenon (owned by a Greek) in La Ceiba, a maid recounted her
story to us about the morning she returned to work, once Mitch had released its
claws on the country and moved on to torment Guatemala. Fish covered the entire
beach up to the hotel rooms. People
swarmed to gather what they could to take home to cook from this strange gift
from the sea. Strange, too, that even as
thousands of fish had been evicted from their home in the Caribbean by the
storm’s mighty surge, hundreds of people had been swept away from their homes
on the land by flood currents and swallowed up by that same turbulent sea.
After the storm, musicians composed
songs about “Mitch,” which soon filled the airwaves throughout the country.
Local Lore of the Garifuna in
Palacios:
Each place has its lore. Among the Garinagu in Palacios I gathered
these cultural notes: Garifuna like to
eat meat with every meal and even prefer not to eat if no meat or fish is
available. If mealtime comes and there
is no meat on that table, someone will be sent out to fish. My son-in-law,
Santiago Crisanto, said that once his mother killed one of her favorite
chickens for dinner rather than to go without meat for dinner.
One day, Santiago came in with a
bunch of platanos (plantain) and announced that he would show us how to
make machuca, which is made by pounding platano into a gooey,
poi-like texture. Using a lot of effort,
he pounded the plantain in a hollow wood bowl with a pole. Accompanying rice and fried fished, the machuca
made that evening’s meal one of the best we had while in Honduras.
Palacios is home to many snakes,
frogs and scorpions. The day we arrived
in Palacios, one of the teachers at Project Bayan was stung by a scorpion in
the unit next to ours; a scorpion had gotten mixed in with her laundry when it
was taken off the line. One morning as
we arrived at our daughter’s home for breakfast, Santiago came in from his milpa. He said he came across a poisonous snake
while weeding around his platanos, but the snake escaped. The older Garifuna, he said, still carry a
strip of tobacco with them when they venture into the brush, chewing on a wad
of the pungent stuff. If bit by a snake,
the victim places the moistened tobacco on the bite as a salve to draw the
poison out. I was unable to verify if
the treatment works, but the local people stand by it.
Alejandro and Therese Martinez are
Garifuna living in Palacios. Alejandro
grew up across the laguna at Batalla and Therese was born and raised in
Dangriga, Belize. They work with
projects in education and environment for the non-profit Asociación Bayan based
in Palacios. They shared some about
their culture with me: Drums are central to the Garifuna culture. One traditional form of Garifuna music-- the piranda--
combines drumming and singing. When
someone dies, the piranda can be heard during wakes and the nine days of
festivities that follow. Many play
dominoes following the passing of a soul.
Food is prepared for the dead soul, and then thrown into the sea. People talk to the dead one as if the person
is still physically present. Therese
thought it was interesting that when a Garinagu dies in Palacios, the body is
transported across the laguna to Batalla for burial. Alejandro said, half-jokingly, that the
blacks are buried in Batalla and the whites in Palacios. He wasn’t certain if the practice evolved
from cultural tradition or stemmed from racial prejudice. We joked about where they bury people of
mixed race.
Belief in good and bad spirits
remains common among the Garinagu, and spirits might appear in various
ways. Once, while visiting the primarily
Garifuna town of Livingston,
Guatemala, I was told not to bother
a huge, black moth on the wall of the room in a friend’s home, as it might be
the spirit of someone in the next world.
Polygamy used to be a way of life
in the Garifuna culture. A man might
have a wife in one village and, while away on long fishing ventures, might
secure another wife in another village or even in another country. Now due to education, especially the
education of women, and the changing economic and social situations, polygamy
does not prevail among the younger generation.
AIDS (SIDA in Spanish) is affecting sexual morals, too, and the rising
number of cases of AIDS has made it a national concern.
Social Life:
Every village has its patronales
festival (Saint’s Day following the Catholic Church calendar). It is a time for large festivities that
include futbol games, heavy drinking and sometimes danger. While we spent a tranquil time in Palacios,
farther down the laguna thirty minutes by motorboat, the Garifuna
village of Paplaya observed their annual patronales festival. What began as a joyous festivity quickly
turned tragic. Here are excerpts from my
journal notes:
19 de julio de 2001. Some men came today from Paplaya carrying a
body that appeared more dead than alive to the Bayan Clinic. The injured man arrived in critical condition
and was expected to die.
The sad tale began with an account
that another man was shot several times in the chest a day earlier and his body
was dumped by the assassin(s) into the river by Paplaya. A second man, a professional diver in his
forties, who apparently had been drinking during the patronales festivities
of the village, went out to search for the body. Being somewhat intoxicated, the diver
couldn’t negotiate the under currents of the river and began drowning. By the time he was brought ashore he already
had a lot of water in his lungs and CPR wasn’t helping. He was loaded onto a boat and taken on the
thirty-minute voyage to the Bayan Clinic where the Cuban medical staff tried to
revive him. Blood and water came out of
his lungs and the helpless doctors lost him to the next world.
Soon villagers in Palacios, who
knew the man, rushed to the clinic to see the drowned soul and help take his
body by stretcher back to the boat to have his body returned to Paplaya for
burial. The other body was not yet
recovered.
Later, one of the Cuban doctors
told me that had the diver been taken straight to the hospital in Trujillo, the
man might have had a chance to survive, because the clinic in Palacios has
little advanced equipment and the doctors could only watch the man die, as
their efforts to revive him failed. The
doctor was very sad.
The following day another body with
a gunshot wound was brought into the clinic dripping with blood. The victim was a relative of the one who had
been shot in the chest. He had gone to
the ones accused of the first murder to avenge the death, and he, too, was
shot. The Cuban doctors treated his
gunshot wound and prepared him to be flown to La Ceiba for surgery. We heard that the young man died a few days
later in La Ceiba. The doctor again told
me how sad he was. He said that in Cuba
no one is allowed to keep a gun and there are few homicides, but in Honduras
everyone has to have a gun and when they start drinking, people get
killed. He said in Paplaya people were
drinking and shooting bullets into the air as part of the celebration. One errant bullet fell and killed an innocent
bystander. Such a thing, he said, would
never happen in Cuba.
Futbol:
The Garifuna share many common
interests with other cultural groups in the country. Soccer (futbol) is perhaps the greatest
pass time in the country. Every village
has both men and women teams. Santiago,
whose attempts to become a professional player abruptly ended by a game injury
to his knees, coaches the women’s team in Palacios.
On game days most of village show
up to watch, and large contingents of fans for the opposing team come, too, in
their caiucos and motorboats. The
families of the host team prepare a big banquet to feed the visiting team and
their fans after the game, win or lose.
Everyone goes home happy and well
fed.
The day before we left Honduras in July, the national futbol
team of Honduras had a rare victory over Brazil in the Cup America played
in Colombia. The entire country celebrated,
and daily conversation centered on the victory.
Despite enduring the hardships of unalleviated poverty and surviving the
anguish of natural catastrophes, the people of Honduras in general express a
remarkable resiliency. After three weeks of mingling with hondureños on
the north coast, we felt uplifted by the sense of hopeful joy they exhibited; a
joy that pulls us to return. ¡Ojala!
Vamos a volver a Honduras
