ESTA ES SU CASA--SEPTEMBER 2009

ESTA ES SU CASA--SEPTEMBER 2009

Masters of War

Honduras continues in its political Limbo, neither fish nor fowl, but still foul enough in the high noses of the “world community” that now says they won’t recognize our elections in November--our best hope for an end to the crisis--if ousted president Mel Zelaya is not first returned to power. Oh thank you, thank you, Masters, may I have another? Hey, if you accepted the 2000 election of George Bush, you can darn well accept ours!

This whole mess may be the fault of the U.S., after all. Not, as Hugh Chavez thinks, because the U.S. encouraged the coup, but because the U.S. failed to discourage Mel. Remember the first Gulf War, when Saddam Hussein barged into Kuwait after the U.S. ambassador raised no objections to his ambitions? Similarly here, the U.S. ambassador, Hugo Llorens, kept lauding Mel for his leadership and never raised objections to Mel’s “Cuarta Urna,” his ambition for unconstitutional re-election. Perhaps if Llorens had sat Mel down and told him point blank, “Lookit, Mel baby, get off this kick, ‘cause if there’s a coup, don’t come crying to us to put you back in!” Mel might have backed down and we’d just be coasting along in the normal greased grooves of common corruption as always till a new president takes the wheel next January. Indeed, the presidential campaign “officially” kicked off today, with the two major candidates, Elvin Santos for the Liberals and Pepe Lobo for the Nationals, all smiles and promises--education, employment, security--without so much as a glance at embargoes, isolation, ruin, and death. Just a normal campaign.

So Obama is still dealing with this hornets nest. Fortunately, he has not gone so far as to declare our elections null and void even before they happen. But the State Department is doing something just as cheap, behaving like a “death panel” and suspending entry visas for ANYONE from Honduras. So Hondurans themselves are null and void. That’s not diplomacy, that’s bullying. That’s the kind of small thinking that got us into this mess; that’s the kind of thinking that defines Obama down, from hope and change to mope and spare change. He’s bigger than that. Maybe as a tribute to Senator Kennedy, we might declare an amnesty on such arrogance. Chemo just asked me when we’re going to America. Never, my son....

Honduras is so little. We can’t trade oil for “compassion” like the Lockerbie bomber from Libya. We can’t win Miss Universe. We probably can’t get into the World Cup. We have nothing to offer, to entice the world to soften its hard line. Oh, we make your clothes (I just noticed “Made in Honduras” in my Dickies tee-shirt!), and you eat our bananas and maybe our melons, and there are a million Hondurans in the U.S., poaching your eggs, flipping your burgers, nannying your babies, planting your daffodils, building your houses, but it’s just a sliver of the current madness for “globalization,” sometimes pronounced “Goldman-Sachs.”

The way things are going, I have half a mind to jump into a march for Mel myself, just to get this over with, but I’m scared I might lose the other half of my mind if I get my head beaten in. A Human Rights group (CIDH) came to look into alleged abuses by the police of protesters demanding Mel’s return. And they found plenty. But not surprisingly. These are the same police beating the same protesters sicced on them by Mel in the past four years and by every president before him. There is one new little twist; Micheletti, the de facto president, has brought Billy Joya out of mothballs, a real gem from the 1980s who specialized in “disappearing” activists for then-president Roberto Suazo Cordova, to coordinate the counter-insurgency. Violence! Violence! The protesters are blamed for burning down a Popeye’s and setting a bus on fire, cooking up Molotov cocktails in the chem labs of the university. And for attacking Red Cross ambulances! The “Melistas” deny any role in the violence, but did assert that the police were using the ambulances to supply the police with more tear-gas bombs and other anti-riot gear. Someone lobbed 5 Molotov cocktails at the El Heraldo newspaper offices, viewed as “golpista,” that is, serving the interests of the coup government, but strangely almost no damage was done, so that looks like an inside job, yes? On the other hand, hooligans have killed more fans at our soccer games in the past two months than any police have killed on the streets. Mel himself is urging disruption of the voting in November--another crime against the state! says the “interim” government of Roberto Micheletti. It’s crazy, like the man who killed his parents throwing himself on the mercy of the court--as an orphan.

At a meeting at the school in Las Vegas to bring parents up to date on teachers’ plans for the rest of the school year, a rather hyperbolic organizer from Victoria screamed at us for 40 minutes, blaming all the evils of the world on Micheletti, the de facto president, and his minions. I had to appreciate more what Paulino, a man with a longer memory, said. Paulino never got beyond the third grade; he’ll never be a “Hot Search” on Yahoo, but he’s been protesting all his life; he’s been beaten and jailed by every president Honduras has had since it began electing them “constitutionally” in 1982, just for siding with the poor. He is the most humble man, the very model of non-violence, soft-spoken, a voice choked a little with tears. He really couldn’t bring himself to second the rhetoric of self-righteousness. He just said, “We have to keep with the struggle, for the poor, till justice come.” The restoration of Mel and the “restoration” of justice are two very different things. How can you “restore” something that Honduras has never known?

So how can I thank YOU for listening? I just drop these missives into a deep well, and I wait for the splash. And then the bucket suddenly comes up and it’s Amy Gavel, a Parkway North grad, who wrote to say she’s organizing her own students (9th - 12th graders) at Mt. Zion Temple in St. Paul, MN, to send help, specifically for Rosa, Chemo’s sister, who needs open-heart surgery, too. Amy’s students are already covering “Rosa bat Rufina” with misherebach blessings and prayers.

Talk about a long memory! Christians can never catch up on Judaism’s eons of out-reach. I just heard Bill Maher try to set the record straight. “Americans are so dumb! A recent Gallup Poll found that about half of us do not know that Judaism is older than Christianity. So there are some people with a book in their house that says, ‘The Old Testament’ and ‘The New Testament,’ and they can’t figure out which came first.”

But Amy is not the only fresh water we’re getting. So many are helping. Indeed, any of you who regard us with good wishes and interest have our heart in your hands. Look at the way Jeanette Sipp-White, a Spanish teacher at Parkway South High, phrased it: “Know that we are all thinking of you and keeping you and our Honduran brothers and sisters in our prayers.” Our brothers, our sisters. Maybe we’re not so little after all.

Few prayers can improve on the simple “steps” of Alcoholics Anonymous. Last time I went to the Wednesday meeting that the men invite me to each week, Raul says, “Did you bring the literature?” I give a little reflection on a Scripture reading, but that didn’t seem to be what he meant. Turns out he was inviting me to open the meeting! This means reciting the Twelve Steps and the Twelve Traditions of AA. I do have copies, but I used their well-worn versions, reading them like a Book of Psalms, and I closed the meeting, too. I felt so privileged for this special confidence. Some day even Bill Maher, an ardent atheist who cannot conceive of any “higher power,” may find a testament there.

Speaking of oracles, I was pretty scared at the prospect of Chemo’s latest report card. When we do homework, subtraction, for example, there might 6 problems out of 15 that involve 10 - 6 or something equally basic; he has to count his fingers every time. But his teacher Nancy is a pearl, and she gave him high 80s and 90s. There is at least one more “quarter” to go in his quest to pass second grade. I guess the bubble will burst some day. There are a lot of folks around here who dropped out after second grade. For some kids, third grade is like Advanced Placement.

Meanwhile, Chepito and Pablito, incredibly, are still passing fourth grade. Their grades would make lovely sleeping weather, 60s and low 70s, but leave their ultimate fate very much in doubt. Actually, their teacher Abener recently asked to “borrow” 500 Lempiras from me. I loaned him the money happily, you know, sort of an insurance policy for the Bandidos. So I kinda think he’s returning the favor....

I went to Tegucigalpa August 28 for Elio Flores’ birthday party. It was a wonderful celebration! It was the first time I had seen the whole family together since Mema’s birthday party back in January, just after she and Elio had started receiving death threats if they didn’t pay “protection” money. That was an oppressive evening. But this was sheer joy, everyone dancing, eating, laughing, and singing. I shamelessly took advantage of the situation to hit up folks for blood donors for Chemo’s sister Rosa--we have to deposit at least 5 pints of blood before her operation. And of course they responded as I knew they would. “Where do I sign up?”

Another good sign is the restoration of the old church on the hill. It finally got a “polish” and it once again is like a lighthouse to the whole community. I had the kids haul the bags of cement, the bags of cal, the sand, the water, up the steep hill, where Dora’s brother Oscar did the “plastering.” I tried to make it worth their while, with fried chicken lunches at the merendero. A little tornado or something had torn the roof off and big chunks of the walls over two years ago, leaving only the hundred-year-old facade. So we rebuilt the walls with concrete blocks, and that somehow took forever, while a new roof blew off again and was replaced with a yet stronger one. I “contracted” Oscar for the final touches, but he had to plant his corn--and his beans and help with his friends’ corn and beans--so the delays kept piling up. Now some folks are starting to harvest their corn! But it’s done. Well, we think we will put a little sidewalk around it to finish it off, and Dora thinks the Legion of Mary should raise the funds to paint it. I like its “antique” whiteness, but it might end up a lovely Marian blue....

Chemo’s soccer team is now official, a “Liga de Menores,” or kids’ league. And when I say official, I mean it. They’ve got more staff than the Cardinals. Threre’s a president, a vice-president, a treasurer, a bunch of assistants I don’t even know what they do--and a Discipline Committee, the parents’ favorite feature. The team’s name is Mario Landa, for a retired teacher and major sponsor. I’m not sure how the cheers are supposed to go.... Gimme an M! They invited a professional coach from Tegucigalpa to come and evaluate the kids and give his advice. At a meeting with parents, I asked what he considered the major criteria for participation. He underscored the support of the parents. Good enough, but I was fishing for where he came down on the choices, win-at-all-costs or play-every-kid-every-game, which is Chemo’s best hope.

You know, I’m “pro-life,” but I draw the line at roaches, even unborn roaches. The other night, I almost fainted when I saw three fat roaches crawling around on the glass door of my microwave, like they were on TV or something. I grabbed the Raid and, my heart pounding, I flipped open the door. Nothing. Where were they? I closed the door--O my God! They were INSIDE the door , between the two glass panels that form the door, an arrangement I’d never noticed before. Roach under glass. But that’s not all. A snow-white roach was wriggling out of its black husk, like some scene cut from the latest Narnia movie. Was this the end? Should I hide in the basement and wait for the fire and brimstone? My hands trembling, I examined the door as best I could, and found some openings at the hinges where presumably some roach looking for a tanning bed could crawl in. I thought, I’ll toast them! So I set a cup of water inside (caution, caution) and cranked up the machine. No effect. Where’s Billy Joya when you need him? But that’s the whole point of the door, of course--it doesn’t heat up. So I sprayed, and sprayed, aiming right into the little holes, tossing caution to the wind in case I might start a fire. (I guess I could have unplugged it....) And then at last they started to scramble and I smashed them into wet spots as they found their way out, including the white one, the Queen? But the husk remains stuck between the glass, a museum piece to sort of turn your stomach every time you see it. I’d call it a metaphor for Honduras, but I’m not sure if it’s not the other way around.

With these long stretches in Las Vegas--avoiding travel to avoid the crowds--I’ve been fixing spaghetti every night, and the kids never tire of it. And I do love to see everyone eating. For me, the key is serving it piping hot. Delicious! I would try other menus, but spaghetti is the easiest, quickest, cheapest dish to feed the hordes, as many as 15 kids a night, as well as Don Jose, who comes with his three boys. My own appetite, however, may be reaching its limits.

But I WILL change the menu if peace comes to Honduras. I’ll throw such a party! Meanwhile, wish us well, keep in touch, and enjoy the sweet corn, as we are here, the reason butter and salt were invented. And that’s what I call poetry!

Love, Miguel