ESTA ES SU CASA--DECEMBER 2010

ESTA ES SU CASA--DECEMBER 2010

A DAY IN THE LIFE

Victor, in his 50s, dropped dead of a heart attack. I was not sure who he was, but folks assured me that I had seen him often enough, an uncle of Dulis, 16, who keeps showing up from time to time after stints in the mountains. So I must have seen Victor when I’d say hi to Dulis, some time or other. Most of Victor’s family are evangelical, but his sister Teodora wanted to observe the Catholic custom of the novena of prayer. It’s a question I should be better informed on, no doubt, but I really don’t want to know if some Christians here discount the resurrection and hence scoff at prayers for the dead. We just did it, and somehow it all meant more than ever to me.

Against all odds, you might say, including Leon’s drunken intervention on Day Four. He’s the father of Pablo and Chepito, who were getting ready for their annual visit to Tegucigalpa with me. Chepito has been drawing more than ever, and such gorgeous tiles of color, like some magical palace over the rainbow. Here we are, at Victor’s novenario, myself preaching on Jesus’ words to love our enemies, and Leon wanders in, drunk as a skunk, and I just want to cry. But that’s my pain, my “sin,” if you will. More violent is the pain Pablo and Chepito suffer, to have not just some drunk for a father, but the TOWN drunk, always a display. Chepito’s answer to the ugliness of his family life is his art, transcendent in its detail and undiluted in its beauty.

Leon’s rant included the offense, “Hermano Miguel is taking my boys to Tegucigalpa and he didn’t even ask my permission.” True enough. But I did clear it with Irene, their mother, when she came to spend the night at my house, along with Pablo, afraid to go home to her drunken spouse. Chepito always goes home, and then works all night on one of his drawings. He is our John Lennon.

We had some fun in Tegucigalpa, though the boys did not seem real excited about anything. Mostly, we just ate. We arrived on Sunday, and ate at Chili’s before an evening Mass. We were all so tired, I thought, we’re not gonna make it to church. But I was Chepito himself who said, “Let’s go to Mass”--and he never goes in Las Vegas. So we went, and got back to the hotel, and without even taking a vote, we all just sat down and ate again, another whole supper, without missing a beat. The malls are all decorated for Christmas, but the enormous trees they put up are decorated with advertising! Somewhere, Santa is crying.

On November 2, I spent the whole day with the dead. It’s the Day of the Dead, or, more hopefully, the Feast of All Souls, and I just sat in the cemetery, listening to wonderful sermons I had downloaded from The Crossing Church in Columbia, MO, and halfway playing the role of a Wal-Mart greeter as folks came to trim their loved ones’ graves, place fresh flowers and “coronas” of artificial design, and maybe spread a little carpet of pine needles. Some of the graves are brand-new, like Nandito’s, the young man I mentioned last month who was murdered in Tegucigalpa when he would not be a gang-banger. Something extraordinary happened in the last days of his novenario; his grandmother Santos, where the prayers were being celebrated, listened to us delegados droning on and on about everything and everyone EXCEPT Nandito, and finally she just said, “I loved Nandito, and I forgive the boys who killed him.” She said more in 10 seconds than the rest of us had managed to “preach” in all week. She spoke so quietly I was not sure I heard right, but she said it again. “I hope they will be touched by God and their hearts changed.” There you have it; if you will pray for the dead, you will pray for the killers.



Suddenly my Internet went down, and it was a mystery. My plug-in modem worked in a couple neighbors’ machines, and conversely, their modem would not work in mine, suggesting the problem was precisely with my MacBook. I tried to intuit a solution, but soon decided I had to go back to Tegucigalpa to get the fix. I took Chemo, but I warned him we could not spend ANYTHING this time. In fact, I was down to my last twenty bucks, leaving very little wiggle room. I simply have to live within my budget, or all is lost. It has made me a monster, you could say, at least that’s how I feel as I turn my back on the poor. My “budget,” such as it is, is mainly committed to helping pay the grocery bills of Elvis and Dora, of Maricela’s family, of Chemo’s families (his brother Santos and Alba, his grandma Natalia), as well as frequent pick-me-ups for Pablo and Chepito, and Cristian and his wife and tiny baby girl. That absorbs all of my cash, and for all the poor who come down the mountains, I had been dipping into my “endowment,” that is, my savings. Well, that’s mostly gone now, and I had been burning the candle at both ends by credit-card charging whatever I could, supplies and such, in stores in Yoro or Tegucigalpa. So I’m Scrooge now.

The computer problem was quickly resolved, once the Tigo technician Carolina took a look. Chemo and I celebrated by going to the new “Harry Potter” movie. I don’t know how much you paid to see it, but it was “discount day” so we got in for about $2 apiece. I was enthralled--and scared; Chemo’s only comment was, “It was loud.” If it wasn’t Harry Potter, I could hardly justify spending a dime on myself; but, especially this part of the story, the end, really opens a chasm you either fall into or love your way out of. That final image of “Part 1”--Voldemort‘s seeming triumph as he casts his evil lightning into the sky--will haunt me till next July, when redemption gets a chance in “Part Two.”

Another expense I guess I should justify is the Beatles--“Now on iTunes!” I immediately downloaded “Sgt. Pepper.” A recent special issue of Rolling Stone magazine ranked the Beatles songs and judged “A Day in the Life” their “masterwork.” I think with all the stresses and strains right now, my emotions are closer to the surface, because I just burst into tears when I heard it again, as if for the first time. “I read the news today oh boy....”

Headlines in Honduras, all within 24 hours: a distinguished couple, an Italian expatriate and his Cuban wife who owned a motorcycle franchise, are shot to death, a dozen bullets apiece, in their Toyota HiLux on the streets of La Ceiba, apparently a case of mistaken identity by the hired killers, who were looking for a drug kingpin. We’ll go through La Ceiba next week to visit Chemo’s sister Rosa and his mother Rufina in Tocoa. Just outside Tocoa, landowners and “squatters” are at war over the African palms that abound there; at least 4 dead already, with reports of a “thousand” guns, including AK-47s, on hand. A dead teen is found tied into the fetal position and thrown in the river in Tegucigalpa in a cardboard box; shortly afterwards, two of his buddies are found dead in the riverbank weeds. Actual fetuses, 13 of them found around the city in trash cans and such in recent months, along with 36 other “cadaveres”--victims of violence or neglect never claimed by any family--will be buried in a big common grave, courtesy of the state, in a special section of the Divine Paradise Cemetery. That’s “how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall,” as John Lennon sang. For families that do mourn their dead, the city has begun a new program--Help to Go Home--to respond to the needs of the poor who cannot afford to transport their loved ones home for burial. If families can even be informed! Thieves tore down a mile of telephone wire--for the copper inside--in San Pedro Sula, where the dismayed police could only ask, “Didn’t anybody see this happening?” Some things you don’t want to see, even in your imagination, like the young worker who fell into the cement mixer at a concrete block company. At least we think he was young; the company is refusing all inquiries, no doubt because they have been cited repeatedly for safety violations. Back to La Ceiba, two brothers, murdered and stuffed in the trunk of their car. Now, this I did not have to imagine, I saw the TV report, as the family, summoned by the police, opened the trunk and leaped and spun in fear and dread as if stung by Voldemort’s lightning. “But I just had to look, having read the book.”

So Chemo and I spent Thanksgiving Day on the bus back to Las Vegas. Not a bad trip, until you realize it was a waste of time. As soon as we got back, I tried the Internet on my computer. Nothing. I wonder if “string theory” can explain this. It works in Tegus, it fires blanks in Las Vegas. The signal or the computer is just kooky enough that they are incompatible. But I had an out. Jeanette Sipp-White at Parkway South had given me a used MacBook in St. Louis to give away down here. I still had it, and, by golly, my modem worked just fine in it! (The computer seems to be a newer model.) So it is now my “home” computer. I mean, I know this is absurd, two laptops on my desk, one with everything (like my photos) and the other that works, with me bridging the gaps with a USB memory stick. I’m in the middle of nowhere and I’m hoarding computers! CRAAA-ZY! But thank you, Jeanette, and as soon as the signal straightens out, I’ll complete your donation....

Wouldn’t Thanksgiving be a lovely day for a graduation? Basically, that’s what happened here, on Friday, Nov. 26. Twenty-one ninth graders got their diplomas in a warm and happy gathering. I was invited as the “sponsor” of Milena, Maricela and Juan Blas’ second daughter--and second in her class, by the way. I had a heck of a time getting any good pictures, but she is a classic Audrey Hepburn beauty. As the kids came forward, accompanied by parents and then escorted back by their sponsors, their age, interests, and future plans were told. I loved Ronny’s “ambition”: he wants to be a “comediante.” And he’s not kidding! He’s our version of Gino (last name?) in my last years at Parkway North, an abundance of talent and showmanship and the perfect personality for entertaining. Gino’s specialty was these marathon performances of “Love Shack.” Here, Ronny was in every “show” the kids put on at school; in fact, he wrote most of them! Now, Milena has abundant talent, too, don’t get me wrong. But she is very serious; she’d love to be a doctor. Coming out of Las Vegas, who knows? She might as well try for astronaut. The expense would be, for her poor family, astronomical.

Speaking of infinity, did you see the WikiLeaks tsunami? Here, folks highlighted the “revelation” of exactly what I told you a year and a half ago: that the U.S. Ambassador Hugo Llorens turned a blind eye to Mel Zelaya’s president-for-life ambitions, indeed, encouraged him! Thus, the coup, the nuclear option, as it were, of desperate men came to pass. It contradicts Mel’s own wishful thinking, that the U.S. ordered the coup, always a popular victimology. Pepe Lobo, the current president, named by the ambassador as one of “conspirators” molesting Mel, just grinned: “No hard feelings. Heck, that’s just the way diplomats like to talk.” To his credit, he never takes the bait.

The coffee-picking season has begun, and trucks and pickups are daily loading with Las Vegans for Quebrada Amarilla. They’re paying 120 Lempiras a sack this year--that’s 100 pounds of coffee beans for about $6. Chemo’s brother Santos tells me he and the kids can fill about 7 a day, sometimes as many as 12 or even thirteen. Good money, I guess, and a Woodstock atmosphere to boot. They’ll be gone till classes start again in February.

And today they gave out final grades. I am so proud of Chemo, passing third grade, with an 84%, especially when I see some of his little companions falling behind and required to repeat, or drop out altogether. Chemo's "girls," his nieces Chila, Mirna, and Reina, in their first full year of school, passed, too, second and first grades. Oh boy!

The happiest of holidays to you all!

Love, Miguel