Tuesday, May 31, 2011

ESTA ES SU CASA--JUNE 2011


ESTA ES SU CASA--JUNE 2011

WHO’S YOUR BABY?

For my “voice” in The Beacon, see: http://www.stlbeacon.org/voices/in-the-news/110256-dulick-april-2011 = APRIL CASA

Doenis, a 20-something on a drunk, snuck into the house and threatened Chemo with a hammer (MY hammer!) to steal the VCR/DVD player, but ran out when Chemo screamed. Eating supper over at Alba’s, I was blithely ignorant of the episode, wondering at Chemo’s lateness, till he called from Dora and Elvis’ phone, his voice trembling. “I’m scared!” I rushed home at once, berating myself for losing at the most basic duty of a parent, to keep your child safe. Chemo’s had enough scares in his life without another one.

Sure enough, the VCR was gone, the naked wire ripped out. “Big deal,” I thought. But then Dora, who had come over with Elvis, says, “Miguel, look, here it is, in the kitchen.” I guess Doenis got a little scared himself. Elvis rewired it that same night. But who could re-connect me with my son? He slept in my room for the first time in a long time, as we promised to take better care of each other. Santos, Alba’s husband, tracked Doenis down and told him, “You mess with Chemo, you mess with me. Got it?” No one’s seen Doenis since.

Nevertheless, Chemo got another blow when his sister Rosa called from Tocoa to say that their mother Rufina and her companion Fidel had been beaten up in a robbery at their house. Robbery? They don’t have ANYTHING, much less a VCR. The beating was probably frustration, and apparently another drunk or druggie. Rufina moved in with Rosa, and Fidel, at the urging of family in Santa Barbara, also went “home,” to recover. I thought I’d take Chemo right up there, to his mommy, but even that seemed scary to him, so I dropped the suggestion. I did wire some cash, to replace a cell phone and pay for medicines. Fidel wants Rufina to join him in Santa Barbara, which is way at the the west end of Honduras, while Tocoa is way to the east, and Las Vegas is in the middle. These would be endless loops if we were going to visit all of Chemo’s family. Of course, you might think I’m already in Santa Barbara, since the “Las Vegas” that shows up on Google Maps is a city by that name out there.

Meanwhile, May started with the annual patronal feast of the Holy Cross, a week-long religious observance, tinged with unsavory elements like the four all-night “dances” that attract folks like Doenis. But this year was a garden compared to last year, when there were three murders. The highlight of the week is the procession through town, with children carrying crosses decorated with flowers. In fact, the whole month of May features “Las Flores” (the flowers), a toy-like liturgy when children bring fresh flowers to the Virgin Mary. The kids walk on their knees across the chapel floor to the little statue. I know that sounds medieval, but the kids love it; it’s our version of Six Flags! We say the rosary, too, and some of the little ones are still learning the words; one tiny boy said, instead of “Hail, Mary, el Señor es contigo” (the Lord is with you), “el Señor es abrigo” (the Lord is an overcoat!). Now, really, is that so wrong?

Speaking of miraculous births, Manuel and Marta had their baby. Last month, I told how I had stumbled upon Manuel who I knew years ago as a child (“Lito”), now back in Honduras after years in the U.S. Marta was soooo pregnant, I couldn’t imagine a normal birth, and, indeed, when they went to the hospital in Yoro for the delivery, they ended up spending a whole week there, as the doctors debated Caesarian or not. I wasn’t even having the baby and I was scared to death; a Caesarian in that little, ill-equipped hospital could be a death sentence. And in our phone calls, you could tell Lito was beside himself with worry too, helpless as he watched his wife’s agony.

When Lito finally called at 1:00 a.m. with the good news, he knew I would still be up because I was actually at a wake. You see, folks were waiting at Purito’s house for his sister Rosa, who had died that afternoon very painfully of stomach cancer in San Pedro Sula; her sons were returning with her body. They didn’t arrive till almost midnight, so I was hoping to match this mourning with a new, little life. “It’s a boy!” Lito cried. “We’re naming him Manuel.” Another Lito. Normal birth? “Yes! We’re coming home tomorrow!” Normal! That enormous belly, that little woman, that big baby--THAT is “normal”! Women are incredible. No wonder even God wanted a mother.

I’m not a woman, but I am a big baby. I proved that with my latest tooth-hurtee. The biggest molar in my mouth, back and to the (lower) left, had been giving me fits for months, sometimes literally doubling me over in pain from my jaw to my feet. But then the pain would dull and disappear, and I thought I was in the clear.
Chocolate and other sweets seemed to set it off again, certainly a divine judgment, don’t you think? I guess this deterioration was inevitable, ever since the thing got a gold crown back in the early 80s. After one particularly screaming night, I begged Doctora Gabriela, the local dentist, to yank it out. Sensibly, she cautioned prudence, based on my history of heart disease. “Miguel, if an emergency develops, we’ve got nothing here for you.” So, after another cowardly delay of a couple weeks, I finally slipped off to Tegucigalpa. I kissed Chemo good-bye, certain I would never see his face again.

At Dr. Juan Handal’s clinic, he put me in the capable hands of Doctora Yvonne. I told her I’ve got a godchild Yvonne back in Las Vegas, “So I know this is gonna be OK.” But I did make a Perfect Act of Contrition. Dr. Handal kept popping in. “We can save that tooth, don’t extract it!” But, in the most confessional tones, I reminded him how we’d worked for four years to save one of my upper molars, only to end up pulling it, so.... “I see your point. All right, pull it!” With a heart patient, you have to be especially careful with the anesthesia, but when I kept yelping with every tug that felt like she was pulling my jaw off, Dr. Yvonne just kept needling more Novocain till my face was as solid as a radial tire.

Then she finally made a move I never even saw, and says, “That’s it.” That’s what? She held the pliers in front of my eyes with a tooth the size of a Volkswagen, the gold cap still glistening. I thanked her like I’d been Raptured. I could scarcely believe I was still alive, I wasn’t gushing blood, I wasn’t having a heart attack. I’m sure Yvonne thought, what a baby!

And Dr. Handal did not even charge me! I thanked him till I thoroughly embarrassed him, no doubt. I was out of there by 9:00 a.m., which meant I could attend the 10:00 a.m. funeral Mass of Honduras’ preeminent poet Roberto Sosa, who had died the day before at age 81. It was a coincidence that seemed a recompense for my erstwhile “courage.” The very first book I read in Honduras when I came here back in 1977 was Roberto Sosa’s “Los Pobres.” More recently, he took my young poet friend Carlos Ordóñez under his wing as his most promising heir. Carlos, in Brazil right now, obviously could not come back, so I wanted to “represent” him.

The funeral was rather lightly attended, so I sat right up front by the family. Let’s face it, Roberto Sosa was as suspicious of the Church as he was of any other “self-serving institution,” so the Mass was pretty much a formality. And, as if to prove its irrelevance, the priest did not even quote a single line from any poem. But I loved sharing that time in the presence of someone--and his family--that had formed my life here. There were more folks at the cemetery nearby, with tributes from colleagues, friends, and family. As the crowd thinned, I made bold enough to take his gracious widow’s hand and say, “Your husband inspired me to work with the poor.” At least, I hope that’s what I said. My lips were still numb.

Roberto Sosa’s best known line is so simple you barely notice its genius:
“Los pobres son muchos y por eso es imposible olvidarlos.”
(You can’t forget the poor, because there are so many.)

The poor are indeed many, yet always a surprise. Little Anjely’s parents from Guachipilin up in the mountains brought her to me, for help getting to Tegucigalpa, where she already had an appointment for open-heart surgery at the public hospital in Tegucigalpa. “How old is she?” Seven months, the size of a newborn, her lips already blue. I was afraid to look any closer, lest it break my heart right there and then, because I knew she would not survive, not a Honduran heart operation, and, with an empty hope, I knew she could not wait for the next Brigada from the States, due later in June. So I gave them what I could, just to ease the transition. About a week later, the mother called. “We just brought her back.” I did not even have to ask. To bury her.

I see the burials have begun for the victims of the Joplin tornado. This is another thing I had to force myself to look at, so miserable are the views of the devastation of what amounted to a flying tsunami. Pardon me if I link to my favorite story:

http://www.thepostgame.com/features/201105/after-tornado-lone-competitor-left-joplin-high

New statistics show that Honduras would be better off with tornadoes than the man-made mortality we suffer. There’s a murder every 43 minutes, or about a thousand a month, mostly young persons, teens and twenty-somethings. We are doing our part around here to keep the average up. Up in a mountain village some guy killed a family of four, the parents and two babies, one a two-year old, the other seven months, to avenge his own brother’s death. No one’s saying a word. Well, why would you report what you know to “law enforcement”?

When Chemo finally got his grades, he was passing everything, with grades in the 70s and 80s, except math, with a 60, passing but just barely and probably a little gift from his nice teacher. But good enough! We leapt on the opportunity to make a quick weekend trip to El Progreso and Morazán.

As my “girlfriend” Santa kept reminding me, we had not visited them in Progreso since “last year” (December), so I got the biggest cake in the store, to cover all the birthdays we’d missed, plus Mother’s Day.

The next day, Sunday morning, we boarded the bus for Morazán. Chemo pitched his little backpack in the overhead and headed for the back seat to catch a snooze before the bus pulled out. I bent into my prayer book and lost track of the time. After about 40 minutes the bus was still parked in the station, gradually filling up. Chemo comes up. “Where’s my backpack?” Nowhere to be found. I sort of panicked, since inside, besides some negligible spare clothes, was the portable DVD player I got for Chemo at Target last time I was in St. Louis. I had just restored it to him on Friday for his good grades (having confiscated it a couple months before for some misbehavior). We had the whole bus looking for it, and of course, as far as I was concerned, everyone was a suspect, till someone finally explained that it’s become a pretty common scam in Progreso. Someone waits inside the bus, spots an inattentive target, nabs their stuff, and walks off. You know, I had wondered at the woman in front of me, who had packed herself into her seat with seemingly every worldly possession in three huge bags. That’s what we should have done. But I did sort of feel like Jane Fonda when she rips her last stocking in “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” We’re living so close to the edge, every “expense” is magnified out of all proportion.

On the other hand, I had sense enough to assure Chemo it was not his fault; I was not blaming him. It’s what I get for praying! But thank God it wasn’t my backpack, with my laptop inside. And in fact, what if I had seen the thief grab and go with the backpack, and I tried to stop him...? Let’s just say, my 43 minutes would have been up.

In Morazán, Fermin, Maria, and the kids quickly made our troubles disappear. Maria and daughter Esly were working on a big Sunday lunch spread; my contribution was to load ‘em up with a “six-pack” of 3-liter Pepsi’s from the supermarket. Then rumors start we’re going to the “beach,” the river outside of town where there are nice swimming “pools” that folks have made by stacking rocks around. It was wonderful. Of course, I, the wet blanket even when I’m dry, very prudently limited myself to just a 30-minute “dip” before I went to the shade on the shore and read my book, a commentary on the prophet Isaiah (“Comfort ye my people”).

Then, the TV broadcast of the grand finale of the national soccer championship, pitting arch-rivals Olimpia and Motagua, both of Tegucigalpa. Like Fermin and the family, Chemo’s all about Olimpia, while I back Motagua. We settle in for the game, with Maria again making wonders in the kitchen, just simple snacks with refried beans and fried tortillas and so on, and more cold Pepsi, of course. Well, Motagua won, 3-1, helped by an own-goal from an Olimpia player. But Chemo took it well. Unlike any sport in the U.S., these “finals” come every six months. So, “Wait’ll next...semester!”

Mel Zelaya made a triumphal return Saturday, May 28, greeted at the Toncontin airport in Tegucigalpa by his faithful “Resistencia” (resistance). Mel was ousted in a coup, you may recall, in June of 2009, with Roberto Micheletti holding place till elections later that year put in office Pepe Lobo, whose major concern ever since has been to reestablish Honduras’ credentials in the world community, in particular the Organization of American States. Pepe is of the conservative Nationalist Party, but he enthusiastically pursued amnesty for Mel’s record-breaking corruption and lawlessness, even running roughshod over court proceedings along the way. But he reasoned, we gotta do this, to get this all behind us. He never tired of promising Mel, “Don’t you worry, you’re coming back, I guarantee it.” It was politically astute, because it left Mel without a target. Mel, of course, was a Liberal, but with his ouster, the new, radical “Resistencia” was born, and Mel played them just like he plays his guitar, thus dividing the Liberal Party, whose mainline members recognized Mel’s toxic brew. And Pepe is jumping on the opportunity to extend his own party’s power. The latest is a bill he’s pushing through the Nationalist-controlled legislature to grant the Resistencia status as an official political party, which would divide the liberal vote and guarantee Nationalist domination in perpetuity. Just like Democrats in the U.S. salivating at the prospect of the Tea Party going third party.

And Mel isn’t helping. He’s lovin’ that Resistencia! A old Liberal Party hack was asked, “Will you be meeting with Mel when he comes back?” “Oh, he knows where our office is; if he calls for an appointment, we’ll be happy to talk with him.” What Mel really wants is another coup! Indeed, when some speaker at the airport rally on Saturday referred to Mel as “former president Mel Zelaya,” the crowd erupted, “President! President! President Mel!”

The vote to reincorporate Honduras in the OAS comes this week at a special meeting. Hillary Clinton, who would love to get this monkey off her back, is lavishing praise on Honduras’ for our “maturity” and “return to democratic forms,”
ignoring the fact that, besides Pepe’s toothy smile and buttery diplomacy, he’s been beating the hell out of the Resistencia, literally, with police, military, goon squads, you name it, for two years, every time they gather for a protest.

So a more significant return was Chemo’s brother Santos’ horse, lost for almost three weeks when Santos was up at his cornfield preparing for planting. Santos looked everywhere, getting himself sick in the process, following every lead, just hoping that it hadn’t been stolen. He didn’t know where Pavo was, but he knew why he ran off. “He’s looking for a filly.” Finally, word comes from a cousin he’s never even met, a middle-aged woman also, ironically enough, named Santos, that his horse is at her place way up in the mountains of La Peña, where she does in fact have a filly in residence. Santos and son Santitos rushed up there in record time, then rode Pavo back down. So we celebrated some special at supper that night. Cold Pepsi.

The rains are here. Folks are planting. That’s the hopeful part. Meanwhile, we still need each other. The tornado “season” is ending, the hurricane season is beginning. Hang on. If we are blessed, we can be poor.

Love, Miguel

Sunday, May 1, 2011

ESTA ES SU CASA--MAY 2011


Find me in The Beacon:

http://www.stlbeacon.org/voices/in-the-news/109470-miguel-dulick-on-teacher-strike-in-honduras = APRIL CASA

And while you’re there, check out their excellent coverage of the Good Friday tornado:

http://www.stlbeacon.org/region/109853-path-of-destruction


ESTA ES SU CASA--MAY 2011

A MONTH OF SUNDAYS


April was the cruelest month--certainly as far as weather is concerned. You had hundreds of tornadoes, while here our “summer” was perfectly still, hot as Hades, dry as a bone, dust inches thick, the air as heavy as an overcoat, the smoky mountains just a blur, a blood-red moon. You could hardly call it “Lent,” which really means spring.

Doña Julia, my 92-year-old neighbor, had the longest Lent. In fact, she began her dying even before Ash Wednesday, when I grabbed my camera to snap her last “glamour” shot as she enjoyed a fresh mango. She had risen briefly from her sickbed, but after this, she never got well. This is not to say that she was not still beautiful, even when she was just a shell of wrinkles, because she kept smiling, she kept talking, even joking, her mind sharp, her attitude patient and uncomplaining.

Every night you’d swear was going to be her last. Indeed, a variable group of anywhere from 10 to 20 folks would gather at the house, inside at her bedside or out in the corridor or street, in quiet vigil. Eventually, a kind of community formed, a society of Friends, a monastery at ease. Coffee and conversation, but mostly, as the Psalmist says, like watchmen waiting for the dawn.

You may remember I had said Padre Sebastian invited me to a group retreat that would meet weekly for several months. Well, his poor feet needed special attention, so he returned to Spain for treatment and returned to Honduras to another, shall we say, flatter, parish. So I thought I’d give the retreat a try by myself. I used a “contemporary reading” of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius by Father Dave Fleming, who just recently died after a long illness. He had been my Superior during my years with the Jesuits, so I could hear his wise and guiding voice on every page. The nightly sessions with Doña Julia seemed the perfect time for prayer. I’d go over to the house about 9:00 p.m. First, I would kneel at her little bed, grasp her hand, kiss her forehead, brush her hair, and chat a bit. Then I’d settle in a chair to “meditate,” if I didn’t just fall asleep! One night I got there pretty late, and Juana, Doña Julia’s daughter-in-law (actually, granddaughter-in-law, I guess) looked in my direction and said, “She’s been asking for you.” She said it a couple times before I really believed it. I was blown away. After that, Julia became an inevitable presence in every meditation. She was there as God looked at the world with the desire to save us. She was there at Jesus’ birth, his life in Nazareth, his rounds of preaching, his agony and suffering, everything. I had to believe Dave Fleming would have said, “I wish I’d thought of that!” Doña Julia had become my retreat director.

So a death watch became everyone’s Long Retreat. She actually passed away Wednesday afternoon of Holy Week (April 20), as if to help focus our attention on the Paschal Mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection. Indeed, with her daily risings from seemingly impossible depths, she had given us a month of Easter Sundays.

That evening, in the middle of the church service, we heard something we had not heard in five months--thunder. A pale flash or two of lightning, and soon a welcome rain blew in. The temperature dropped, the air freshened, and you could breathe again. Still later, at the wake, when it came my turn to speak, I said the rain was Julia’s sign of her salvation. These are not tears, but kisses. The weather stayed cool the rest of the weekend, through Easter.

The hour of Julia’s burial on Holy Thursday afternoon found our loyalties divided. Or maybe divided is not the right word. Shared, is better. Because another family was burying a tiny preemie who had lived just 8 days, one of a set of twins. HIs brother was hanging on with their very young mom at a hospital in San Pedro Sula. So two cars, one crowd, headed to the cemetery in procession. Once there, little Angel Gabriel was buried with the other babies in a special section, a knoll, right at the cemetery entrance, and Julia was taken to her spot farther in. And then began the novenario, nine days of prayer.

Not all delays are so fruitful. The teacher strike finally ended after three long weeks, and the kids got back to class, but just for a week, before the Holy Week “vacation.” The teachers piled on the work, to make up for the lost time, and every day came another quiz or test. When the government announced not only deductions for any teacher who missed work during the strike, but two-year suspensions for teachers who had actively protested in the chaotic marches in Tegucigalpa, I called my best friend Fermin. “Fermin! Are you on the list?” “Miguel, I’m on every list.” I’ve never heard him so sad. “This is the end.” A lot of people just follow like lemmings, but for Fermin it’s a matter of justice. He did say that his supervisor in Yoro had told him they would protect him, because of his, really, lifelong, commitment to the cause. And subsequent “talks” between the unions and the government are “negotiating” the sanctions.

Another voice for justice, though half Fermin’s age, is the poet Carlos Ordóñez. Just before the strike ended, when the violence had subsided, Chemo and I made a quick trip to Tegus to see Carlos, who is working on an advanced degree in literature in Spain, with side trips to Brazil, where he works on documentary films with his fiancee Ursula. He was in Honduras just for 10 days, so we had to act fast, since we had not seen him in over two years. He’s been a published poet since the age of 16, and Chemo, amazingly enough, just loves the movie Carlos and Ursula made about a legendary Brazilian poet (who died just after the filming), so I very much wanted to encourage Chemo’s cultural enrichment, you know. We used the excuse of Carlos’ recent birthday to invite him to lunch. He was so gracious, and he obviously read my mind (I’m his biggest fan!) when I kept asking him about his latest book that supposedly was scheduled for publication a year ago. “I brought you a copy.” Still unpublished, it was a bound Kinko’s copy, but very elegant. Consisting of 30 prose-poems, it seems a masterpiece. Any attempt of mine to translate anything for you is whimsical, at best, Carlos invents a lot of his vocabulary (you can see little roots of familiar words peeking out), and even ordinary words lose their moorings in so dreamlike a vision. Yet the themes, as I say, are justice, truth, and peace. When I asked him how he followed the news of Honduras abroad, he said, “I just read the newspapers online--and believe the opposite!”

After lunch, Chemo wanted to show Carlos the dodg’em cars. But we discovered, in another corner of the arcade, another fascinating “game,” the self-service Guitar Hero gig. Chemo was a rock god, for fifty cents a tune.

During Holy Week, when there are so many homecomings, I sought out the mother of Manuelito (“Lito” to his friends) to ask for any news. Last I knew, he was still in the U.S., having successfully made it across the border some years ago after eight tries. “He’s back!”
she told me, deported actually, living with his wife and two girls in nearby Sabana del Blanco. So I went to find him.

This re-connect was inspired by my friend Seth Felman, who emailed me out of the blue a couple months ago after we had been out of touch basically since he graduated from high school 30 years ago. We became buddies--along with his family--when I was substituting at Wydown Junior High in Clayton. Then I joined the Jesuits, and we lost touch. But I was so thrilled to find Seth again that when I heard that Lito was back “in town,” I was not about to let the opportunity pass. Turns out Lito spent part of his time in St. Louis, where he admired, among other things, the Gateway Arch--which he called "the rainbow”--without realizing you could go inside it up to the top. In fact, he loved everything about America, and I told him, I’m sorry we kicked you out; you’re exactly the kind of person who belongs in our country. He had even begun the paperwork to attain citizenship, but, no good, good-bye, get out. As much as he longs for “the good life.” and had had his lovely house built with the money he sent down here, we all agreed that he should stay now, since every day brings more news of migrants slaughtered like pigs at the Mexican border by gangs, and his pretty wife is very pregnant with their third child. I asked, “When’s it due?” She says, “Well, today, actually.” But, as of this writing, the little bugger is staying put.

Another reconnection is proceeding apace. Olvin, who got shot in the left elbow last December, has winced and yelped his way through physical therapy and can flex his arm again. His goal is to get strong enough to get a job, he hopes, at one of the big sweatshops in San Pedro Sula. My advice was, “Just don’t tell them.”

They say it’s an ill wind that blows no one any good, and so it seems your tsunami of killer tornadoes stirred up just enough breeze here to send more rain and some nice, cool weather. But I’m sure our own disasters are right around the corner.

Speaking of disasters, I thought I had a sense of humor until I saw the hats at the Royal Wedding. Who was the mad hatter, Tina Fey? Looked like insects caught in their hair. But I have to say all the little tributes to Princess Diana kept things in perspective.

I mean Diana’s heart for the poor.

Eric Greitens, a Parkway North grad, has been steadily building a reputation for a very big heart for the poor. You have to check out the link below to his book “The Heart and the Fist,” and even then you can hardly believe all that he has done, and all he hopes to do. He has even offered to send a member of his associates down here to help Las Vegas. He graciously asked me to help spread the word about the book, but his own accomplishments speak for themselves.

http://www.theheartandthefist.com/

Here’s a brief excerpt from Carlos Ordóñez’ poem “La Fiebre,” The Fever, straight from the heart (with the best I can do, translating it):

Hace frío en el pañuelo de sal
que una madre empapa en el cálix de la esperanza.

Hace frío en la orfandad
de una mano carcomida por el fuego de la penuria.

Hace frío en ese sueño
de profundo carnesí del que ningún inmortal volvió.

(It gets cold where a mother dips a rag of salt in a chalice of hope.

It’s cold when an orphaned hand is shredded by the fires of misery.

It’s cold in that blood-red dream where no spirit has found its way back.)

Love, Miguel