ESTA ES SU CASA--DECEMBER 2013
FRAUD AT THE POLLS!
THE BEACON did another superior make-over, of my November report:
https://www.stlbeacon.org/#!/content/33633/voices_dulick_hearts_111213
Sunday, November 24, 2013, was election day. I looked to Chemo as a bell-wether.
When we were in Tegucigalpa, Elio and Mema urged him to vote Liberal, singing the praises of Mauricio Villeda, the son of the best president Honduras ever had. Four years ago, when Mauricio was running with Elvin Santos, I called him a wimp and a zero. Well, he doesn’t have a chin, and he dresses like a nerd (stripes with plaids), but this year he looked like Lincoln. An honest man, even noble (he had quit on principle his role in Mel Zelaya’s administration years ago), he became the conscience of the election season. No one dared criticize him, as he admonished the rest of the field for their excesses, distortions, and lies. Elio and Mema come from the days when you could be arrested just for voting Liberal. They believe in the party, they love its traditions, and embody its outreach to the poor in justice and love. In fact, Elvin Santos had asked Elio to run for ‘diputado’ (representative to the Congress) with him, but Elio could not afford such exposure since he and Mema were still in hiding from the gangs threatening them with death if they didn’t pay “protection” money. Chemo listened and nodded and smiled.
In Morazan, Fermin and Maria urged Chemo to vote LIBRE, the breakaway Liberal party that sprang up from the ‘resistencia’ after the coup that ousted President Mel Zelaya in June of 2009. (A coup endorsed by his own Liberal party, so intolerable was his corruption.) Since, according to the Constitution, a president can only serve one term (a provision Mel wanted to erase as his mentor Hugo Chavez had done in Venezuela), Mel’s revenge was to run his wife Xiomara Castro this time as the candidate. The deception was transparent, but so deep and so unfulfilled is the longing of the Honduran poor for justice that they went through the looking-glass and gave their heart and soul to LIBRE. So when I asked Fermin, who is never deceived, why he was going with LIBRE, he said, with tears in his eyes, “Miguel, to save my life.”
Mel was always trash. In his “youth” he helped murder 14 human rights activists on his father’s hacienda Los Horcones in Olancho (June 25, 1975). His father Mel, Sr., served a perfunctory jail sentence for the crime before being “pardoned,” but it really was Mel, Jr.’s, work. Old Don Jose, who is still a simple day laborer now living here in Las Vegas, was a farmhand at Los Horcones. “The father was a saint, treated us right, always spent time with us; the son, he was bad news. That whole day, he was going back and forth, back and forth, with the killers in his pick-up.” They shot the “martyrs,” as they have come to be known, including a couple priests and nuns, and then, to conceal the crime, they stuffed the bodies down a well and filled it with lime. How does such a holocaust get swept under the rug? When Mel was running for President in 2005, the opposition candidate (Pepe Lobo, now the current president, then a neighbor of Mel’s in Olancho), tried to make an issue of it; he mentioned it only once before Mel effectively shut him up. Publicly, Mel whined, “You’re upsetting my mother.” (Mel, Sr., was long dead.) Privately, one can only imagine what Mel had on Pepe to scare him into silence.
As president, Mel was corrupt; that’s nothing new here, for either party, but Mel took it to new heights. First of all, he stole the election, something no one wanted to say, least of all the U.S. State Department, after the coup, when the sing-along demanded that the “duly elected” President Zelaya be “restored” to power. During his administration, he sold us out for the massive money transfers of drug money from South to North via Honduras. Crime skyrocketed and gangs ran the cities. The biggest strikes and protests by the teachers union occurred during Mel’s term, and when Fermin learned from sources that Mel would order the police and military to shoot and kill protesters, Fermin himself had to plead with the teachers and their leadership to disperse and, in effect, surrender their demands. Fermin did it to save lives, but it put him in a terrible position, and that’s when he quit “politics,” forever he said.
So what brought him back? Poverty is not just not having enough money; it grinds the spirit into the dirt. When Mel tripled the minimum wage by executive order, businesses screamed foul, but the working poor rode a wave of prosperity they had never known before. Here, most salaries are tied to the minimum wage. A teacher’s pay, for example,
is calculated as a multiple of the minimum wage. “Miguel, Mel paid off our house, our car, he sent our kids to college, he set our table so no one goes hungry in this house.” No one works harder than Fermin, so I should question his judgment? When you have a family to care for, you can live with certain contradictions.
Mel fooled me, too, in his generous, unrehearsed inauguration speech, a spontaneous tribute, it seemed to me at the time, to the hopes of the poor. But later, when he couldn’t even get the Our Father right (May God’s will be done in Heaven as it is here on earth, reversing Jesus’ words), I knew we were in for it.
Chemo nodded in agreement with Fermin, too. But closer to home, unmoved by principle or protest, and with buddies directly connected to the current conservative government who fixed Chemo up with a “special” ID card and other goodies, Chemo voted Azul (‘blue’), the color of the conservative National party.
And Blue won, with 36% of the vote. Mel and Xiomara’s LIBRE actually came in a close second (29%), with the honorable Liberal, Villeda, a gentleman’s third (21%). Now, you’d think that in a democracy, the winner should have to get at least 51%. If you applied these standards to grades in school, Chemo could have passed seventh grade!
Xiomara was leading in early returns, so she declared herself the winner, the “Presidenta,” and supporters here and on FACEBOOK just went crazy. Then reality set in, and Juan Orlando Martinez, the National Party candidate, “humbly” acknowledged the reports of the Supreme Tribunal of Elections that the trend in his favor was now “irreversible.” A pall descended on the beLIBRErs and cries of “fraud” arose among those who had hoped Honduras would finally govern itself with its eyes open.
But it’s not easy to get even a plurality in a three-way race, especially when your party began as mobs in the streets. If I may indulge in a conspiracy theory, this was the plan all along. That is, let the ‘resistencia’ run wild, including plenty of provocateurs to stir things up, discrediting their just cause, in effect forcing the movement to fold itself into the “system,” where it could be effectively neutered. In fact, after dodging the radicals’ rocks and, in return, bashing their brains in, would the police and military have recognized the “authority” of a Presidenta Xiomara? Then we would have had a real crisis!
So now what? Mel held a long, rambling “press conference” the day after the election, with many citations of fraud at the polls, only a tiny portion of which had been witnessed by over 700 “observers” from the U.N. and other international groups. “We might have to go back to the streets.” When a reporter asked if he was calling for another “insurrection,” Mel snapped back, “Hey, ‘Mister’--look! I’m using English!--‘Mister,’ don’t twist my words.” But, clearly, the biggest “news” at the press conference was the absence of Xiomara. If anyone still doubted that the biggest fraud at the polls was Mel himself, it was now plain for all to see. Mel’s lame excuse when questioned, “She’ll probably have her own press conference,” rang hollow. Fermin is at a loss. “Well, maybe, the streets.”
Did I say a three-way race? It was an eight-way race! And ironically, the real deal-breaker that made a true majority impossible was not LIBRE, but a party called PAC (Partido Anti-Corrupcion), led by the very popular sports announcer Salvador Nasralla, who also hosts a Sunday game show for teens that travels to a different city every week. You just don’t feel like you’re watching a soccer game unless he’s calling it, especially the national team as we move toward the World Cup. In such a macho culture, it’s funny to find him teased for being gay, which he good naturedly denies but which his unmarried status and preference for short-shorts does nothing to negate. But he’s always got a couple pretty girls in tow, you know.
It was hard to take him seriously, especially when he kept up his announcing gigs during the campaign. But, in retrospect, with a fat 15%, it seems he activated the youth vote, who saw nothing but Charlie-Brown parents in the rest of the field. While the other splinter parties barely broke 1%, PAC elected 13 ‘diputados’ to the Congress, and even a couple mayors, including coming within a whisper of winning one of the biggest prizes of all, mayor of San Pedro Sula, the second biggest city in Honduras, called the “industrial capital” because of its prosperous sweatshops that employ so many young people. Suddenly, no more short-shorts, Salvador Nasralla is a statesman in a suit and tie. Just imagine if clean government could really become the norm in Honduras! Of course, for that to happen, we’d need a little help from the U.S.A., to dial down on its drug consumption...
The latest: After rumors surfaced that Mel took a swing at her for losing the election, Xiomara did finally make a perfunctory post-election appearance, to mouth a “clarification” Mel had already put out: “We did not use the word ‘fraud’; we’re just asking questions.” But a couple days later, LIBRE filed dozens of charges of fraud with the Tribunal. Meanwhile, right on cue, the rocks and bottles started flying, and the cops started beating, and anyone who wanted to could say, “I told you so.”
I am torn, in case that’s not already clear. Honduras needs radical reform, but Mel is unworthy of his faithful, and Xiomara should have been the first to dump him. Mel actually won one of LIBRE’s 39 seats in the new Congress, the first former president to even attempt such a thing. So he’s not going away.
I probably lash out at Mel partly to justify my own inaction, and this has been an usual CASA, so “political.” I know the whole world needs fixing, but I stay at ground level, where Manuel from Terrero Blanco needs a plate of food. As hard as it is to figure out how to help these poor folks right in front of me, any one of whom needs everything I have, I guess I would rather fight with myself than confront the “system.”
I know many folks here who have labored their whole life for justice, most of them motivated by the kind of Catholic faith that Pope Francis is finally taking mainstream. These folks have suffered beatings, imprisonment, and death, while criminals high and low profited from the carnage. One of these is Fermin’s father, Pedro. Another is my neighbor Kako, who organized the poorest voters from the surrounding villages to participate, in many cases for the first time, to give LIBRE its majority here.
The actual voting, at least in Las Vegas, is a sweet thing. From Chaguito, 106, to youngsters like Chemo, everybody gets along and helps one another. We even had a “prayer circle” for my friend Ruth Meyer from St. Louis, who came to Tegucigalpa with a special group of observers for the LGBT community, a persecuted minority in Honduras, as you can imagine.
It seems the government shut down the Internet to keep a lid on protests after the election. For the first time, one conservative president succeeds another, giving certain elements a sense of entitlement, I guess. Both major servers had “technical difficulties” for days on end. I’m squeezing this CASA through the worm-hole (I hope!) while I have the chance.
Even if I can’t communicate, please don’t forget about us!
Love, Miguel
Sunday, December 1, 2013
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
ESTA ES SU CASA--NOVEMBER 2013
ESTA ES SU CASA--NOVEMBER 2013
HAVE A HEART
“The Beacon” touches up my report, on my trip to St. Louis; ready for prime time!
https://www.stlbeacon.org/#!/content/33325/voices_dulick_letters_10_2113
‘Tis the Season! And what better gift than a healthy heart!
Helping Hands for Honduras (handsforhonduras.org) just finished up their 21st brigada, this time saving the lives of 33 youngsters in need of open-heart surgery. Chemo was in the first brigada back in September 2008. So I got his teachers’ permission to take him to Tegus for a check-up. (“Shouldn’t be a problem, since he doesn’t come to class anyway.” CHEMO!!) They were at the end of their three-week run; we got there as the last two two little kids were wheeled into Recovery. We put on garments and they let us see the kids and the absolutely beatific smiles of their mothers and fathers. And I showed off Chemo. “Look here! He had the same operation and now look at him! That’s just what will happen for you!” And Chemo, usually so “shy,” did his part, bestowing encouraging smiles.
I took pictures with Ron Roll and Alba, the founders of Helping Hands, and their daughters Nelly and Cynthia, who have played increasingly helpful roles with the kids. I didn’t realize how helpful till the next night, when a sort of “Birthday Party” was planned at the biggest McDonald’s in the capital for the kids and their families. Ron Roll said, “This is the first time we’ve done it this way, so we’ll see.” It was a fund-raiser. You bought tickets for a big sandwich (the McNifica) and somehow it rebounds to Helping Hands. Of course, someone paid for the families’ tickets, and I bought mine and Chemo’s. Now, you may be thinking, McDonald’s? for heart patients? That thought crossed my mind, too, especially when I was chatting with Junior, who was making balloon animals for the kids. He was so simple, so quiet, I thought he was “slow,” you know. I asked him if people were supposed to pay for the animals. “No, no, I just like to laugh.” It wasn’t till he slipped on the white coat of a medical student that I realized that I was the slow one! Nelly and Cynthia had asked him to participate! “But my girlfriend is sort of mad at me; she’s a nutritionist.”
Then the games began. I never for a minute thought Chemo would participate, but you can’t say no to Nelly and Cynthia, so he did the sack race, the “hot potato,” and the “Simon says.” I would have loved to have read his mind. Did he feel as sweet a connection to these kids as I hoped he might? I guess so.
Two of the nurses came from St. Louis, Children’s Hospital, to be exact. Maybe you know them: Elaine Fitzgerald and Yvonne Renick. Such a small world, such big hearts!
You can find more on FACEBOOK:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Helping-Hands-for-HondurasManos-Ayudando-a-Honduras/179803138717859
Our trip to Tegus coincided with the return from Spain of Elio and Mema’s daughter Felixsa, who was studying theology there for her missionary work as a nun. Her mission? Honduras, of course! She’s a member of an order that lives exclusively off donations. They are not even allowed to accept what you might call “corporate” contributions. So she arrived with one small suitcase. (“I had to leave all my books in Spain.”) She’d been gone so long, Chemo had never even met her. But we went out to a nearly deserted airport to meet her plane about 9:00 p.m. The little crowd that gathered looked like a rescue mission, but everyone had someone special they were waiting for. And Felixsa was ours.
She had told her parents that she would have to stay with her community, way at the other end of town, in the shadow of the big Suyapa church. But as soon as she got there, Mother Superior told her, “What are you doing here! You stay with your family for now!” Now, that’s the kind of religious obedience that makes sense!
Two nights later, having recovered more or less from “jet lag,” Felixsa invited us all over to Elio and Mema’s for Mass and a little party, her brother and two sisters and all the kids and in-laws. Padre Ovidio, a friend of the family for years and years, and just about the most engaging and dynamic priest you’re gonna find, had us so enthralled that even Chemo sang the hymns. Befitting Felixsa’s vow of poverty, the repast was basically pot-luck, we just shared what we had, and this family is so naturally generous that no one lacked for anything. I made her promise that we’d discuss theology at some future time; and I’m looking forward to it. She doesn’t need books! Oh, and she treated Chemo like she’d known him all her life.
Back on the home front, that is, in Las Vegas, we celebrated the second birthday of Chemo’s little cousin Albita. We got a cake almost as big as she is, and enough music to make her dance.
And we celebrated all our beloved departed, on November 1 and 2, first visiting and tending the graves of our “angelitos,” children who died in infancy, whose ranks swell by 2 or 3 a month, and then to pray for all our loved ones who are “at rest,” some young ones by violence, some old after a long life, and all those in between. The depths of feeling and grieving and pleading are undiminished by time or space, as I know myself, thinking of my brothers John and Bob who died last year.
Have you seen “Gravity”? I knew I had to see it with Chemo when I heard it was a father-son collaboration, and had a special role [spoiler alert!] for George Clooney, touching the “magical realism” of folks with names like Cuaron. And 3-D and only 90 minutes long. Chemo’s reactions were as fascinating as the movie itself. He may have thought it was all “true,” like the critic who excitedly asked the director, “What was it like to film in space?” (Rather than mock, Cuaron gently led them back to earth.)
And it is all true! You are my George Clooney, leading me home, wherever that is. And I still call to your kind attention the continuing needs of Erlinda, living still hopeful and confident of God’s mercies--and yours--without her beloved Guillermo.
Love, Miguel
HAVE A HEART
“The Beacon” touches up my report, on my trip to St. Louis; ready for prime time!
https://www.stlbeacon.org/#!/content/33325/voices_dulick_letters_10_2113
‘Tis the Season! And what better gift than a healthy heart!
Helping Hands for Honduras (handsforhonduras.org) just finished up their 21st brigada, this time saving the lives of 33 youngsters in need of open-heart surgery. Chemo was in the first brigada back in September 2008. So I got his teachers’ permission to take him to Tegus for a check-up. (“Shouldn’t be a problem, since he doesn’t come to class anyway.” CHEMO!!) They were at the end of their three-week run; we got there as the last two two little kids were wheeled into Recovery. We put on garments and they let us see the kids and the absolutely beatific smiles of their mothers and fathers. And I showed off Chemo. “Look here! He had the same operation and now look at him! That’s just what will happen for you!” And Chemo, usually so “shy,” did his part, bestowing encouraging smiles.
I took pictures with Ron Roll and Alba, the founders of Helping Hands, and their daughters Nelly and Cynthia, who have played increasingly helpful roles with the kids. I didn’t realize how helpful till the next night, when a sort of “Birthday Party” was planned at the biggest McDonald’s in the capital for the kids and their families. Ron Roll said, “This is the first time we’ve done it this way, so we’ll see.” It was a fund-raiser. You bought tickets for a big sandwich (the McNifica) and somehow it rebounds to Helping Hands. Of course, someone paid for the families’ tickets, and I bought mine and Chemo’s. Now, you may be thinking, McDonald’s? for heart patients? That thought crossed my mind, too, especially when I was chatting with Junior, who was making balloon animals for the kids. He was so simple, so quiet, I thought he was “slow,” you know. I asked him if people were supposed to pay for the animals. “No, no, I just like to laugh.” It wasn’t till he slipped on the white coat of a medical student that I realized that I was the slow one! Nelly and Cynthia had asked him to participate! “But my girlfriend is sort of mad at me; she’s a nutritionist.”
Then the games began. I never for a minute thought Chemo would participate, but you can’t say no to Nelly and Cynthia, so he did the sack race, the “hot potato,” and the “Simon says.” I would have loved to have read his mind. Did he feel as sweet a connection to these kids as I hoped he might? I guess so.
Two of the nurses came from St. Louis, Children’s Hospital, to be exact. Maybe you know them: Elaine Fitzgerald and Yvonne Renick. Such a small world, such big hearts!
You can find more on FACEBOOK:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Helping-Hands-for-HondurasManos-Ayudando-a-Honduras/179803138717859
Our trip to Tegus coincided with the return from Spain of Elio and Mema’s daughter Felixsa, who was studying theology there for her missionary work as a nun. Her mission? Honduras, of course! She’s a member of an order that lives exclusively off donations. They are not even allowed to accept what you might call “corporate” contributions. So she arrived with one small suitcase. (“I had to leave all my books in Spain.”) She’d been gone so long, Chemo had never even met her. But we went out to a nearly deserted airport to meet her plane about 9:00 p.m. The little crowd that gathered looked like a rescue mission, but everyone had someone special they were waiting for. And Felixsa was ours.
She had told her parents that she would have to stay with her community, way at the other end of town, in the shadow of the big Suyapa church. But as soon as she got there, Mother Superior told her, “What are you doing here! You stay with your family for now!” Now, that’s the kind of religious obedience that makes sense!
Two nights later, having recovered more or less from “jet lag,” Felixsa invited us all over to Elio and Mema’s for Mass and a little party, her brother and two sisters and all the kids and in-laws. Padre Ovidio, a friend of the family for years and years, and just about the most engaging and dynamic priest you’re gonna find, had us so enthralled that even Chemo sang the hymns. Befitting Felixsa’s vow of poverty, the repast was basically pot-luck, we just shared what we had, and this family is so naturally generous that no one lacked for anything. I made her promise that we’d discuss theology at some future time; and I’m looking forward to it. She doesn’t need books! Oh, and she treated Chemo like she’d known him all her life.
Back on the home front, that is, in Las Vegas, we celebrated the second birthday of Chemo’s little cousin Albita. We got a cake almost as big as she is, and enough music to make her dance.
And we celebrated all our beloved departed, on November 1 and 2, first visiting and tending the graves of our “angelitos,” children who died in infancy, whose ranks swell by 2 or 3 a month, and then to pray for all our loved ones who are “at rest,” some young ones by violence, some old after a long life, and all those in between. The depths of feeling and grieving and pleading are undiminished by time or space, as I know myself, thinking of my brothers John and Bob who died last year.
Have you seen “Gravity”? I knew I had to see it with Chemo when I heard it was a father-son collaboration, and had a special role [spoiler alert!] for George Clooney, touching the “magical realism” of folks with names like Cuaron. And 3-D and only 90 minutes long. Chemo’s reactions were as fascinating as the movie itself. He may have thought it was all “true,” like the critic who excitedly asked the director, “What was it like to film in space?” (Rather than mock, Cuaron gently led them back to earth.)
And it is all true! You are my George Clooney, leading me home, wherever that is. And I still call to your kind attention the continuing needs of Erlinda, living still hopeful and confident of God’s mercies--and yours--without her beloved Guillermo.
Love, Miguel
Sunday, October 20, 2013
ESTA ES SU CASA--SEP / OCT 2013
ESTA ES SU CASA--ST. LOUIS SEP / OCT 2013
“DEAR CHILD OF HONDURAS”
THE BEACON did a lovely job of editing together my last two dispatches on the death of Guillermo and other events (such as Chemo marching in the Independence Day parade). A must-see!
https://www.stlbeacon.org/#!/content/32836/voices_dulick_guillermo_091813_
Last year, I made three trips to St. Louis for family emergencies, including the deaths of my brothers John and Bob. This year was, as the National League Champion St. Louis Cardinals like to say, a “Happy Flight!” An ecstasy from end to end, so much joy and grace, fabulous family time, great friends, eager students, gorgeous weather, and did I mention the bountiful food?
I scarcely had a minute to visit any schools last year, so this time I filled up my dance card. Jill Harris, a 1988 Parkway North grad, just celebrated with her class their 25th year reunion. “I’ve been teaching 19 years,” she mentions, and my mouth dropped. “That’s longer than I taught!” So she’s lapped me! She invited me to Hazelwood West Middle School, a big and beautiful place with wonderful kids to match. They had a million questions! And the kids collected 8 bags of clothes, and another teacher had a box of shoes. In the photos attached, you can see “my” kids in their new digs.
I made it up to Parkway North, where Melissa Pomerantz let me meet a couple of her classes, and guess what? One class was in the middle of “The Canterbury Tales,” a pilgrimage not unlike my life in Honduras, whose stories I try to tell with at least a bit of Chaucer’s celebration of our common humanity.
In fact, that is always my theme when I speak with students. Most Cardinals shirts are “MADE IN HONDURAS,” as are Parkway’s, St. Louis University’s, and lots more. And why? “Cheap labor!” the kids brightly answer. “But are some human beings worth less than others?” I ask. Honduras is as close as the clothes on your back. If you let the poor make your clothes, then let them touch your heart. In fact, “poverty,” which does not even appear in the kids’ textbooks, is best defined not by what folks DON’T have but by what we all share, our common humanity. I had to spend years in Honduras to appreciate that revelation, and I just have to hope that in a few minutes I can share that experience. Many of the kids already have a heart for the poor, and the pictures do most of the work. Although we never did get my “slideshow” to fully synch with the projectors, we improvised with 3 of my photobooks. I always tell Chemo’s story, which is my own as well, and the kids fall in love with him, too.
Parkway South had the theater ready for me during Academic Lab, and we had a big crowd, considering it was voluntary attendance. But they had been well prepared by their teachers, especially Jeanette Sipp-White and Julia Barnes with multiple handouts about the history, problems, and beauty of Honduras. My “presentation” was unique; the Diversity Club sorted through questions submitted by the students, chose the best and then conducted a kind of press conference with me. They chose well, basically leading me from point to point. “What’s your favorite memory?” Watching Chemo head off to school, every day!
Wydown Middle School just finished its new building and it might as well be an extension of its neighbor Washington University, so impressive is its architecture. But its real strength is the uncompromising commitment of Debra Solomon Baker and the “team” of teachers to digging deep roots in our social responsibility. The kids had a page of points to note as I talked, but the letters they wrote--to Chemo and to “my” other kids--were totally optional. Let me quote just a few.
“Dear child of Honduras,
First off, I hope you know that we love you! When you look up at the moon at night, it’s the same one that I see. In the end, we are all human beings with a heart.”
“I wish every human being in the world a good life and a chance to be safe. I have never lived scared in my life. If it was up to me, I would make everybody’s life better.”
“I feel kind of bad to live a life of being spoiled. Seeing your life really inspired me to change my ways and to go out of my way to help people.”
“Te prometo que si pudiera hacer algo por ti, yo lo haria. Asi que desde aqui te mando un saludo para que recuerdes que lo que importa no es lo que tienes; lo que importa es la fe que tengas.”
Selvidge Middle School in the Rockwood District is always a surprise. And Julie Buehler likes it that way! The surprise this time was that Julie was the only who actually ran my photos as a slideshow. I kept staring at the screen, “How did you do that?” “I don’t know!” Conspiracy theory! We filled the room with another teacher’s students as well and a number of the eighth graders remembered me from a previous visit, so they had even more questions than usual, about Chemo. I admit it, I like to get past the “big” picture (the poverty, the violence, the corruption, the drugs, the this and the that) and tell the stories of Chemo, Guillermo and Erlinda, Chepito, Maricela....
When Teresa Jorgen and I went to southwest Missouri to visit her former neighbors Hildur and Andy, who moved to the family farm there, I felt right at home. It was like another, even greener version of my Las Vegas. “Is this heaven?” “No, it’s Flat.” Such friendly, pleasant, salt-of-the-earth folk, who had gathered for the auction of three barnsful of farm tools and implements, now that Grandma and Grandpa had passed on. I of course paid special attention to the foods, including schnitzel, all “hand-crafted” by Hildur, originally from Germany. A busy lemonade stand was staffed by daughter Selma and her friends, and they were making a sign: “Lemonade for Hondrurs 1$.” “Whatever we make here, Miguel, is for you,” Hildur explained. I knew she’d do something like that! Last year, she held a bake sale for Honduras, made all the cookies, cakes, and breads herself. So I asked her if I could try to sell Chepito’s drawings. People admired the art, but they came for the auction, they didn’t have extra funds, so I only sold four. I gave others to Selma and her friends. (There’s another 120, if you’re interested!)
OK, not everything about the visit was heavenly. I ran over my computer! You see, I thought I had already put my backpack in the trunk of Teresa’s car when I started the engine and backed up. What was THAT? I grabbed the computer from the bag and, trembling like a leaf, started it up. Fortunately it’s a MacBook Pro in the solid aluminum shell. It went on! Everything was there, I even tried the Internet. It wasn’t till later that I noticed the hairline cracks all over the screen, multiplying even as I watched, and the dented bottom, among other things.
The Apple Store at West County was buzzing like a hajj, first day of the iPhone 5, but I fought my way to the Genius Bar, where they assessed the damages at $790, even with my AppleCare contract. (You can sure tell Steve Jobs is dead!) But I trusted in...God, I guess, and they sent it off to Texas. It was back in 48 hours, only (only!) $300. But, as my sister Barb, who is a computer genius herself, said, “Considering all the damage, Mike, you basically got a new computer for $300.” I love my sister!
I loved her best this time when she arranged a visit to our nephew Nick, the son of my late brother Bob. He’s in another rural Missouri town, Farmington, but this time it wasn’t heaven. Our destination was Farmington Correctional Center, where Nick is serving a six-year sentence. It used to be a state mental hospital; now, razor wire lines the old walls like tinsel, glistening in the sun. They have so many rules I could not take a picture, though Barb did get through in her flip-flops despite a warning on the wall. The “offenders,” as they’re called, sit in a green chair, all facing the same direction at tables for four in a large lunchroom, and the visitors are allowed a “light hug” arriving and departing, a 5-second kiss (“no open mouth”) for spouses. But there’s no limit on how much you can crank out of the vending machines, and Nick was hungry!
Nick, 25, looked great, and he sure smelled great, very clean! And he’s doing great, it seems. He’s in a program that sounds a lot like the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. Successful completion, which includes a substantial improvement in anger management as well as managing drug addiction, will take years off his sentence, along with reductions for “good behavior.” But when he’s “free,” he really has nowhere to go. Another nephew, my sister Nancy’s son Dan, who just graduated from Mizzou, is offering to get a place together. Nick could really use some good in his life!
Teresa’s nephew Bryan, 20, is a prisoner of a different sort, managing cerebral palsy. After an operation to straighten his legs, he started therapy at Ranken-Jordan. A fall bummed up his dad’s knee and a job at Maritz keeps his mom busy, so Teresa and I jumped in to take Bryan at 10:00 and pick him up at 4:00 every day. Just so you know how popular he is there, look at the video they made; Bryan appears in it at least three times, including the final, lingering shot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3ugjx2GJMU&feature=youtube_gdata_player
I had a sort of Parkway North re-union of former students from multiple years of my time there, converging from the four points of the compass, one after another. Former teachers, too. An abundance I never had before. I wanted to “schedule” even more, and next time I will!
As soon as I got back to Honduras, Elio and Mema celebrated my birthday at our favorite Chinese restaurant in Tegucigalpa. Angelica was waiting for me, too, at her little “food truck” in front of the Nanking Hotel. She asked about each one of you! or at least so it seemed.
Upon my return to Las Vegas, I was greeted with...a rainbow! Now, that’s a good sign, don’t you think? It makes a good symbol of everyone here enjoying the new photobook, as well as the colorful variety of clothes and things that were donated in the States.
One shirt was a donation even before it got down here, from “Labor of Love,” a fundraiser run for Micah House, where kids are saved from the mean streets of Tegucigalpa. I asked one of the organizers, Jeanette Sipp-White at Parkway South, for a “Small,” because I didn’t want it for myself. I wanted it for Dennis, the autistic boy in nearby Paraiso. He loves to run!
It’s been 40 days since Guillermo died, an interval marked here by another celebracion. Erlinda, Guillermo’s widow (boy! does THAT sound strange!) spoke for all of us when she said it seems like yesterday. “But I don’t see him dead. Every time I think of him, I see him alive, here with me if I’m cooking or sewing or talking, anything, not dead.” She had a recent appointment of her own in Tegucigalpa for her diabetes, so she made a point of telling them about their negligence in Guillermo’s chemotherapy that killed him. And not just him. “Miguel, they all died.” Guillermo had been in a big room (a holding pen, it turns out) with about 20 other cancer patients at San Felipe Hospital. “Remember the man with one leg? He died. The young man who had a motorcycle? He died. The one next to Guillermo who kept kidding the nurses? He died.” She went through the list. Well, it’s a cancer ward, and there’s rarely anything resembling “early detection” here in Honduras, but, still, between the cancer and the chemo, they didn’t have a chance!
Now, how do I put this? Erlinda nervously asked me in private if more help were still possible. I am even more nervous, asking you! At least one dear friend in St. Louis raised the question on her own, and committed herself to a donation every paycheck for “Guillermo.” Friends were so generous with me in the States, but the challenge is still there, because the need is still there. I’m so sorry.
My heart filled up just thinking about seeing Chemo again, and he did not disappoint. “Where is it?” He meant the “official” jersey of the World Cup Honduras team that I promised him. They qualified the same night, at virtually the same minute, as the Cardinals went up on the Dodgers in L.A. for a Happy Flight to St. Louis. The screams and horns and blasts and caravans of fans outside the Nanking Hotel in Tegucigalpa seemed, in my mind, to be celebrating both events. Schools shut down the next day, anyone who could took the day off work, fast-food chains gave away Whoppers or whatever they sell, and stores had 50% off sales. So I got the shirt at the “exclusive” dealer in such merchandise, Diunsa. Oh my God, the place looked like the last minutes of the Titanic, jostling crowds dragging, carrying, throwing everything--mattresses, appliances, big boxes of things you only ever see at such sales, I tripped over someone’s life-size plastic reindeer for Christmas (almost knocked its damn antlers off!)--into the fray. Fortunately, the jersey sales had their own register, so I got out alive.
Or he meant the “extra” laptop I brought back from St. Louis. Somehow it had become inevitably his. Kathy Blundon, who teaches at Parkway West, gave me two of her gently used Apples. The newer model I gave to Lily, Elvis and Dora’s daughter who is teaching and studying in Tegucigalpa. A godsend! The older one I got spruced up by former student Adam Stirrat, tech genius enough to have been recognized by his grateful colleagues at Ladue High School as “Teacher of the Year.”
Or he meant the “tacos,” that is, soccer shoes I also got at 50% off. Now he looks like a pro.
So you see, he WAS happy to see me.
And I miss you already!
Love, Miguel
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
REPORTING FROM ST. LOUIS--SEPTEMBER 2013
REPORTING FROM ST. LOUIS
I’m baaack! I’m here in the Lou till October 15, 2013:
at Teresa Jorgen’s house (731 Simmons Ave. Kirkwood 63122 (314-966-5782);
my cell: 314-210-5303
No open house scheduled, just open arms!
In “GUILLERMO IS AN ANGEL NOW,” I told the story of Guillermo’s valiant final days. The funeral was just as brave, as celebratory as his son’s wedding, thanks mostly to his wife Erlinda. She kept everyone focused on our faith in the Resurrection. “We’re going to sing the whole way to the cemetery.” There was a huge crowd as we wended our way behind the pickup carrying the casket. When folks started wailing, and even the oldest son fainting dead away, Erlinda stood at the edge of the grave like a Joan of Arc, quietly repeating the meaning of this event: “We all must go the same route, death is part of life, but as Saint Paul teaches us, while we are alive, we live in the Lord, and when we die, we die in the Lord. We are always in God’s hands, and God will not abandon us but raise us up to eternal life.” She just kept talking in a normal tone of voice till all was calm and everyone could hear and understand. I hope you don’t imagine her a woman in denial, clinging to religion only to assuage unbearable pain. Hers is a strength born of a lifetime of fighting for herself, from the first years of their marriage when Guillermo was an abusive drunk and Erlinda finally learned to stand up for herself. You don’t raise 12 kids--6 boys and 6 girls--by faking it. She’s an artist, too, a poet, performing her works at public events like graduations. She instilled in her kids a sense of style and presence that makes them attentive to others‘ needs. She opened the path of grace and conversion for Guillermo, who thanked God and his wife with his years of service as a lay pastor in Paraiso. At the wake, his best friend Godo (Guillermo died in Godo’s arms) told the whole story of Guillermo’s spiritual development into a kind of prophet. Indeed, Erlinda, who commented every day in the novenario on the scripture readings, told how intense and intimate their final days together were. “They killed me, with the chemo, they killed me. I’m so sorry, my dear wife.” “I know, I know, my dear husband, and I’m here, I’m here.”
The next day, a valiant woman, Santos, one of Guillermo’s parishioners, as you might say, died in Paraiso. At 56, she was even younger than Guillermo, 65, but she succumbed to the complications of diabetes, like her sister Petrona, whose death in 2011 united the community as never before. Did she wait for Guillermo, to show her the way? Her funeral drew an even bigger crowd, now that we were all moving in the same direction already.
So two novenarios played out in tandem, 3 p.m. in Paraiso for Santos, 4:30 p.m. in Las Vegas, our “little flock,” as Jesus called his disciples, crossing back and forth across the bridge that connects our villages. Then the bridge collapsed! Partially, that is. Unrelenting rains and huge floating trunks of trees battered at least one concrete strut off its base and put a big wrinkle in the roadway. Folks ventured across anyway, first on foot, then motorcycles, and finally pickups and cars. No one wanted to be the first bus or heavy truck to tempt their fate, but then they brought in an enormous bulldozer with a shovel attached to pull apart the clog of debris, and nothing happened, no more cracking or collapsing, so I think we’ll be using this bridge a long time yet. After all, this bridge was built in 2005 to replace the bridge that Hurricane Mitch had downed back in 1998.
September 15 is Honduras Independence Day, and for the first time Chemo marched in the “peloton,” or formation. A block of 55 students trained and practiced all week under the direction of Profe Fefo, a military veteran himself, who imbues the kids with a sense of discipline and camaraderie. Now, I heard someone complain, “These are children, not soldiers, they shouldn’t be ‘militarized.’” OK, fair enough, but maybe soldiers should do more marching just for the fun of it, instead of a more dreadful purpose. In thanking Fefo, I teared up, reminding him that we first met when he was even younger than Chemo, and I was just so grateful that someone had enough faith in Chemo that he could accomplish the tricky routines. We borrowed the long-sleeved shirt from Dora’s son Tito, the dark glasses from her brother Oscar, the necktie was a relic from Pablito and Chepito’s First Communion; we had to buy the “boina,” or cap, and new shiny black shoes. Another nay-sayer says, “See, it’s just commerce, exploiting the poor.” Yes, of course, the poor we have with us always, but for one day, if your child can shine like a star, maybe the future looks brighter.
Topping off the novenarios, Lucas was born to MariEla, who is the daughter of MariCela, who is the daughter of Guillermo and Erlinda--the first great-grandchild of the family! “Lucas” was a nickname Guillermo was known by. Everybody doing fine. We thought, ah, too bad Guillermo did not live to see his bis-nieto; then we thought, no, he smoothed the way, Lucas to Lucas. We can’t stop smiling. You, too, I bet, for all the good you have done for this family!
Love, Miguel
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
GUILLERMO IS AN ANGEL NOW
GUILLERMO IS AN ANGEL NOW
Monday, September 9, was Chemo’s 19th birthday, but we spent most of the day watching Guillermo die.
His timing was perfect; he lived to celebrate the wedding on Saturday of his son Isaac, big celebration back at the house, full of guests, Guillermo, though bed-ridden, beaming. Out-of-towners left on Sunday, only to get urgent calls early Monday from Erlinda, Guillermo’s wife, that the end was near. Everybody headed back “home,” some arriving from San Pedro Sula on the late bus about 8:30 p.m., minutes before Guillermo breathed his last, just time for an intense farewell. He died surrounded by most of his 12 children (Dunia lives in Spain), and their children, and in-laws.
Let’s back up a little, because this news must come as a shock after Guillermo’s “miracle” operation for stomach cancer that seemed to set him firmly on the path to full recovery. But follow-up evaluation and treatment were delayed for weeks by his doctor’s “vacation.” No one here noticed! Guillermo was happy as a lark; he even started preaching again on Sundays in Paraiso. When he finally did “check in,” the doctor panicked or something and huge bouts of radiation and then chemo were begun. Were they making up for lost time? No one ever saw a crowded schedule like this, especially for someone supposedly “cancer-free.” Almost 40 days of radiation (and you could see the blackened patch on his back where the radiation burned through), tailing into chemo gone wild. Erlinda says they overdosed on the chemo; after 4 treatments in a row, with Guillermo weak but still talking, walking, and eating, somebody apparently misunderstood the regimen and ordered another round of 4 chemos right away. But Erlinda is not blaming anybody. “It was meant to be.” That’s just what my former student, now Dr. Justin Diedrich, told me his grandmother used to say in Yiddish: “b’shert.”
So Guillermo came home too weak to do anything but throw up, as I reported in the last CASA. A brief respite came when I finally found the absurdly expensive “Modifical” that had been prescribed. (I can’t imagine many Hondurans without fantastic friends like you who could even afford such a thing!) After just two of the tiniest pills you ever saw, Guillermo’s stomach calmed, he slept 14 hours straight, and awoke with a smile--and an appetite, ready for the wedding of his son. But I guess it was too little too late. After the glow of the wedding, the darkness. Erlinda was his--and our--light throughout. No hysterics for her, her faith measured in service as she prepared us lunch during the death-watch, and later coffee and rolls. With help, of course. You know how people will say, “If there’s anything I can do....” Well, here, no one asks that question: they just DO.
In his very last moments, such a crowd around Guillermo, all I could see were his toes, twitching little flashes of life, till they finally stilled, like Tom Hanks’ nervous hand in “Saving Private Ryan.” Then the cry went up, a howling and screaming, a couple faintings, desperate hugs, a swirl of bodies. I’m lost in a tumble of thoughts myself, when Erlinda calmly makes her way over to me: “Miguel, we need your chairs.” Duh! I should have thought of that myself! The same chairs I had just loaned for the overflow crowd at the church two days before. (Actually, 11 couples united in that grand Mass.)
As folks settled in the for all-night wake, a celebración was planned, scripture readings, preaching, etc. Again Erlinda: “We’re going to sing, aren’t we? Guillermo had so many songs he loved.” And she started ticking them off by number from the hymnal. Well, Guillermo couldn’t carry a tune, but he did love to sing. Now he’s an angel, in the heavenly choir.
Love, Miguel
Saturday, August 31, 2013
ESTA ES SU CASA--SEPTEMBER 2013
ESTA ES SU CASA--SEPTEMBER 2013
“BENDICION”
THE BEACON spruced up last month’s CASA:
https://www.stlbeacon.org/#!/content/32153/voices_dulick_manuel_073113
See you soon!
I’ll be in St. Louis Sep 17 - Oct 15, at Teresa Jorgen’s:
731 Simmons Ave. Kirkwood, MO 63122 (314-966-5782);
also available by my cell phone 314-210-5303.
At this point, I hesitate to say anything definitive about Guillermo. Cancer is a monster, no matter how you engage it. But chemo is a WMD, too. Guillermo’s back home, now, in Las Vegas, emaciated, shriveled, and weak as a pillow case after 35 days of radiation and about 6 rounds of chemo. (I just couldn’t take a picture of him like that; the photo included here is BEFORE all the treatments.) For all of you who have carried him with prayer and lifted him up in your kind thoughts, thank you. And for your donations that have made his travel, lodging, meds, and treatments possible, words cannot match your generosity. Every time Guillermo and his wife Erlinda reach the end of their rope, I hammer my way into my balky Yahoo mail and see that someone has thrown us another line.
His next appointment is September 16, with another one scheduled for September 30 and yet another October 15. Erlinda and Guillermo are so discouraged they really don’t want any more. “Miguel, we’re done.” Maybe in the States you have more confidence in the ultra-modern “health center” for your monthly dose, but it’s a whole other experience to trundle six or seven hours in a bus Indiana Jones wouldn’t ride to a place that could serve as a set for “The Conjuring.” You get discouraged sometimes. I have seen dear friends on Caring Bridge struggle with and master the cancer anaconda and write about it with almost celestial eloquence. But it gives me the chills. Facing death, how do you let a raft of strangers--doctors, nurses, technicians, not to mention machines--get involved with the most pressing intimacies of your life? I guess that’s absurd, huh? My own son is named Chemo! Of course, it’s short for Anselmo, but every time I say it or see it now, I want to scream.
No doubt, Guillermo will resume the fight, and with your help, hope is re-born.
Taking my own medicine, you might say, I swallowed hard and paid my $400 light bill. I was in mourning the rest of the day. It’s a huge mistake; they are charging me for months that I already paid, but I decided I better get it off the books before I go to the States, and I just hope that once they see the error of their ways they will cut me a deal on future bills. I have gone round and round with the electric company, and, like Guillermo’s cancer, there seems to be no end. But I couldn’t have paid a dime without a little help from my friends--you know who you are!--who somehow went above and beyond, even to the point of throwing good money after bad. Thank you!
Manuel keeps improving, after his grievous brush with death following epileptic seizures. He’s actually resumed his visits to my house. I anticipated his return, after I saw how hungrily he ate Chemo’s leftovers when I went up to Terrero Blanco where Manuel lives, and I had the makings for--can I say this without laughing?--spaghetti Bolognese on hand. Oh, it’s just pasta doused with a little tomato paste/sauce and a good handful of “carne molida” (ground beef). And a two-liter soda. I had to take a picture quick before he devoured it. But he did not eat it all, so I packed it up to take home for later. (He ate it as soon as he got home, I learned later.) When he didn’t come back down to Las Vegas for about a week, I went up again to visit, this time with spaghetti and chicken. He looked really good, and he sang and joked more than ever. These hikes just knock me out, so I had to laugh when he showed up at my house only a half hour after I got home! Still hungry. Manuel’s photo graces the cover of my new photobook, “Dios Es Amor” (‘God Is Love’), which I just uploaded to Apple. You’ll see it in St. Louis!
Speaking of Chemo, he’s on life-support, academically speaking. His latest grades seemed hopeless, though I was not going to shame him or humiliate him, until Profe Flor told me he does not even go to class anymore! He sort of hides out in the far corner of the campus, virtually invisible under some shady trees. Nevertheless, Profe Horacio, co-principal with Flor, made Chemo a proposal: “Chemo, if you pass the next two quarters, we’ll pass you for the year.” So he’s actually applying himself a little more! It’s his last chance.
Don Ramiro, who celebrated his 100th birthday a couple months ago (see the June CASA), died peacefully last week. This was one funeral, including another home Mass with Padre Manuel, that satisfied the soul, celebrating such a full life. The novenario was nine days of conversations, everyone eager to participate with stories and memories, rather than a lengthy mourning.
Right on cue, as it were, arrived Ramiro’s neighbor Paola’s 100th birthday. She is weak but still attentive and alert. And another Mass with Padre Manuel! He said the other day that nowadays people only believe what they see, so, “We try to be everywhere.” And he and Padre Jaime are doing a great job of it! But Manuel will be stretched a little thin the next six months while Jaime is in Cuba for final formation as a Jesuit. Paola’s family is a church in itself; her children and grandchildren and even great-grandchildren are everywhere, too, as teachers, delegados, catechists, Youth Group, you name it, preaching the faith “in season and out of season,” as St. Paul prescribed.
Padre Jaime’s send-off was August 24 at the annual all-parish gathering that concludes the “Month of the Family.” Las Vegas’ population tripled, at least for a few hours, as we celebrated with a Mass, various performances, and of course lots of tasty food. Mindful of his departure, no doubt, Jaime preached from the heart and performed a couple songs himself. “IMPACTO,” the theater wing of the Youth Group, did a mime piece they had tracked down on YouTube, and Doricell led an all-girl band in a catchy song her father Elvis composed for the occasion.
A much smaller group but just as enthusiastic gathered for Elio’s 63rd birthday August 28. I made a special trip to Tegucigalpa to attend. I wanted to take Chemo, but I thought I better not ask for another three-day “permiso” just after they promised him success at the school. I compensated by bringing him back one of these cheap iPod Nano knock-offs they sell on the streets for about 5 bucks. Years ago, before Elio had so many grandchildren, these parties were a little more formal. Now they are free-for-alls, and the kids take the lead. Of course, the festivities end a little earlier now too, bedtime on a school night, you know!
As I have noted before, one of my proudest accomplishments here was to break the habit folks had of derogatory nicknames, such as “Mudo” for Juan Carlos or “Mongolito” for Ery. Now I’m starting a new trend, let’s see how it goes. Children customarily ask a “Bendicion” (‘blessing’) from their godparents, uncles and aunts, and parents, any adult relative, really. The response is “Bendiga” (short for ‘God bless you’). Well, my variation is to ask the KIDS for a blessing. I got the idea from Pope Francis, who surprised the adoring crowds in Vatican Square, eager for the blessing of the new pope, by asking first for THEIR blessing, and you may remember how deeply he bowed his head to receive it. In its full form, the blessing includes placing your hand (preferably both hands) on the child’s head. It’s catching on a little, at least among Chemo’s family, and Maricela’s, too. Don’t be surprised if I spring it on YOU, too!
But you have already so richly blessed me and all of us here that my head is always bowed.
Love, Miguel
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
ESTA ES SU CASA--AUGUST 2013
ESTA ES SU CASA--AUGUST 2013
RENEWAL
THE BEACON “crowned” my last newsletter in memorable fashion.
I’ll be in St. Louis September 17 to October 15. I would love invitations to speak at your school!
Well, now, don't make the same mistake Julio Burgos did when he heard that Guillermo was getting "chemicals." He thought Guillermo had died and was getting embalmed! "Gotta bring him back for the funeral." In fact, Guillermo is not getting "quimio" (chemotherapy) at all, but the gentler version of radiation. He's just finished the first week of 35 daily treatments. I saw him and Erlinda this morning at the out-patient clinic at San Felipe Hospital in Tegucigalpa. He's in good spirits, in fact they both are, and that has a lot to do with YOU. They thank you all over again for your renewed commitment to their health. And I include both, because Erlinda will miss her own appointment in Progreso next week, so I gave her some money for her diabetes medicine Metformina. They are staying with family in barrio Santa Fe here in the capital. Guillermo will be re-evaluated midway through this cycle of treatment, so keep up the good work! I am piecing together your donations as soon as they come in, and meanwhile the lovely quilt of your prayers and kind thoughts is one size fits ALL.
I'm grateful for your help, too, with my $400 light bill. The latest bill was normal (about $50), so maybe the Electric Company will come to their senses and admit their mistake. If not, it's lights out for me. I'll have to get a job at Walmart. Just kidding...I hope.
I came to Tegucigalpa to get my computer repaired. The "Superdrive" keeps spitting out any disc I put in. Apparently hauling a laptop for hours on end on a bouncing bus over dusty roads takes its toll. Fortunately, it's covered by AppleCare, but while they get the new part from Miami, I'll be limping along, computer-wise for at least two weeks. God only knows what this CASA looks like on your screen. I'm patching it together at a cybercafe on a computer with a broken space bar.
But this letter is about hope!
When Pope Francis spent last week in Brazil at the World Youth Day, I think a lot of us got inspired all over again about taking our faith "outside," where the poor are. To serve the poor, to live with the poor, to share our life together, a mutual exchange that transcends any "religious" differences or distinctions. The other day, rumors were flying that Manuel, the young man I mentioned before as our 'poster child' for poverty in Las Vegas, had died suddenly. Epileptic and mentally retarded, not to mention the victim-son of Renan, an unregenerate drunk, he could go at any time, you'd say. Folks were gathering for an evening Mass, and everyone was asking me about him. I guess I was very happy to know how many people were concerned, and that they felt I had some special relationship with Manuel. I called the only two phone numbers I had for Terrero Blanco, where Manuel lives, and got no answer. The weird thing is, a group of us had just spent all morning in Terrero Blanco at a church meeting, and no one said a word about Manuel. And I, old and decrepit, was too worn out from the hike even to stop by his house. But now I burst into action. I spotted a couple kids from Terrero Blanco and asked what they knew. Nothing. But did they have a cell phone they could call someone? Word came back that Manuel was in "agonia." When no one came during Mass or afterwards to ring the funeral bell, I thought at least he's still alive, and I would go up to Terrero Blanco in the morning, since by now it was dark--and dangerous.
Next morning, I was getting ready to go when Manuel's grandfather Pilo comes down my street. It seems that last night, Oracio, a teacher at the school who has a nice truck, went up to Terrero Blanco to get Manuel and bring him to Pilo's house in Las Vegas. I was not sure what I would see, but when I got there, Manuel was moving, awake, even taking a little soup. Maybe he had a little stroke or something. He could not stand or walk without a lot of help. He could only respond about once every five minutes to questions. I gave the family some money, but not even Oracio was convinced that they would take proper care of Manuel.
A few days later Manuel was back in Terrero Blanco, and when I saw Chemo's supper in the fridge untouched from the previous night, and a cool, overcast day, I had my "sign," and I set off. A dear friend of mine served as a chaplain at an old folks home, and taught me that even persons who seem totally out of it can still sing, and when one old lady pulled him near to whisper in his ear, she was reciting the "Our Father." Manuel was sort of nested in a filthy bed, but he managed to sit up and enjoy the food I had brought, along with a cold soda. His sister and sister-in-law are helping take care of him, and a younger brother Dennis. And some neighbors check in as well. And then he sang. "God is here and He loves me. He sees me in the streets and comes to visit me." I actually think he might have been inventing that one! Four songs, actually, each one at least twice. And when I tried the "Our Father" deal, he picked it right up. Otherwise, he barely said anything, just gazed with wide eyes. His father Renan was "fishing," they said. Good thing I didn't see him.I woulda made HIM sing, ya know what I mean....
Three big events related to school kept everybody busy. Another round of 600 nacatamales for a fundraiser. I hated to see the women work so hard at it, but they voted for it, so I did my best to get supplies and then visit each of the three groups about four times apiece as they labored all day and into the night to fill their quota. Another big success.
The Day of Lempira, the heroic native who resisted the Spanish invasion over 500 years ago, was celebrated July 20 in Nueva Palmira. Because of the many schools participating, only the top two students from each grade were invited. Well, that left Chemo out! The boys dress up like warriors, the girls like princesses. But for me anyway, the highlight was Hermana Pilar, a nun from Spain who has visited us ever since Hurricane Mitch in 1998. She has not been here for several years, so I was eager to get a photo of her with Eli, the little boy whose life she saved when he was almost dead from malnutrition, a two-year-old at the time that practically fit in your two cupped hands. This day, he was Lempira!
Then Earth Day the next weekend in Carrizal. This time, everybody was invited, if you could afford the bus fare! Chemo definitely wanted to go to this, especially when I agreed to pay for, as he put it, "two girls I'm friends with." This celebration of how we're all so worried about the Earth, 'cause you know it's in "agonia," and we're all going to work together to save it, involves competitions, in costumes, paintings, "maquetas" (models), and above all in song. Only problem is, the losers throw fits, as one school did when their performance got Second Place. They wouldn't even accept their prizes. Sorry, Earth, looks like you're on your own! But, really, they should have rejoiced for the winner, a terrific sixth-grader from Guachipilin who wrote his own song and American-Idol'ed the heck out of it.
I have to include here (partly because I don't know how to remove it on this borrowed computer!) a beautiful picture of Virginia Ramos, on her birthday, from when Chemo and I visited Morazan the beginning of July. I've known her and her family since my very first visit to Honduras in 1977, and I swear she never seems to age!
Little Fernanda is having birthdays, too, and her daddy Jalmar and mommy Delia invited me to the party for her third one to take pictures. You will have to photoshop a smile on her face, because she's still not so sure about the protocol.
Last year at this time, we were planning my brother John's funeral, a perfect day in Forest Park at a picnic ground near his beloved Muny. Apparently, John is still leaving "signs" of his presence there. If you go as the season of shows comes to an end, you might buy a box of popcorn--and share it. That was John's first job in high school, and he may still be "hawking" his wares.
Thank you for your presence, wherever you are, wherever I am.
Love, Miguel
Saturday, July 6, 2013
ESTA ES SU CASA--JULY 2013
ESTA ES SU CASA--JULY 2013
ONE FROM THE HEART
The Beacon polished up last month’s report:
https://www.stlbeacon.org/#!/content/31229/voices_dulick_poor_060313
Sunday, June 16, was a day full of promise. In the morning, a special Mass with 15 boys and girls making their First Communion. In the afternoon, a new session of about 20 couples already in committed relationships for years, now preparing for the “sacrament” of matrimony.
Little did I realize the chasm that would open at our feet, leaving the whole town staring into the abyss. As the couples group was breaking up, and I love to just sort of sit in, the smiles and relaxed touches suddenly met confusion outside. But I blithely walked along till Tala’s stricken face stopped me. She answered the question I did not even have to ask. “Tres muertos.” Three dead, Chimon, his wife Santos, and their grandson David, 17, murdered, shot up in an ambush near San Antonio, about an hour from Las Vegas. Chimon is always on the move with his big truck, packed with building supplies or enormous bags of grain and coffee, trips to San Pedro every week, usually 3 or 4 extra “hands” riding in the bed to help with the loading and unloading. This time, only one, Ery, my neighbor with Down Syndrome. That’s what Tala was trying to tell me! “No one knows where Ery is!” Did he get away? Did they go after him? Is he dead, too? If Ery is gone, too, cry havoc....
For one very long hour, we held our breath, till word came that Ery had been picked up by the late bus, due in Las Vegas about 6:30 p.m. Min’s bus, first one out at 5:00 in the morning, to San Pedro and back the same, long day. Every time there is a death, I discover more connections. When the very first person who clasped and held Ery off the bus was Maria Juana Vianney, one of the leaders of our parents association, I learned Ery is her godson.
They brought the bodies back the next day; they arrived in three stately caskets, their heads heavily capped. The truck was recovered, too, but I was relieved to find its cab covered with an ample tarp, to conceal, as I had heard, the splashes of blood and brain and scalp. That tragic line-up of three caskets seemed almost absurd, a wicked joke. How much can you take? You just felt helpless, moving from one to another and back again, each an incomprehensible sight. Did this really happen? That was the theme on FACEBOOK, too, as word got around to Las Vegans around the country and in the States.
I had just seen Chimon a couple days ago, still limping heavily from a broken leg when he fell asleep at the wheel last year and crashed; he just wasn’t patient enough to let it heal right, and ever in good spirits, his lame walk from a distance looked more like a dance. Santos I barely knew, but her hospitality was legendary. David was a big kid, and he looked huge in his casket, so cramped in there I was sure he would get up and stretch.
David was a prominent member of the Youth Group, so it was no surprise that Padre Manuel arrived at the house in an early-morning rain. He held an impromptu prayer service. The gospel reading of the day just happened to be from the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus says, “You have heard it said, ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,’ but I say offer no resistance to evildoers.” Padre Manuel, who as a priest in El Salvador, must have given this sermon a hundred times before, reminded us that violence, revenge, hatred, is not the way of resolving conflicts. It was fitting and passionate, but afterward it occurred to me he had not mentioned “resurrection.” Hope, yes, but unspecified. Later that day, Manuel offered Mass in the front yard of the house for a large crowd, including Ery moving along the edges, where I sought him out to hold his hand during the “Our Father.” Again, Manuel gave a powerful defense of love and forgiveness to break the cycle of violence, but still no “resurrection.” I thought, am I the odd one? It’s such a natural theme at times like this that I wondered if Manuel was just determined not to spout cliches. Indeed, I questioned myself, do I take this article of faith for granted, so automatic a comfort? Do I actually believe it, after all?
By the time it was my turn to preach at the novenario a couple days later, I had searched my soul and searched the scriptures and re-found my faith, starting from scratch, you might say. So I leapt into the resurrection like a cliff-diver. I hoped I was not just indulging “my thing,” but this family and our whole community was down for the count. As Martin Luther King said when he nearly despaired after so many death threats, bending over a cup of coffee at midnight, “I discovered then that religion had to become real to me, and I had to know God for myself.” This was real! And a couple days later, when I got another chance, I realized no one had mentioned Ery yet. So I leapt on that, too. As best as we can figure, the killers let Ery go because he cannot talk. His “handicap” saved his life! And really ours, too. So there’s the caution for the “quality-of-life” philosophers who deny the dignity of human diminishment. But Ery is far from safe himself. Maria Juana especially is keeping close watch on him, from medical attention (“injections” of B Vitamins, a sort of cure-all around here) to sitting and “talking” and loving touches, and comfort food, too. I guess we are pretty primitive, compared to professional help in the States. (Is there even such a specialty as “Down Syndrome psychologist”?)
At the regular Sunday Mass a week later, Padre Jaime also did not mention resurrection. He was certainly passionate enough. “If you hate, you do not believe in Christ! If you kill, you do not believe in Christ! If you lie or gossip, you do not believe in Christ!” But he seemed to blame us for the violence, with the whole family sitting right in front of him. “You let me know if you’re going to keep this up, because if you are, I won’t be your pastor any more!” I don’t know. In such emptiness, I suppose I would opt for the “Comfort ye my people” approach, the way Handel’s “Messiah” starts. I felt like saying, and I did say later at the novenario, if Padre Jaime doubts our faith, let him come to the novenario!
It really was something, the novena of mourning. Usually, after the initial wake, I get most of my chairs back. This was the first novenario I’ve seen where they kept adding chairs and benches and church pews every day. The whole nine days were a witness to our faith, Catholics and evangelicals alike. The thought occurred to me, there are three dead, there should be three novenarios, one after the other. But there are limits! The family, though much consoled, were completely exhausted. Every day they prepared refreshments for us, and on the last day, platefuls of tasty food. Padre Manuel offered a final Mass at the house for the occasion. Still no resurrection; in fact, you could tell that the depth of the tragedy was getting to him, too. “With this Mass, we finish the mourning, and tomorrow we pick up our lives again and move forward,” but neither his voice nor his demeanor was convincing. I wanted to tell him about the resurrection! But I felt more like crying than ever. As a gentle rain fell and we huddled for shelter, Manuel said, “These are God’s tears,” a metaphor he denied when it rained at the first Mass (“This rain means life!”). The beautiful thing was that the rain kept us all together even after the Mass ended, just talking and thinking and finishing up the leftovers, as if no one ever wanted to leave, till even the family stopped “waiting” on us and just sat down, really for the first time in nine days. It was a liturgy all its own, till at last the weather cleared and stars came out and folks headed for home.
The next morning, another lovely custom: coronation, that is, decorating or “crowning” the grave with all the flowers, remembrances, and settings that have accumulated during the novenario. The tomb was stunning; perhaps befitting a man in the construction business, it is a work of art, a spacious bed of concrete overlaid with emerald-green ceramic tiles, and three metal plaques, each etched with photo, dates, and biblical citation. Ana, Chimon and Santos’s very capable daughter, had asked me, “You know, we’re pretty ignorant about the Bible, could you suggest some quotations?” Well, I had to answer that! “Any family that has as much love as this one does, and shares it so freely, is NOT ignorant about the Bible! I can suggest some words, but YOU are living the message!”
You almost hope that, if you really dwell on this death, these deaths, somehow it will stem the tide and hold off another onslaught. But even our catastrophe was just a drop in the bucket of a country swimming in massacres. A few days before, a young policeman, his wife, and baby were killed in a town some miles away. A few days after, in another town, four killed and ten wounded at a church service! Escaping the violence has become the number one reason--not economics--Hondurans give for braving the gangs and deserts along the border to get into the United States, 100,000 a year.
So that’s why I cringed at the thought of Chemo joining the soccer players for a game in San Pedro Sula between Las Vegans from here and Las Vegans working or studying in San Pedro. “If you go, Chemo, I’m going with you.” It was the start of a mid-semester break at school, and Chemo hadn’t had much “fun” this year, so we went, my finger on the trigger, as it were.
Actually, the expense was the really scary thing about the trip. Can I just interrupt myself to put my cards on the table? I just got socked with a $400 light bill (it’s usually no more than $50) and I can’t pay it. It’s cut the legs out from under me, as far as helping anyone, which means I’ve lost my reason for being here. Everyone--except the Electric Company--says it’s a huge mistake, and I’m trying desperately to rectify the situation, but you know nobody robs you more efficiently than the government, so I’m scared to death. And that’s just the tip of iceberg. Whenever possible, I use a credit card, so I’ll “never” have to pay. So I’ve done a pretty good job of robbing myself! It’s a problem of my own making, obviously, since I give everything away, a habit I learned from some very excellent people, including my sister Nancy and the new Pope, following Francis of Assisi’s example, which is not helping my situation! I thought I could wait till I got to the States to beg, but I better get going, as unseemly as I may appear. Can you help? Just know your prayers and lovingkindness are as tangible as any donation, since my spirits are as low as my funds.
Anyway, victim of a misguided austerity, I refused to buy Chemo some soccer shoes, called “tacos.” So righteous I am. But once the game started, and I saw him on the sidelines, I said, “Let’s get you some shoes!” I knew on a busy Saturday afternoon in Choloma (a suburb of San Pedro), we’d find tacos pretty quickly, even though the first person we asked pointed unhelpfully to a stand across the street offering “Tacos, Enchiladas, Burritos.” No! We need SHOES! A few short blocks in and out put us in front of Oliver’s Shoe Store, and twenty minutes later we were back at the stadium.
Chemo played the whole second half, and he was so thrilled just to get into the game, but of course he had to keep his game face on, you know, lest someone think this was just child’s play. Meanwhile, I snapped enough pictures to fill a book.
When our bus spent the whole next day in the shop getting its brakes fixed (details, details!), Chemo and I finally opted for a bus to Morazan, to visit Fermin and Maria and family, which was our vacation plan anyway; we just showed up a day early. There we spent the rest of the week, and we loved it! But I did not have my computer, so that’s why this CASA is delayed till now. It’s OK, because, except for the last couple paragraphs, I didn’t want to write it anyway. You may feel the same way about reading it.....
But you are my life!
Miguel
Sunday, June 2, 2013
SAVE THE DATES! (SEP 17-OCT 15). ESTA ES SU CASA--JUNE 2013
SAVE THE DATES! I’ll be in St. Louis September 17 to October 15, 2013.
It took 10 years I guess, but I finally had enough “frequent-flyer” miles (35,000) to get a free trip! I was pretty nervous as I picked my way through the United (nee Continental) website, and when I hit a snag (“You need 14,000 more miles”), I was ready to call. I had already stocked my cell phone with extra minutes. A wonderful agent named Patricia quickly assessed the situation and said I if came one day earlier my free seat would be available. So I’ll come to St. Louis without an $800 deficit (the price of a ticket) before I even arrive.
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ESTA ES SU CASA--JUNE 2013
CHILI TODAY, HOT TAMALE
THE BEACON made a nice thing of my last report; take a look:
https://www.stlbeacon.org/#!/content/30770/voices_dulick_fiesta_050713
Actually, I’m not sure I’ll get a big welcome in St. Louis if I come with my hand out again. Because I have a lot of deficits! All three of my credit cards are gasping for breath, and my bank account is running on fumes. I had to crawl to my bank in Yoro three times this month, just to eke out a little more credit. I get my monthly pension from Parkway, of course, but I’m like Oliver Twist. “Please, sir, I want some more.”
What happened? Just look at Chemo’s family. So often I see on FACEBOOK parents flummoxed and floundering with a sick child. Soon they are swathed in Like’s and Comment’s, followed by updates from a miraculous health-care system. Albita, Chemo’s 2-year-old niece, and Keila, his 2-year-old cousin, were recently like a tagteam, each getting sicker than the other. An adult might weather the storm, but when it’s a baby, you panic. So off we go to the best doctor in the area, Dr. Wilmer Landa in Victoria. What am I supposed to say? “I can’t afford it”? Then Dania, Keila’s aunt, kept getting sicker, scaring me pretty good when she could barely move, her legs as heavy as lead. An alarmist I guess, I thought she might be experiencing the onset of MS. Turns out it was a heavy dose of tonsillitis, and again Dr. Wilmer saved the day, and emptied my wallet.
But the poster child for the Las Vegas run of “Les Miserables” has to be Manuel from Terrero Blanco. Son of the inveterate drunk Renan, this poor child of God lost his mother Maria Enemecia to cancer in February (see the March CASA). He comes down the mountain every day now, to my house, mourning his mother; mentally retarded and epileptic, he can barely express, or contain, himself. “Miguel, look at me. My mother died. I miss her.” Even the Phenobarbital I keep him supplied with can’t stop the seizures anymore. I’m pretty much at a loss myself. Every day he needs something, a flashlight, new boots, a machete, always money for food. Dorothy Day, who loved the poor to the point of sainthood, warned us do-gooders that the poor can wear you out. One day, I got so annoyed with Manuel that I pushed him out the door. Like Lennie in “Of Mice and Men,” he instinctively raised the broken blade of his machete, and he might have killed me, but I grabbed him and hugged him, till we both calmed down. I wept like Simon Peter when he denied Jesus, and swore to myself I’d never “deny” Manuel again.
Let’s just say, if I sold my house, I’d break even. That’s what I tell kids who pester me every day for “provision” and every night for a soda. “I need my money for emergencies!” But when poverty itself is an emergency, it’s hard to graph the triage. I guess I’m like James Tyrone in “Long Day’s Journey into Night” crying “poor house” all the time till he poisons every relationship in his whole family. After all, I asked for this, and after the way help poured in for Guillermo--who you are STILL helping as he gets ready for another post-op check-up--I just sound ungrateful.
But I have been thinking about a fund raiser. The artist-formerly-known-as-Chepito, who now goes by “Jose,” is still churning out the drawings. What are they worth? I might follow the example of Maude Frickert, a character created by the late, great Jonathan Winters, selling greeting cards. “They cost $10,000; that way I only have to sell ONE.” Just kidding!
I’ve been getting lessons in fund raising in my role as president of the Junta Directiva, the officers of the parents association at the school. In fact, raising money is our only job description, I’d say. I had thought some ideas might be discussed or issues, but the problems are much more concrete, in fact, the problems ARE concrete, and canaletas, and zinc, etc., for the two new classrooms under construction. So we meet to promote “activities,” to raise money. I call the meetings, but I’m really more like a silent partner than a president, since I’m clueless. And they understand that; when I wanted a picture of the Junta, no one even suggested, Hey, Miguel, YOU should be in the picture, too! I think I was “chosen” because folks thought I had a pipeline from the U.S. flowing with cash. But I cede the direction to Profe Flor, who is not shy at all about taking the initiative.
Our first fundraiser was rather modest. During the recent annual fair that I talked about last month, we sold “orchata,” a popular flavored drink, in little plastic bags. It was slow going, three long days as we sat at the edge of the soccer field with music blasting out of huge speakers and another nearby tent hawking “COLD BEER.” (Guess who had more customers!) I wouldn’t have had to spend so much time, since Minga, Maria, and Doris, and Juana and Gloria were all taking turns, and no one even expects a man to “do” food, but I was there as support. Our biggest sale was the 30 bags that I bought myself and gave out at a dawn service up at the church.
Flor immediately “suggested” we invest the proceeds in another, bigger project, nacatamales. This would really rake in the cash, because every kid in school would have to buy one, or two if they were in high school. I couldn’t even imagine how this would work, though of course everyone was telling me at the meetings. I finally got it. Flor, in the name of the Junta, obliged the teachers to oblige their students to oblige their parents to cough up 8 Lempiras per tamale. It works, don’t you know, because each teacher is responsible for their class; if the kids don’t pay, the teacher has to make up the deficit. So let me tell you, no coin was left behind! And if I, as the “face” of this Ponzi scheme, weren’t such a nice guy, the parents would have probably lynched me!
This was a big deal, 600 tamales. But, again, no one even suggested I attempt any cooking, so I did all I could to fill in the gaps, shuttling between three different “equipos,” or teams, a go-fer for firewood, palm leaves, corn grinding, vegetables, and chicken and whatever else. In fact, I “cheated” and got extra chicken so the tamales, usually a Christmas treat, would be even richer. I spent my own money on the supplies, you know, to increase the profit margin. I also played parent to quite a few of the poorer kids whose mommy or daddy could not afford the 8 Lempiras for their tamale. It was the least I could do, since the women did all the hard work. But Minga, bless her heart, led the chorus of thanks at the end of day. “Miguel, you were the only one [meaning the only man] who helped us. You were always right there.” Flor, more hard nosed, wasn’t thanking anybody till the money was counted. “The ‘billetes’ [bills, as in dollar bills] will tell the story.” So she made Maria, the treasurer, sit right down and total up. Pretty soon everyone was counting and re-counting, till Flor was satisfied that our goal of 4000 Lempiras ($200) had been met. Then she sprung for a couple big sodas to share with the crew. And chips. I have to hand it to her, she keeps us focused. Next up, baleadas!
The rewards of the “poor house” are so abundant that I cannot even think about leaving. For example, the birthdays, when we get a chance to celebrate them, including don Ramiro, turning 100 and still with it, his devoted gaze at his sister Olimpia worth the price of admission. Little Beatriz with her first birthday cake ever, a “loaner,” as it were, since it was an unsold Mother’s Day cake the local store had in reserve. A few days later, her daddy Marcos‘ birthday, 29, Chemo’s cousin. That same day, Yoemi (pronounced “Jamie”) had her first birthday and Cristian and Aurora, against all odds, managed to persuade Profe Flor to give them a little discount on the cake she’s famous for. A long hike (they told me it was “across the river”) up, way up, to Quebrada de Agua to see one of the most active communities around, led by Ines and his wife Ana, even though it’s a challenge to look a man in the face and call him “Agnes.” There’s a lot of other blessings--Chemo ALMOST passing a test--but I hope you can see even in the things that break your heart, a Spirit is at work, promising our common humanity.
After a few false starts, “invierno” (“winter”) finally burst from the heavens at 3:00 in the afternoon with a wild storm of deluging rain and whipping winds on May 31st, the same day, I believe, that folks in St. Louis were diving for cover from tornadoes. While you were heading for the basement; we found ourselves stranded at the highest point in town, huddled in the little church, where we were closing out the month of “las flores,” the daily devotion of children bringing flowers to Mary’s shrine. Almost tore the roof off the place! But after forty minutes or so, the calm returned and we finished up with coffee and rolls.
Now the plowing, planting, and scare-crowing will begin in earnest, as the seed corn falls into the ground and and dies and soon puts up a sheen of green shoots on the black earth. Mud everywhere for the next five months, buses slipping up and down unpaved roads, clothes never quite drying on the line, I’ve already lost one umbrella. But plenty of water at last in the pipes and faucets. I don’t have to bathe out of bucket anymore. And La Pena, the mountain that defines our landscape, no longer shrouded in a haze of heat, wears a shawl of fluffy fog in the morning. I suggested to Chepito--I mean, Jose--that he try to draw the full moon that shone like a spotlight in the clear night. “Nature” is not his forte, so when he came a couple nights later with the drawing, I offered some constructive criticism. “The moon should be more white; this is so yellow, how can you tell it’s the Moon?” He put me in my place. “It’s full of stars.” Blue stars. The kid’s a genius!
But Chemo is my hero. When first-quarter grades came out and Chemo was at the bottom, I wasn’t even going to show them to him. Till he insisted. And he immediately started talking about “next year,” when he’d do better. He gets up and goes to school every day, it has to be a literal drag, but his teachers love him like their own child, he causes no problems, plays with everybody, no one has more friends.
What with the electricity going off half the time, and the Internet spoiling for a fight, I wrote this CASA out in longhand first. Now I have a better appreciation for what I put you through! If you’re still reading, thank you!
Love, Miguel
Monday, May 6, 2013
ESTA ES SU CASA--MAY 2013
ESTA ES SU CASA--MAY 2013
MERCY, MERCY
The Beacon illuminates my last report:
https://www.stlbeacon.org/#!/content/30177/voices_dulick_holy_040213
Let’s start again with more good news about Guillermo! He’s back home in Las Vegas, enjoying a relaxed recovery, still weak--no reason to rush this--but buoyed by Erlinda’s attentive care and tasty menus. I can attest to both, especially the latter. You’re in the house any longer than 10 or 15 minutes and she’s got a plate of food in your hand, or, most recently, a big cup of mango juice.
I thought the surgeons would just extract the cancerous pocket from Guillermo’s stomach, but when Erlinda showed me the papers, photos, and drawings, it appears they actually cut Guillermo’s stomach in two, above and below the cancer, and sutured the remainder to the colon. Wow! That seems pretty radical, and I would have been even more doubtful of Guillermo’s survival if I’d had any idea they would do that! My faith in Honduran medicine is renewed. But the real miracle, that baffled even the doctors, is that subsequent tests show no metastasis at all. Erlinda showed me that page three times, and Guillermo was practically speechless, just smiling ear to ear. And again and again, they thanked me for your help. “We just could not have done this without that help,” basically because everything had to be paid in advance. So count yourselves “first responders,” as fast on the scene as the spirited folks of Boston.
Chemo could use some kind of metastasis. His math teacher told him he does not have a single point, he’s flunked every quiz. “I can do the homework, I can’t do the tests.” But I keep encouraging him. Hey, even zero is a number, so that’s SOMETHING, right?
But I knew I could not take him to Tegucigalpa, and miss school, as I kept postponing a trip because I didn’t want to leave him behind. But he actually told me to go, when it seemed I’d get him a new phone for the one that seems to have been stolen. So I finally went, knowing that Chemo’s brother Marcos was still there.
In Tegus, Roberto, world’s best cab driver, was waiting for me. We swept by Barrio Suyapa to pick up Marcos, but the minute we got to the hotel, even while we were still hugging Angelica, Marcos’ bright yellow tee-shirt was covered with “chilios”--tiny insects no bigger than an eyelash--leaping out of the low, leafy trees; as fast as we’d brush them off, they regrouped. They even slipped into his eyes, virtually blinding him. “Change his shirt! Change his shirt!” Angelica cried. While Marcos ran into the hotel to rinse his eyes, I ran across the street to a dollar store and got him a dark blue tee. Problem solved. Weird, huh? But that’s why we’re waiting for the rains--to wash the trees clean!
Marcos’ birthday was approaching (April 25, feast of St. Mark), and his phone had been stolen by some delinquent in his dangerous neighborhood. So I would buy two phones, one for Chemo and another for Marcos. The best price was CLARO at the Cascadas Mall (about $15 apiece), and some serendipity must have been guiding us, because as soon as we arrived Marcos lit up like a firecracker. “The Circus is here!” There it was, a bigger-than-life bigtop, a great, glowing tent, running lights on every surface, and a huge banner, “Tonight only--2 for 1.” We couldn’t miss this, though we both agreed we wouldn’t mention it to Chemo.
Circuses have become controversial in recent years, and I admit I have been cowed as well, though my whole childhood can be measured in the ecstasies of entertainment that only the circus can provide. Reading recently “The Circus that Ran Away with a Jesuit Priest” had whet my appetite again; it’s a beautiful memoir by Nick Weber, whose “Royal Lichtenstein Giant 1/4 Ring Circus,” as poetic as it was magical, entranced mostly college audiences for 20 years. I saw every performance I could ever get near. So this Suarez Brothers Circus from Mexico sitting in the Cascadas Mall parking lot was the Promised Land.
Marcos and I scurried to complete our errands, the two phones, Pizza Hut (the wings!), and other items on my list, and soon we found ourselves in the cheap seats (the best view) at the circus. It was a wonder! Maybe small in scale compared to those three-ring extravaganzas, but a series of delights and thrills, from the happiest juggler in the world, throwing balls all over the tent and catching them in his pocket, to that huge spinning wheel where the acrobat climbs out on top and keeps losing his balance--almost! Scares me to death. Only two animal acts, but they were big, literally. Sixteen horses, Clydesdales, no less, with a toy pony running in and out of their marching, dancing legs. And just as many enormous Bengal tigers; here was “Life of Pi” without the CGI, jumping all over the cage, including through hoops of fire, and practically swallowing their tamer. I forgot my camera, so the only photo I got is the one we had to buy. But I was glad it would live in my memory.
We invited Elio and Mema to lunch at the Mirawa Restaurant the next day, and as we sat there all full, looking at platters that were still heaping, suddenly in comes Elio and Mema’s very pregnant daughter Regina and two nuns she had invited to lunch to celebrate a school they had just opened in a poor little town near Tegucigalpa. We invited them to dive in, and soon we had a party going on. Since the nuns live in the same dangerous neighborhood as Marcos, I encouraged Marcos to join their Youth Group. Lovely and lively and non-judging, Sister Teresa and Sister Suyapa reminded me of the two nuns Holden Caulfield runs into in “The Catcher in the Rye”; he keeps looking for them again, since they’re virtually the only people who don’t abuse him. But Marcos, of course, was mortified. And Teresa understood. “Don’t worry, Marcos! We won’t bite. Poor kid, he comes to lunch and gets a couple nuns sicced on him!”
Back in Las Vegas, preparations were underway for the annual Feast of the Holy Cross, May 3. Like Christmas and Holy Week, the secular and the sacred compete for attention. Nominally religious feasts, they are also vacations. When the Festival Committee showed us their plans in a tri-fold brochure for the week’s activities May 1-5, they’d left us only one night and one morning for, shall we say, Jesus.
But Padre Jaime was determined to make the most of it. First of all, he wanted the Cross to lead the parade on May 1, to set the proper tone; May 2, an evening procession through town, armed with candles and bullhorn, with six stops along the way, mostly near liquor sellers, to preach our “mission,” followed by Mass and vigil till midnight; May 3, a morning Mass for the feast itself. Attendance was huge; we’d invited every other town around us, and Padre Jaime brought his “big band” choir from Victoria to really jazz things up. And then we snuck in another morning of activities, Saturday, May 4, with games and foods and music, up at the church grounds where the Committee wouldn’t see us, for a “Family Day.”
Tipping the balance in favor of faith was a knot of novenas that were being observed the same week. The regular novena in the little church anticipating the feast, as well as the one-year anniversary of the death of Doña Sofia, the ancient lady whose family wanted to honor with a full-blown novenario, and then, unexpectedly, the death of another dear soul, Doña Mercedes, 85, prompting yet another nine-day round of prayer. My chairs were all over the place, and the Legion of Mary, in charge of all three novenas, went non-stop, 2:00 p.m., 3:30, 5:00, every day. The core of each celebration was the Rosary, customized with songs here, a meditation there, Bible readings over there. Pardon me, but I loved it! It seemed so ironic that, while there were soccer games, horse games, even pig games, not to mention drinking games every day, beauty pageants, “mojigangas” (clowns in scary masks), and beer-soaked dances at night, a steady Catholic cadenza was anchoring the week dedicated to God’s mercy. Indeed, “mercedes” means “mercy.” And Padre Manuel even offered Mass right in Mercedes’ house.
The last night of Mercedes’ novenario coincided with the finale of the Feast, Saturday, May 4. I already called her “the sweetest lady I ever met” on FACEBOOK (where a friend gently reminded me about my own mother, so I need to say, “ONE of the sweetest ladies”!), but I appreciated her even more during the novenario when her family came from far and wide to do everything first-class. Her husband Vicente, I have to admit, had been a curiosity to me. Vicente was trampled by his own horse that threw him off many years ago, leaving him misshapen but still with a quick wit unimpeded by the cracks across his skull. With his wife’s death and his family’s support, he warmed up to his Christian faith again, something he had left up to Mercedes to handle all these years. In fact, the morning Mass for the Feast doubled as a memorial Mass for Mercedes. Vicente, accompanied by children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, was in quiet tears most of the time, his crippled hands folded in prayer.
Turns out it was Vicente who, before his accident, had taught carpentry to Elvis my neighbor all those years ago. So that last night of her novenario featured a concert organized by Elvis for his “second father,” a sing-along of all our favorite church songs, while the Rey Feo (“ugly king”) contest was running in the dance hall a couple blocks away, where guys dress (or cross-dress!) as ridiculously as possible and prance and perform. You know, most of the stuff during the feast really is just a bunch of fun, things you’d never blame anyone for--especially the marimba music, good anytime--if it weren’t competing with the Cross of Christ! So live and let live, I guess. That’s a motto of A.A., always a wise touchstone. God does not hide.
I’m sorry this CASA is “late.” I decided to wait for the fiesta, partly because so much was going on I could not get it finished sooner, and partly because I was scared to death that Chemo would get drunk and lost with the abundance of temptations. He came home late most nights, but somehow kept his cool. Of course, I did find a condom in his jeans when I washed them last, but he assures me some buddy “hid” it there. If you hear any different, let me know!
Love, Miguel
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