CHIKUNGUNYA
The entire league could not bring down Nangui, star of the Honduras-Progreso soccer team, but a tiny bug—a mosquito!—knocked him for a loop! It’s called Chikungunya, “Chiko” for short, and it’s already killed not a few Hondurans. An especially virulent form of malaria, it has afflicted at least 18,000 here. There is, of course, no cure. Nangui fell sick on the team bus to a game in La Ceiba, 4 hours from Progreso, a surge of fever, aches all over, every joint clenched, practically hallucinating, scared everyone, especially his mom Santa and family in the bus behind. When Santa called me, it sounded as if Nangui would be hospitalized, but by the end of the game, after some Tylenol and Gatorade at a clinic, he insisted on getting back on the bus. His sister Karla tweeted a photo: looked like a death mask!
They lost the game, of course, but the coach was more concerned about Nangui. “You know, we missed our ‘jugador emblematico’ tonight due to sickness.” Our emblematic player! I haven’t heard such evocative language since Northrop Frye wrote about “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”!
Even in Progreso, Nangui just went home. It took a call from his coach, and a personal escort of a couple teammates to finally get him to a clinic, where he stayed only long enough for blood tests and about a gallon of ‘suero’ (intravenous drip).
I really thought, if not his life, certainly his career was threatened. I snapped one of the sweetest pix I’ve ever taken, Nangui’s tiny son Ivan, in his mother Martha’s arms, soothing his daddy’s distempered brow. But his natural resilience kicked in; eventually, he was back, “ready” to play.
Meanwhile, the team was in a tailspin, falling into the basement of the standings, including their first home loss in 49 games. But the fans didn’t give up. We went to a game in San Pedro, hottest day of the year (a weekly occurrence in Honduras!), but we loved it! a 3-0 trouncing of Marathon on their home field, and with their own player! Rene Moncada, recently acquired by Honduras-Progreso in Nangui’s absence, responsible for all three goals. A survey in the sports paper El Diez before the game had only 1 of 17 staff writers predicting a Honduras-Progreso win. But apparently the real highlight was a FACEBOOK photo of me in my loose red dewcap; it got more “Likes” than anything I’ve ever posted. I guess they were Likes…
We went to Tegucigalpa to visit the Brigada for Chemo’s annual check-up, but as soon as we arrived, making our way into the back corridors of the hospital, something was wrong. A woman huddled over a little girl lying on a gurney. I thought (I hoped!) a mother was comforting her daughter before—or after—surgery. But the child was not moving, at all. I drew Chemo away. The child was really the same size as Chemo when he got his open-heart surgery. That close! When they brought in a little coffin, that was that. Ron Roll, organizer of the Brigadas, just looked at us. “This is a bad time.” Everyone was in tears, Ron, his wife Alba, the surgeon, nurses, and other volunteers from the States who had come to save these children, but some kids are just too sick; they can’t make it, with or without surgery.
Chemo only said, “Let’s go.” I tried to say something, through my own streaming tears. “Chemo, God is love, we know that, we know that even when such terrible things happen, we know God is good, if your life is saved by the doctors or if you go first to eternal life, well, we can still pray, for her parents, for her family, for the doctors and nurses, for Ron and Alba, never to give up, never to stop caring for the children!”
In a variation on “If you build it, they will come,” we got, in the case of Chemo’s brother Markitos, who had mixed cement for eight months for an enormous store about 3 football fields long, the Larach Brothers Hardware Store in Tegucigalpa, on the day of the Grand Opening, “If you build it, you cannot come.” Every dignitary from the President on down was invited to the gala event, but the actual workers got no invitations. If they had not done their job well, there’d be no store to open! (I remember an anniversary of the Gateway Arch, with the construction workers in the front row.)
Father’s Day in Honduras is celebrated on March 19, the Feast of St. Joseph. The school in Las Vegas did a poignant and even brave celebration, featuring at least 5 skits or songs pleading with fathers to be responsible, especially not to destroy their families with alcohol. Somehow, even second graders had us in tears.
On our visit to Progreso to see Nangui, we invited some of the family to Teatro la Fragua to see “El Asesinato de Jesus,” their signature work—emblematic, you might say—the most performed over their 35 years of existence. It places the death of Jesus in the context of the torturous politics of Honduras, the poor who suffer by the privileged.
Flush with Wi-Fi at our hotel in Progreso, I crossed my fingers and downloaded Apple’s latest Operating System “Yosemite.” Comments I had seen made it sound more like “Armageddon,” but it came through fine, except for one thing. My computer was now too advanced for my little Tigo modem that I used for Internet in Las Vegas. Alternating between despair, and excitement at the prospect of huge swaths of free time, I glanced at Chemo absorbed in his Samsung Galaxy, and I realized, “I need a smartphone!” I got the cheapest one I could find, about $50, and it works fine, though of course it’s way “smarter” than I am!
Loading Yosemite, I was especially anxious about iPhoto, since that’s what I needed most, but it also had the most complaints among the Apple comments. It seemed fine, but as an experiment, I quickly assembled a little photo book of kids’ pictures; after a couple false starts, Apple processed the order and the book is at Teresa’s house right now, if you happen to stop by. I think I’ll do a couple more like this, before I come up in September instead of one big book as I usually do.
Actually, I might like to come a little sooner. The Honduran national team just qualified for the Gold Cup tourney, so they’ll be playing in such cities as Dallas, Boston, and on July 13 Kansas City! If Nangui makes it back on to the team, you could have a real treat to see him in action!
Thanks for letting me play on YOUR team!
Love, Miguel
