ESTA ES SU CASA--FEBRUARY 2016

ESTA ES SU CASA—FEBRUARY 2016

LEAPING YEAR

First thing we had to do for the New Year was re-rope the church bell. Any other time it snapped,  Chepe Bautista would climb high up on the roof and balance himself on the eaves to reconnect the line. But Chepe, who served for decades as the sacristan, opening the church in the morning, locking it up at night, preparing everything for the services, putting everything in order, was dying now, and we had already started a nightly watch to accompany him and the family. So Cristian, a leader of the Youth Group, scrambled up there and made the repair, this time with the strongest cord we could find.

A couple days later, the bell was tolling Chepe’s death. He was so sturdy and strong, it didn’t seem possible that he was gone. Father of my neighbor Dora and grandfather of her and Elvis’ kids, I considered him a father, too. You know, he never learned to read, but he knew the Bible cover to cover. I say that, just based on how he lived.

The holiday soccer tournament ended up in a championship game that was a near duplicate of Honduras-Progreso’s triumph over Motagua. The home team, Atletico Vegas, and the team from Panal (up in the mountains) played all afternoon (at least it seemed that way) in a 2-2 tie, with another scoreless 30 minutes overtime, till penalty kicks finally settled the score in our favor, and the crowd went crazy. Still, both teams took time to join in prayer, a moment of quiet and tears.

Honduras-Progreso is not much of a champion right now. Chemo and I had to go to twice to Progreso to see even one goal from Ñangui’s team. Ñangui’s mom Santa always prepares a bag of confetti, but their 2-0 loss to Olimpia was the first time in their home stadium that the bag stayed on the bench. But Ñangui did give me his cap, as compensation for having to sit through such a lousy game. Two weeks later, the team from La Ceiba scored a quick goal in the very first minute, and the crowd languished, disillusioned and discouraged, deep into the second half, when the coach finally sent Ñangui in. The fans came alive, fired up, eager, and in less than a minute, Honduras-Progreso had its goal and the confetti flew! Ñangui did not score the goal himself, but he cleared the way, confounding the slow-footed defense like a whirling dervish.

Ñangui’s little brother Joel invited Chemo to play on his team, called “Palanca” or ‘pump handle,’ a nickname for their captain Marlon, who is really skinny and really tall. Marlon promised Chemo he’d start! Then they told me where the game was, at a field at least two miles away, at night, on the other side of the bridge over the frequently flooding Ulua River, not just a high-crime area, the HIGHEST-crime area! Or at least I thought, but Santa was going, sort of like the den mother, and Ñangui’s sister Karla was going and bringing her two little boys, so I thought, what the heck, I’m not gonna live forever anyway….

I did pay a guy with a van to get us there, but as we climbed out, he said, “Don’t call me,” for the return trip. The field was dark, everything was dark, but you could make out the forms of some guys by a picnic table. As they approached us, I resolved to protect Chemo at all costs, assuming I didn’t have a stroke first. They were saying something, maybe picking who gets who, and then…, one of them gives another a lift up a pole where he opens a padlock and throws a switch and the whole field is flooded with light! “Ready? Let’s play!” So, no massacre after all….


We stopped at Morazan for a few days on our way back, to see Fermin and Maria’s new granddaughter Briana, the child of Eduard and his girlfriend Evelin. Now, Eduard is just six months older than Chemo, and I always use him as a role model, since he’s got an education degree and already has two years of teaching experience under his belt—and now he’s got a baby! Chemo, don’t do THAT! Please! But maybe you saw my former student Brian Marston’s photo he posted on FACEBOOK when he heard the news; he came to Honduras with me in 1994 and held Eduard as a new-born.

Then we all joined forces to fell a small but stubborn tree that was leaning dangerously over all the electric cables for the neighborhood, giving us a classic photo, sort of a reverse of the famous shot of Iwo Jima.

The folks injured in the horrible bus crash a few days before Christmas are recovering. I was especially thrilled when Maricela, who had at least twenty stitches all over her face, said, “Wait!” to put herself in the photo of her husband Juan Blas and son Felipe with their birthday cake just a couple days ago. And her niece, Michelle, whom I had seen faint at least once from the pain of her wounds, now wears a sleeveless blouse without embarrassment, even though her right arm is just a quilt of scars. Alma and her daughter Merlin, perhaps the worst injured among the survivors, with almost identical ravages of their whole left side, are walking some and moving around, and I guess the muscle and tissue are gradually reforming. Alma even mentioned baking cookies again, some day. I will buy the whole batch, I swear!

Chemo’s making his fourth attempt at seventh grade. It was all his idea! He made the arrangements with the same teacher, David Suarez, who nursed Chemo through his Maestro en Casa class a few years ago to get his sixth-grade diploma. By David’s sheer mercy, Chemo passed that class. (Final exam, 7 X 8, something like that, was about the toughest question.) So we are hoping for a repeat; I think we’re all on the same page on this, you know what I mean?

But pray for us that the Zika doesn’t get us. This dreaded disease is sweeping the continent, causing birth defects so frightful that women are being told not to get pregnant for at least the next two years! And, besides the mosquito that originally came off the Zika tree in the jungles of Uganda, it seems the disease can also be passed by sexual contact. Where’s the OFF! for that?

Love, Miguel