ESTA ES SU CASA--SEPTEMBER 2010

ESTA ES SU CASA--SEPTEMBER 2010

SAINT-LOUIE-PALOOZA

Though it must surely pale in comparison with Ted Nugent’s current concert tour, “Trample the Weak, Hurdle the Dead,” I intend to make the most of my first-ever Fall visit to St. Louis, September 22-October 20. For one thing, it’s my birthday! Turning 62 on October 12 not only qualifies me for a little Social Security, but also means I will have outlived my father Michael Xavier Dulick, who died of a heart attack in 1976 (during Sunday Mass, no less, where the reading was from the book of Daniel, “Michael the Archangel will rise, the great Prince of your people”) at age 61. Regrets abound, I wish we had been closer; since he was a doctor, a general practitioner who made house calls his whole career, I have often wished I had followed his lead, for the help I could be in Honduras. But friends have celebrated my birthday in absentia for years; it’s time I joined them!

Speaking of angels, divine intervention may be required here in Honduras, just to get kids back to class. The teachers have been on strike for a month. Same old, same old. They march, the police beat their heads in, the media ignore the real issues. There is one new twist; parents are breaking into empty schools to give classes with “volunteers.” Mel Zelaya, the former president ousted in a coup in June of ‘09, is rooting on the striking teachers from his palatial exile in the Dominican Republic--anything to undermine what the government calls “law and order.” Word is, Mel is throwing cash around to keep things stirred up, but, hey! who is financing these “Back-to-School” folks? Under orders from the current president Pepe Lobo, the police are cutting the school locks off for them!

What are the real issues? First of all, the government has robbed the teachers’ pension fund--repeatedly. Mel did it himself, but it’s a non-partisan corruption. Then there’s the “minimum-wage” controversy. Public employees’ salaries are multiples of the minimum wage, which in Honduras means DAILY wage. Businesses want to change it to hourly, to short workers’ pay, hiring them by the hour instead of the day. So all the labor unions are marching, too. What are we talking about here? Crumbs! Fermin, practically at the top of the scale, makes about $500 a MONTH as a teacher. Some pimply-faced fryer at McDonald’s in Creve Coeur makes that in a week or so, just to stuff their iPod with more crap from Eminem. So you can imagine what some poor campesino turning the soil for a fat-cat landowner (or, as my mother, who by the way, lived to age 82, used to call them, “rich-bugs”) has to look forward to.

But the biggest issue is “privatization” of education. A law that the teachers already defeated twice--in 2004 and 2006--is back in Congress. It calls for, among other things, tuition in the “colegios” (or high schools) and university degrees for teachers. This is practically archeology! Thirty years ago, it was tuition that kept Wilfredo (who, by the way, turns 45 on October 12) out of high school till he was 25, because his family couldn’t afford it, when at last the law changed, and seventh, eighth, and ninth grades were “free” like kindergarten and primary school. Despite his age, Wil jumped at the chance to continue his education, and is now everyone’s favorite teacher at the colegio in Las Vegas. (A previous CASA talked about the Nationalist regime in Victoria trying to push him out of his job, because Wil’s a “Liberal.”)

As for university degrees for teachers, sounds reasonable, right? How far would an applicant get at Parkway with only a high-school diploma? But here, the need is so great, and the poverty so debilitating, that without teachers who had only the education they could get for free, thousands of tiny mountain villages would be utterly lost. Now, technically, the public university is “free,” but if you are from the campo, how do you get there? where do you live? how do you eat? Wilfredo is currently working on his degree, a class or two at a time, with costly trips to El Progreso every weekend.

Speaking of ancient history, when dear old Don Vicente Martinez died at the age of 80 a few weeks ago, it reminded me of my early years visiting Las Vegas. Don Vicente had the only car in town, a Jeep, and practically the only store. In those days, there were no buses, not to mention bridges, so every morning about 5:00 a.m. he’d take folks to Victoria for 50 cents apiece. We’d stand in the street in the pre-dawn light, listening for the motor--would it start today? Sometimes he’d crank and crank till it finally engaged and a sigh of relief would go up. Every now and then, after repeated failures, he’d come out into the street and call, “Gonna need a push today!” Of course, if it had been raining during the night, we’d hold our breath till word came if the river was too deep for the Jeep to cross. If it had gone up, maybe we could go later, once it had flowed downstream some. The store, emptied of its goods and shelves and display cases, etc., for the novena of prayer following his death, was full every day of mourners, my borrowed chairs providing only a portion of the necessary seating. Since then, it’s so strange to pass the place, the doors shut for the first time in anyone’s memory. His ancient truck, long ago abandoned to the weeds, still sits in the back yard.

Dionis (pronounced, believe or not, “Johnny’), we hope and pray, has a long life ahead of him I wanted to make his 14th birthday on August 17 a little extra special, to take away some of the sting of his brother Dago’s death in July. As nice as it was, with a big, luscious cake baked by Carolina, no one could forget Dago, least of all me. Every time I looked at Marcos, 23, I almost had to look away, so close does he resemble his brother Dago. But Marcos is married with two little kids. The littlest, Lindolfo, got so sick recently (poor thing, malnutrition more than anything) we had to get him to Dr. Wilmer in Victoria. But these little lives--who can put a price tag on it?

School may be out, but the doctor is in. Last Friday, a team of medics took blood samples of every kid under 15, looking for signs of “chinche” or “chagas,” an ugly little bug whose bite can lay dormant for up to 16 years--and then kill you, or reduce you to a paraplegic. Not too long ago, my friend Angel, who just turned 50, celebrated his amnesty from a bite he got 16 years ago. “I’m gonna be all right, now.” I was afraid I’d have to tie Chemo down like those dogs I talked about a few CASAs ago that got rabies shots, but he happily (?) submitted to the tiny prick in the forefinger, then squeezed out few drops on the little stamp of test paper. We kill a couple “chagas” in my house every week, but God only knows when results of the blood tests will come back.

Chemo got his teeth cleaned here, too. Travel to Tegucigalpa being a little chancy, what with teachers burning tires in the streets, rocks flying through the air, and rockslides from all the recent rains collapsing retaining walls and crushing cars, and underground torrents ripping sinkholes the size of a house in a boulevard, we took advantage of a “special” that Doctora Gabriela was running. Her drill wasn’t working, so she polished by hand, and gratified us further by declaring Chemo cavity-free. She’s so young, but I had to keep looking at her as she recalled the days when she was a little girl and she would play with the toys I used to bring down, especially the View-Masters. “That was my favorite!” You know, everybody loved them. Problem was, they’d wear out in a week or so of constant use. But, out of curiosity, I went online. They still exist, and, darn it, they’re still expensive. I thought by now they would at least have figured out how to mount the tiny pictures in something more durable than a flimsy disk of cardboard, and maybe make a viewer out of, shall we say, space-shuttle tiles. But I gotta pick up a few anyway, in St. Louis, especially since Gabriela herself has View-Master ready child.

Hey, I might as well go to St. Louis, since our pastor Chicho’s going to El Salvador! A couple of weeks ago, at the end of Sunday Mass, during which he preached a particularly passionate and heartfelt sermon about God’s love for the poor, he announced his transfer to what amounts to a desk job at the Jesuit Provincial’s office in San Salvador. That sermon, in effect, was his good-bye. Maybe the Jesuits are giving him a sort of vacation, after 12 years of two and three Masses a day, up hill and farther up hill, visiting a hundred villages at least twice a year, some places still accessible only on foot, an hour or two after you leave the car behind. And I was like a Dead fan, following him whenever I could if the village was within my access. What amazed me was, he always gave his all. I don’t care if the congregation was six women and eight kids and two old men, Chicho would preach like St. Peter on Pentecost, who was so excited people thought he was drunk! He is no doubt exhausted, but, desk job or not, they won’t be able to keep him in an office for long.

We did get one last chance to say good-bye to Chicho. A big event, already planned months before Chicho’s announcement, was held in Las Vegas just last Sunday, August 29. Padre Jaime, who is now the pastor, has been very actively promoting the so-called “Comunidades Eclesiales de Base” (C.E.B.s) since he became Chicho’s assistant a couple years ago. These are little neighborhood “churches,” seedlings, you might say, to foster the faith in a living community. Jaime wanted to get all the C.E.B.s together. “Expect f800 to 1000 people.”

O my God! He was way off. They just kept coming and coming. It was like Woodstock without the mud. At least 1500 folks swarmed in, doubling the population of the town. But somehow, we pulled it off. We gathered in Paraíso, just across the river, where there was coffee and rolls for everyone. Then we proceeded to Las Vegas, to the only place spacious enough for such a crowd, the grassy, shady yard of the school. (Thank God, we weren’t competing with classes--we used every bench and chair in the place, and half the classrooms.) A stage had been built and decorated like a Beyonce concert, Elvis and his band and the choir provided all the music, the kids dramatized the Gospel reading, the Bishop led the worship, using the occasion to formally announce Chicho’s new assignment and Jaime’s upgrade, along with Padre Sebastian, who will be the new assistant pastor. Chicho just beamed. He was looking out at the crowd, virtually everyone of whom he knows by name, taking pictures himself, and every now and then, burying his face in his hands, overcome, I guess, at the thought of leaving us.

After Mass, the food! Groups of women had cooked nacatamales for days, and their husbands carted them by the hundreds to the school early Sunday morning--in wheelbarrows! We thought, We’re gonna run out; but no, just like the multiplication of the loaves in the Gospel, “all ate and were satisfied.”

A more permanent departure was another young man about Dago’s age who died suddenly, Dixi, 23, recently deported from the United States. Dixi was staying with a couple brothers in San Pedro Sula, including Uvener, 20, who left home here in Las Vegas a month or so ago to look for work in the big city. Dago was electrocuted, you will recall. Dixi had a heart attack! At age 23, this should be impossible! Apparently, the doctors thought so, too. Uvener said they took Dixi to three different clinics after he collapsed in terrible pain. The first place gave him a shot. “He’ll be all right.” The second and third places, well, let’s just say the damage was done. They brought his body home to Las Vegas in an inexpensive casket he same night in a borrowed car. The family waked him in a torrential rainstorm, but friends managed to get the grave dug the next morning.

Unlike Dago’s death, there was not so much commotion, maybe because the family keeps to itself pretty much. But I had to think, How long had Dixi been sick? Was it a congenital disease, such as what eventually killed my father, or such as Chemo’s? Oh God! I prayed again in thanksgiving for Chemo’s operation. No one in Dixi’s family ever goes to church, but Reina, Dixi’s mother, after the delegados offered prayers before the burial, said, “You’ll come back for the novena, won’t you?” It’s a chance for Dixi to grow even in death, a seedling, as it were, for his own family’s “church.” We’re on Day Four right now, in case you would offer your own thoughts and prayers....

Included, one of Chepito’s latest drawings.

Love, Miguel

ESTA ES SU CASA--AUGUST 2010

ESTA ES SU CASA--AUGUST 2010

Nudges

Now I know how Martha felt. According to Luke’s Gospel, when Jesus came to her house for supper, Martha was flying around like crazy with all the chores; she even scolds Jesus for not chasing her sister Mary from his feet to help her. And Jesus so sweetly invites her--”Martha, Martha”--to sit with her sister and enjoy the feast Jesus has prepared for them. You might say, Jesus gave Martha a nudge.

After the whirligig six-week visitation of Chemo’s sister Rosa and her 2-two-old Tonito at our house, during which I had played the Martha role, Andy Kwok (Parkway North 2003) came to calm us, like Mary focused on “the one thing necessary,” the grace we can be for one another.

And he came with the perfect book, “Nudge,” by Cass Sunstein, now the controversial Information “czar” in the Obama administration; but this book is simply charming. Its theme is

better decisions prompted not by a law, a threat, or a slap, but just with a “nudge,” a little lift that respects and even enhances one’s freedom, like putting the salads and fruits first in the school cafeteria line. Andy hadn’t even finished the book, but he already knew his mission. In fact, he told me the group of friends from his church that were sponsoring his visit had the kindness and wisdom to suggest that he was going to Honduras as much for Miguel as for anyone else. A nudge.

As if Andy needed it! He has always had a heart for Honduras, ever since he formed the “Meat Club” at North to raise money for the malnourished poor of Honduras that I talked about in my classes all the time. As soon as he arrived, he started freeing us from our preoccupations. I told him he was like another Dago, Chemo’s teenaged cousin who just died so suddenly in a terrible accident, come to refresh our hope and faith.

The first folks Andy wanted to nudge were the kids, especially the ones not in school, like Pablito, Chepito, Laito, Fila, Reynieri, and a bunch of others. Now a teacher himself in a pretty hard-core high school in the San Francisco area, Andy started classes with the kids on my porch. And they loved it! The only discipline problem here was to keep the pencils sharpened for all their little “assignments.” One day we all went down to the river for a class in the shade of big trees before a swim.

When I could no longer hide the broken zippers on my backpack, Andy got me a new one, industrial-strength. When he saw my severely cluttered desktop, he brought out a handy external hard drive with a whopping 300 GB, already stocked with all four seasons of my favorite series “Battlestar Galactica” and a bunch of other goodies. In Tegucigalpa, he became immediate friends with Angelica and helped pay her heart and diabetes meds, and he invited Elio and Mema to Mirawa, their favorite restaurant--for Chinese! He graciously attended Mass with us, a true friend-without-borders. He’d loan his fancy Canon camera to the kids and they never broke it; in fact, they took some of Andy’s best pics. He played soccer with the kids, both up at the campo as well in back of our house with Elvis and Dora’s kids. He loved the food! Dora cooked our lunch (including chop suey!) and we’d go to Alba’s for supper, chicken and rice every night, but Andy even asked for the recipe, which left Alba scratching her head. “I just...well, what DO I do?”

And he never got sick, another miracle, not even from the zillion skeeter bites, in a country currently battling the worst epidemic of dengue fever in years. He gave all his clothes away! He brought some shirts and things to give away, but he gave away even the clothes he’d been wearing--he went home with practically nothing. And we talked daily about the Bible and Jesus. In fact, another item on my wish-list that Andy brought me was a “red-letter” Bible in Spanish, with all the words of Jesus in red.

Andy scheduled three major events for his visit--or at least it seemed so. For example, Pablito’s birthday. He was turning 16, despite his birth certificate that says he’s still 15. So, when Carolina called, “What name do you want on the cake--Pablito or Pablo?” a nudge from Andy was all it took. “Pablo,” said Pablo, Pablito no more. “Felicidades PABLO.” Pablo appreciated the change. He really is growing up, even more than Chemo. Besides, he’d just been bitten on the ankle by Doctora Rebeca’s little black dog. I sent him there to get some Phenobarbital for a poor soul with epilepsy who visits me every month from Terrero Blanco, and Pablo apparently took a misstep off the porch, just enough sudden movement to alert the little mutt to some imagined danger and it snatched at him. Rebeca immediately assured him the dog had had its shots and showered Pablo with antibiotics, ibuprofen, creams, and bandages; but he was still limping for his party.

Then came the Day of Lempira, the legendary indigenous hero who led that day’s version of the Resistencia against the invasion of the Spanish (who of course murdered him treacherously at a “peace conference”). This year, something unique--all the kids dressed up like Indians, the boys in a “taparabo,” a loincloth made of “chato” bark (banana plants), and the girls in skirts fashioned from those enormous banana leafs. Juana, our neighbor, was making a taparabo for her son Carlitos, so I asked her to make one for Chemo. I was so nervous, would they be the only ones going to school naked that day? But morning came and the streets were filled with the “undocumented.” Andy and I and half the town attended the festivities, which included performances of songs or ballads or dances or skits by every grade, as well as lots of tasty foods for sale. OK, it was a sort of Disneyfication of a bloody history, but it was better than last year--during the “coup”--when the day was totally ignored.

I asked Chemo why he didn’t perform with the other third-graders. “Teacher didn’t want me.” I suspect he probably hid under his desk when she was picking volunteers. Juana Maria is Chemo’s fifth teacher this year, fourth overall. First was Vitelio, then Regina, who it turns out was doing her practice teaching for six weeks, then Vitelio again, until his retirement papers came through and he was gone, then Danilo, till his retirement papers came through, now Juana Maria, who looks more like a school teacher than any of them, so I’m trying not to be scared of her. But so far she’s been very nice, quickly giving Chemo permissions for all our little excursions.

One excursion was the third big event Andy participated in, the 18th anniversary of the organic Coffee Cooperative, now serving an international clientele. For the first time in three years, they held the event at the “Beneficio,” where the coffee beans are processed way up in the mountains, so I told Andy we must not miss it. The view is just breathtaking, the mountains dressed in cloud, Las Vegas like a little cartoon way down below. Music, dancing, speeches, and great food, celebrating, as I told Andy, one of the few success stories we have to offer.

Speaking of success, Rosa’s condition is improving. When it came time for her to leave, as Andy was arriving, I thought, we have to get her a check-up. The brigada had to postpone their July visit because every hospital bed in the country is occupied by a dengue patient, so we went the private clinic route, to my cardiologist, Dr. Bayardo Pagoada. His diagnosis, “abdominal aortic aneurysm,” was a little different from Dr. Christian Gilbert of the brigada, but it amounts to the same thing. The “abdominal” part refers to the way it pressures the ovary, thus the ravage caused by her pregnancy with little Tonito. But, as I say, improving. A new echocardiogram showed the wide-open mithral valve is closing, thank God, little by little. So he kept her on all her medicines, changing only one for something a little stronger. She’s on no less than three diuretics, this because an x-ray showed an abnormally small, probably non-functioning, right kidney, never diagnosed before. Andy took us all to dinner, and the next morning Rosa and Tonito got on the bus for the nine-hour trip to Tocoa, and Chemo, Andy, and I took the bus to Victoria/Las Vegas, a seven-hour excursion.

When Andy left two weeks later, he still wasn’t done. He got a ton of books and notebooks and educational games at the mall in Tegucigalpa for us to take back to Las Vegas, as his legacy. So the nudges can continue....

There’s a saying here that I actually heard for the first time not too long ago. When the Legion of Mary hiked to the village of Zarzal to visit a little old lady, she greeted us with, “Dios me trajo!” (God brought you to me). That’s how we feel about Andy here. He reminded us that, despite the sins and setbacks that drain our faith, God provides a friendly universe.

Love, Miguel

Bernard Lonergan, “Method in Theology”: “Faith and progress have a common root in man’s cognitional and moral self-transcendence. To promote either is to promote the other indirectly. Faith places human efforts in a friendly universe; it reveals an ultimate significance in human achievement; it strengthens new undertakings with confidence. Most of all, faith has the power of undoing decline.”

ESTA ES SU CASA--JULY 2010

ESTA ES SU CASA--JULY 2010

Being still...

This would be the happy newsletter, I said, celebrating Honduras’ appearance in the World Cup for the first time in three decades. Win, lose, or draw--and they did all three, except the first one--it would be some fun. And I will report on that, lest this CASA overtest your patience.

But Dago, Chemo’s 19-year-old cousin, a really lovely kid, was electrocuted last week installing light in his mother Natalia’s house, a project I was paying for. He grabbed a high-tension wire and it killed him instantly. I was not an eye-witness, and the only way my own shock was spared was that I could not understand what folks rushing up to me were saying. I arrived just as they were pulling him into the back seat of the neighbor’s truck to get him to the doctor, and I didn’t get a good look at him till we got there a couple minutes later. Dr. Meme came running out, but as soon as they opened the car door and I saw Dago’s face, frozen in a look of terror, no hint of breath, and smelling burnt, my own heart all but stopped. Dr. Meme, to be kind, fiddled with his stethoscope, here and there, feeling for a pulse, pumping Dago’s chest a little, for about 10 minutes till he sensed we could accept the bad news. Dago’s brothers Marcos and Geovanny, who were cradling Dago, were shaking. I think we all were. I say “accept” but it was way too soon for that.

I just wouldn’t believe it. I kept staring at him, sure that the paralysis was only temporary; in another minute, he would start twitching or something, I was sure. But I was the one who was paralyzed. When we took him back home and folks started clearing out the one-room house for the wake, dressing Dago in nice clothes and laying him on clean sheets in his bed, I was just standing there like an idiot, unconscious, till finally a useful thought struck me: “Chairs!” I rounded up a few kids and we went to my house to bring over my 30 or so plastic chairs. Others hauled benches from an evangelical church even farther away. We needed them all. The longest night of our life. A wood shop is right next door, and we heard the saws buzzing and the hammering all night long, making Dago’s coffin. It had been raining every day for a week, but this night was clear, a big moon bathing all in silvery light.

Already “cooked,” Dago’s face bronzed even as we watched; he was tanning from the inside out. Watching him glow, I thought, Oh my God, is he even more beautiful now? A thought so scary I’m embarrassed to say it--unless perhaps the light was a sign he had already inherited eternal life. His face had assumed the burnished serenity of a Byzantine icon.

Or maybe such thoughts were just cover for my darker thoughts, namely, that I had killed him. I just wanted to upgrade the family, not tear a hole in it. Dago was helping Dennis the young electrician when he died. Dennis disappeared for days; when I finally caught up with him, he was practically a basket case. “I can’t go back there, Miguel.” He felt worse than I did. Meanwhile, Celeo, a more experienced electrician, offered to finish the job.

Helping. That’s who Dago was. When the family asked me to start the celebracion about 9:00 o’clock that night at the wake, I had my theme, even though I was trembling. Dago was a saint. I thought it even before he died. Nineteen years old, but not only did he not indulge any of the “vicios” (vices) common to his peers, such as drinking and smoking and cursing and playing cards and hanging out at the pool hall and jumping girls, but his humility was stunning. He just went to work every day, wherever it was, usually just mixing concrete for some one building a house. I barely knew how to behave around him. I’d visit him at work, taking along other kids to see Dago’s example, on the pretense we were bringing a big Coke to share with the workers on a hot day.

But he had a bad heart. I mean, heart disease. He’d play soccer with the little kids, like Chemo, and when I asked him once, Dago, why don’t you play soccer with the team your own age? he said, “I get tired too quick.” That and his sort of bulging eyes made me think he might have a heart condition like Chemo’s. I thought one day we’d take him to Tegucigalpa, though I didn’t know if we could impose on the brigada yet again. But if my diagnosis is right--and I can only imagine what an autopsy would show!--when he touched that wire, with a heart already weak, he never had a chance.

We buried Dago, and then sat and started praying for nine more days. It is a necessary cycle to smooth some of the jagged edges of the dagger plunged in our heart by Dago’s death.

But it’s even more than that.

The days leading up to Dago’s death had been really awful ones for our little household of Chemo, Rosa, Tonito, and me. Chemo and Rosa had been fighting, I was yelling at Chemo, I was even yelling at Rosa, and Tonito is a 22-pound Gulf Oil Spill. We were at the breaking point.

Then Dago was killed, and his death brought us all together, putting our differences and our indifferences behind us, as we grieve our noble loss. Who could fight or stand on principle when you saw Dago’s mother Natalia, whose ready wit and infectious smile I praised last month, shattered like a stack of dishes? That’s what love can do, to bind our wounds.

In fact, Rosa just told me that Dago had taken a little interest in her. Dago’s first girlfriend! You know, I had wondered why Dago was showing up every evening when we’d go over to Alba’s for supper. He wouldn’t eat or ask for anything. I’d chat and talk with him, like he was visiting ME! That’s how dumb I was. Now, let’s see, technically, Rosa and Dago were “family”--Dago was a younger brother of Alba, who is wife of Santos, who is the half-brother of Rosa (and of Chemo). Impediment? Whatever, Dago’s budding romance is now a legacy I hope we can live up to.

Before all the trouble came down, we had also managed to celebrate some birthdays, Rosa’s 24th, which coincided with little Helen’s 11th, and Mirna’s 12th, which coincided with her daddy Santos’ 36th. If Carolina’s cakes were diplomacy, the whole world would be at peace. In fact, I finally got a good picture of Tonito’s “shining,” a little “Sixth Sense” shock of pure blond hair emerging from a pale birthmark on his forehead. That should be a good sign, right?

In the run-up to the World Cup, Honduras went to Azerbaijan. There aren’t 3 people in Honduras who even know where Azerbaijan is! And I guess I’m one of them. I stared at a map for 15 minutes before I could locate it. The players were lost, too. Honduras did not score a goal in three games. I did better with finding South Africa--at least I wasn’t looking for it next to Argentina like the kids studying my wall map.

If you are watching any of the World Cup, you might know Honduras played three games and out. Which makes us just as good as Italy, the defending World Cup Champion, who also went three and out! And the U.S. played just one more game than we did before packing up. Honduras did not score a goal, true, but our goalie, Noel Valladares, embarrassed the competition by keeping us in every contest with many eye-popping stops. Spain, for example, was a particularly sore winner, asserting that their 2-0 victory should have been at least 8-0.

Here, the whole country came to a standstill for the broadcasts. I thought it was pretty exciting, but my friend Moncho, who coaches our Las Vegas team, was having none of it. He says the coach Reinaldo Rueda composed the team of name-players past their prime who couldn’t keep up with the younger guys they were playing against. “Rueda” is ‘wheel,’ so I made the joke, the team was playing in “sillas de Rueda,” or wheelchairs, a pun that later showed up in one of the newspapers! In fact, Moncho says that our local star Nahum, 19, could have “goaled” us at least into the second round.

Honduras did “earn” one point, from a scoreless tie with Switzerland. Any competition that tolerates a 0-0 final score seems a little unnatural, but not any stranger than those annoying vuvuzelas horns, which host South Africa defends as a “tradition,” you know, like ants at a picnic. So we’ll see how the whole thing ends. Guess it’s pretty much up to the referees, the last bastion of infallibility.

The one champion so far might be the World Cup music theme, K’Nann’s “Wavin’ Flags” that I guess you’ve seen in what’s called the “Coca-Cola mix.” (How could you miss it?) Here we see a Spanish version with K’Naan and David Bisbal. If you could score goals by just tapping your foot, we’d all be champions. I want everyone to be that happy.

June 28 was the first anniversary of the coup that ousted Mel Zelaya. The Resistencia took to the streets, ready with their list of the golpistas’ crimes, including death threats against some of our more activist Jesuit priests. Both sides are setting up Truth Commissions, as if truth could have two sides. It’s a tangled web of injustices, but it would be especially lovely--and here we could follow the standard set by Bishop Desmond Tutu in South Africa’s Truth Commission that shined the light on the evils of apartheid--if the golpistas confessed Micheletti’s crimes and the Resistencia repented Mel’s. Then we WOULD win a World Cup...for Peace.

It can start right here in Las Vegas. We are finishing the novena of prayer at Dago’s house. At least three different neighbors are baking breads for tomorrow’s finale. Celeo hooked up the electricity in a couple hours, without incident, just like that. We are almost back to “normal,” or what the Church calls Ordinary Time--whatever that means.

It should mean, in the words of Fr. Carl Dehne, “being still, standing with reverence, in silence, our hands over our open mouths, in awe at what the Triune God, the Creator of all, is doing for us.” (Trinity Sunday homily, College Church, St. Louis, May 30, 2010)

Love, Miguel

ESTA ES SU CASA--JUNE 2010

ESTA ES SU CASA--JUNE 2010

Everything That Rises Must Converge

With a triple murder, our feast of the Holy Cross in Las Vegas was more like a stake through the heart. The slayings occurred only hours after Padre Jaime, in the inaugural Mass, had urged us, “Please, don’t go to the fiesta [the dance]; that is not your place.” I heard the shots, about 1:00 in the morning; they were so loud they sounded like they were right outside my window, five or six quick ones and a final coup de grace. I thought (hoped!) they were firecrackers, but when the music stopped playing shortly afterwards, I knew something bad had happened. But I never even thought of venturing out.

In the morning, Cristian came by. “Tres muertos, Miguel.” His mother Berta had been selling enchiladas outside the dance hall and saw the whole thing. Apparently the woman, from Victoria, was shot first, enraged jealousy the motive. She’s got a husband in the States, they say, but was stepping out with some other guy, one of the other victims, also from Victoria. The other man, Ricardo from El Zapote, apparently tried to intervene, and was shot for his trouble. The killer escaped on a motorcycle.

As I got Chemo ready for school, I assumed the police had cleared everything away. But classes were canceled, due to the “tragedia,” and I finally wandered over there about 8:00 a.m. and was aghast at what I saw. The police were there all right, and the three bodies, messed in blood and dirt, lying in the street in the full morning sun, already bloating. What can I say? They looked so...dead. I thought, This is what I see on TV every night, and here it is “Live” right in front of me. I wanted to change the channel. I kept staring, to see if they would move--that’s how disoriented I was. They were as still as stones. It somehow didn’t seem real, or too real. “These are people,” I may have even said aloud. The police had strung a yellow rope to keep the crowd at a decent distance, and white-shirted folks in rubber gloves were taking pages of notes, obviously Forensics. Our little Las Vegas, a crime scene, a massacre scene! I pulled my gaze from the dead to study the crowd. Classes may have been canceled, but school was in session. The classroom, a side street; the teachers, tres muertos; the lesson “objective,” our indifference to the welfare of our children.

I stayed till they finally stuffed the three bodies in huge bright-yellow plastic bags and loaded them in the back of a pickup. I had to hurry, because Natalia’s four-year old grandson Markitos had been kicked in the head by a horse the day before, and he was getting his stitches. it was a very neat wound, shaped exactly like the hoof that made it, a flap of skin opened up but not cracking the skull. We went to Rebeca, who we all call Doctora, though I think she does not have an M.D., because Dr. Meme was not available. Rebeca put in 13 stitches, and I could hardly believe how neatly the wound healed up.

Because of the shootings, all festival events were canceled, except the daily religious celebraciones, which could then assume their rightful place. That is, until three days later, when tame things like a sack race for the kids and a “sweetheart” dance for the senior citizens finished out the week. In the last procession, the kids carried decorated crosses up to the little church--finally renovation after a “hurricane” blew down all but its facade three years ago--and something extraordinary occurred. We stopped at the soccer field and borrowed the microphone from the very same folks hawking beer and bad music. Four of the delegados preached like Ezequiels about the true meaning of this festival of the Cross. It sent chills up my spine, and I dreaded the chance they might ask me to speak, too. I was staring my cowardice right in the face; but fortunately nothing from me was required.

Some of us, to lessen our shame, clung to the fact that no Las Vegans were directly “involved” in the killings, but I was reading Flannery O’Connor, who explodes such distinctions. For her, everyone is “one of my babies,” as the Grandmother calls the Misfit in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.” Of course, the Misfit shoots her three times in the chest as soon as she touches him, so our reluctance to embrace the alien is understandable, I suppose. I had just finished a book called “The Reason for God,” which was as dull as it sounds--as I guess it would be (you know, like you’d read a book called “The Reason for Roses”). But, as if in recognition of his limitations, the author Timothy Heller kept referencing Flannery O’Connor, so I took down my Library of America edition of her Complete Works, and started reading, squirming all the time, even resisting her disturbing images of the divine. But when I saw those three dead human beings, I became one of her characters, howling for Grace. The title of this month’s CASA is from her final collection of stories, inspired by Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit priest-cosmologist-mystic (how’s that for a convergence of contradictions!).

I was kinda proud of Chemo, that he was not one of the gawkers; he’s had enough experience of dead bodies, including his own father; but it all must have affected him anyway, because about midnight he crawled into my bed for the first time in a year.

One of my “babies” must be Alba, 35, the wife of Chemo’s older half-brother Santos. I was sort of looking forward--a guilty pleasure, you may say--to a solo trip to Tegucigalpa, unencumbered by Chemo and his whims and demands. But when Alba fell ill and was bedridden for three days, and not for the first time in recent months, I decided, it’s time, we gotta get her to a doctor, specifically a cardiologist, MY cardiologist, Dr. Bayardo Pagoada, a world-class specialist, though I haven’t seen him myself in about three years. So I made her an appointment, and Santos came along, too, it would have been impossible to separate them, and we left their four kids--plus Chemo--in the care of grandmother Natalia, a living saint, AND she’s got a great sense of humor, rare perhaps in saints, indispensable in grandmothers. She’s Markitos’ grandmother, too, so you see....

I assumed it was Alba’s heart, but that was because she was already taking heart medicine! Something some clinic gave her in Quebrada Amarilla, where they were picking coffee last season. But when Dr. Bayardo examined her, he took a look at the pills, and said, “They gave her this because it’s cheap, not because it’s what she needs.” One thing Dr. Bayardo is NOT, is cheap. At one point, after four days of blood tests, X-Rays, the EKG, the sonogram, the poop test, he asked me, “Will you be able to afford these medicines, if I prescribe them? ”I think so,” I said, a little tentatively. But I had already decided that, right? when I brought her to Tegus. When the Mileydi Pharmacy had to call three other branches to get it all, with couriers on motorcycles, I did begin to doubt my resources. So I put it all on VISA!

It’s not her heart. It’s her liver, some strange variation of Hepatitis. “I’m not sure what’s causing it,” Dr. Bayardo said. But it’s serious, complicated by something even more alarming, a pulmonary embolism. “Normally, I’d put such a patient in the hospital--right now,” he said, and he advised us to stay in town till a follow-up appointment in 10 days. The thought of missing her children brought Alba to tears, and when she started to improve almost immediately with all the meds--enough Cipro for an Anthrax attack; Noxipar, a discoagulant (injected “subcutaneously” twice a day); and something called “Potenciator,” 3 vials a day mixed in water, for “insufficient protein intake due to vegetarian diets”; there ya go! Chemically, it’s Arginine-Aspartate. I looked it up on the Internet; sounds like something Mark McGwire was taking--Dr. Bayardo relented, and indeed, which was a bigger risk to her health, a couple 6-hour bus trips or a mother’s yearning for her young?

When we went back a couple weeks later, Dr. Bayardo was impressed, but still concerned, so he ordered a Pap Smear. “Can we get that here?” I asked, but I already had a plan in mind. Elio Flores’ son-in-law Carlos is a gynecologist in the very same clinic. So we marched on downstairs and Carlos took us in as soon as he could, performed the test, gave Alba some vaginal cream for a “slight infection,” and promised to follow up when the results came back--and he didn’t charge us a thing.

Then it was time for Alba’s teeth. She’s been suffering from a couple raging molars for weeks. Now, get this, the dentist wanted three appointments just to clean her teeth! And I lost track of how many cavities she counted up. I must have been crazy to think we could just walk in there and get a molar or two pulled. They showed me a menu mounting up to 9,000 Lempiras, and that’s with a 40% discount. We were looking at days and days of appointments, debt up the wazoo, and our families Lost like the TV show.

Then, suddenly, deus ex machina, a parachute opened and flew us away. As we left the dentist after the first cleaning, Chemo’s sister Rosa called. “We’re coming to Las Vegas! We’re on the bus! We just left Tocoa!” Omigod, omigod, omigod. Oh My God! “But, Rosa, we’re in Tegus.” “Oh, heck.” In Honduras, we literally could not be farther apart.

Santos came to the rescue. He quickly calculated that there was no way Rosa--and baby Tonito--could get all the way to Las Vegas TODAY, His idea, get to Ayapa, the town near Yoro where Rosa and Chemo were born and spend the night with family, Then head for Las Vegas tomorrow, and meanwhile we’ll head on home from the Tegus side and all get there about the same time. I gasped. Like Dorothy in Oz, I could hardly believe it--we were going home. Alba was especially thrilled. No more doctors! At least for a while.

But the parachute may turn out to be a noose. Rosa ditched husband Tonio! She ain’t going back. Can’t really blame her. I have to say, I never much liked them together. He drinks and smokes and cusses--and hits her.

In one stroke, our little family doubled, and so did the expenses. Be careful what you wish for! I kept telling them every time we made the endless trip to Tocoa, “You guys should move closer.” Can’t get any closer than this! But Rosa is cooking, she’s cleaning, she’s washing. Suddenly I’m Henry Higgins, the confirmed old bachelor undone by my own Eliza Doolittle. I’m buy Pampers! Worse, I’m disposing of Pampers, if you know what I mean....

Will Tonio come after Rosa, like with a gun or something, and me, too? Probably not. Good Lord, he’s twice her age! He’s got two kids in the States as old as Rosa! So he’s not done yet. Besides, he can’t get here anyway. “Agatha,” the first hurricane of the season, sneaking in from the Pacific, is flooding half the country, and the bridge into town is under water. Oh yeah, it was supposed to be a desert till June, the forecasters said. But the rains started two weeks ago and won’t quit. The kids get their thrills playing mud soccer. But we have especially foul mud, since the whole town is basically a cow pasture. Chemo’s cousin Dionis just pulled a one-inch worm out of a pussy boil on the back of Chemo’s thigh. I was frantically attacking the little bulge with iodine and Neobol from the outside and feeding Chemo antibiotics to kill it from the inside. But Dionis finally coaxed it out, and now we’re back-filling the hole.

I had a moment of convergence I guess you could say, when, at the lowest point--almost without hope, wondering if there was a way out--suddenly a swift flock of little white birds, a type I’ve never seen before, like paper cups with wings, flew silently right past me at eye level, where I was sitting alone at the little church, the highest point in town. Immediately, I said, “That’s my sign. We’re all right.”

The reason for God? More like, the reaching for God, with God doing most of the reaching.

Pierre Teilhard De Chardin, "The Omega Point": "Remain true to yourself, but move ever upward toward greater consciousness and greater love! At the summit you will find yourselves united with all those who, from every direction, have made the same ascent. For everything that rises must converge."

Love, Miguel

ESTA ES SU CASA--MAY 2010

ESTA ES SU CASA--MAY 2010

[Note: If you want to see all the photos from this month's newsletter, write me at michaeldulick@yahoo.com]

Eyjafjallajokull-lite

I wondered what I’d’ve missed in Las Vegas if I’d gone to the States.

First of all, more wounds.

I stopped by the tiny kids Jefferson and Helen’s with their juices and chips, a hot morning. Ines, their grandmother, was a-tither; she’d just heard that old Pedro, her husband, had cut his hand with his machete, way up in the hills getting firewood. I don’t have any idea how she knew, but her son had gone to find him. Just then, here they come, Pedro’s hand--like Dulis’ hand in last month’s CASA--wrapped in some green leaves and a bloody rag. I couldn’t stand to look at Dulis’ wound, but I knew I had to see this; Pedro’s a wraith, but he’s a tough old bird. I knew if I didn’t look at it, he’d just shrug it off--which was exactly his attitude--till, when the last leaf came off and I gasped--it looked like he’d lunched with Hannibal Lector--he agreed he probably should go to the clinic. And this treatment would be “free,” because the doc would be on public time. So go, Pedro! And I sent him off with his teenage granddaughter Yolanda.

Half-hour later, Yolanda’s at my door. “They gave him a prescription.” Well, sure, I expected that, you know, some antibiotic or....what the heck? It was for No. 2 thread! “Are you kidding me?? They don’t have sutures at the clinic?” I repeated this about five times, in English, each time louder. “What kind of a country is this? The Big Creep Mel Zelaya--the ousted president--is suing Honduras for his back pay, and they don’t have sutures in the clinic!” The whole neighborhood heard me, two or three neighborhoods, in fact, as I marched over to Rebeca’s, where she has a small pharmacy, and got the damn thread; 100 Lempiras for a tiny package. “What do POOR people do?” A rhetorical question if there ever was one. EVERYBODY’ s poor. And Pedro? He was back at the house. “Yolanda!” I shout. She jumped three feet. She walked him back to the clinic. I guess he shoulda stuck with the leaves.

So I started another round of changing bandages every day. Pretty soon Pedro’s feeling so good he wants to get back to work, chopping that firewood. I tell him he has to rest, at least till he gets the stitches out! I asked him how old he was. “Ninety-eight.” Ines gently corrected him, “Seventy-eight.” I was going with a hundred and eight. But he’s a sweetie, keeps thanking me.

A couple days later, the next shoe dropped, filled with blood. I hear someone yelling in the street, “The Guato fainted! The Guato fainted!” This could not make any sense. The Guato, 23, the toughest soccer player in Las Vegas, does not faint. Unless he’s whipped his machete into his own foot. He was out in the field, cleaning it up for planting, and the machete slipped out of his hand. He wrapped his ankle himself in leaves and, yes, a bloody rag, and rode his bike back to the house, and fainted as he dismounted. But he’s pure steel. No sooner did we help him inside than he was fully alert while grandma Mina unwrapped the wound, the blood oozing into his sneaker. Here we go again! But, hey, this time I’m ready. While Guato rides himself over to the clinic on his bike, I get the sutures from Rebeca on the way! And I don’t even wonder what kind of a country this is.

“He’s going to need a couple shots,” says Dr. Meme, and looks at me. What? Another thing the clinic doesn’t have is syringes! I resist the temptation to grab him by the throat, and just send a kid off to the nearest store to get the stickers. Meanwhile, I ask him about t the leaves--do they really help? Because he really is a very nice man, and a good doctor; it’s not his fault the health care system in Honduras is one big death panel. “Good Lord, no! They contaminate the wound!” He went on to say some folks stuff a wound with coffee grounds, and even dirt. We got Guato back home, and I told him to rest and keep his leg elevated. A couple hours later he was tooling around town on his bike. I didn’t say a thing. I just got him a supply of gauzes and tape and iodine to change his bandages himself. As he said, “I’ve had worse.”

OK, the next one was a perfect stranger. “Dr. Meme said you’d buy me the sutures.” I didn’t know him, but I believed him. He was limping badly and he went to lift up his pants leg, and I saw the bloody rag--”That’s enough.” I gave him a note for Rebeca.

Next was Adonai from La Laguna. Him I know. But you probably wouldn’t recognize his hand, what he’d done to it with his machete. Off to the clinic, but he just missed the doctor, who told him to come his private office. I guess Meme knew this was no boating accident. “Deep, very deep,” he told me later, when I paid the 700 Lempiras (as opposed to 5 Lempiras at the clinic).

Not all wounds are bloody but still go deep. We were all so happy for Horacio, our school principal, when he got promoted to superintendent of the whole municipality of Victoria, which includes about 100 schools (most of them pretty small, from 50 students). But when he tried to move Wilfredo, everyone’s favorite teacher in Las Vegas, and everyone’s best friend, to Tegucigalpita, we were stunned. The move would have simply disappeared Wilfredo; Tegucigalpita (not to be confused with Tegucigalpa) is so far away in the mountains it’s practically in Morazan. Wil could never “commute”; he would have to spend the whole week there, and then he’s still taking graduate classes himself in Progreso every weekend. His wife Brenda would be a widow, their children orphans. Brenda told me, in tears, “Miguel, we are so hurt, Horacio and Wilfredo have been like brothers their whole life.”

Well, politics makes strange bedfellows, and sometimes unmakes them. Since the Nationals won the elections all over the country, Liberals like Wil are getting pushed out. Legally, you understand. The teacher Horacio wants to put in Wil’s place already has her “titulo” (degree), so has more “right” to the job.

A simple parent-teacher meeting turned into a rally for Wil. The tone was set when Brenda was elected president of the parents club. Flor, the current principal, led the charge herself. She had a letter of protest signed by every teacher in the school. And Wil had composed one too. Kako, the most experienced activist among us, offered to chain himself to the school gate if persuasion did not work. Imagine! The first strike of the year won’t be the teachers, it’ll be the parents!

The next day, two carloads of us (the “cars” were pick-ups, you know) went into Victoria to “dialog” with Horacio. I had no idea what to expect, but it really was dialog, and successful, too. Horacio received us graciously and listened to everyone. Kako himself set the tone this time. “Brother Horacio, you know we were all thrilled with your promotion, it was a promotion for Las Vegas itself, we all respect you and appreciate all you did for our school, you restored discipline and excellence, and that was not easy, we all love you and know you as our neighbor, so we appeal to these relations--and to the law, which requires that Wil’s contract be honored to teach in Las Vegas this year.” And everyone else said variations of the same. Things did get a little tense here and there, especially when Horacio referred to gossip he would hear at the soccer field that demeaned him, and poor Flor broke down in tears at Horacio’s “personal betrayal.” But when Horacio asked three times if any one else had something to say, I realized he wanted me to speak, and he finally said, “Miguel, what do you say?” He probably expected a conciliatory message, and that’s exactly what I offered, despite my initial sense of outrage. “Profe, I’ve known you and Wil since you were children and love you both so it pains me to see any rift between you, and we all depend on your position and your honor for a resolution.” Innocuous enough, but I meant it as a thank-you to all the folks present.

Horacio, despite what we all assumed was a lot of pressure from the new mayor to sweep the Liberals out, compromised. He said the new teacher would stay in Victoria, where she is already working, and Wil will stay in Las Vegas, for two years, by which time he should finish his own “titulo” and thus have full legal right to the job. The “dialog” took an hour, the writing of the “document” took two hours. But when it was done and signed, we all hugged Wil and Horacio, the latter a little gingerly since such PDA’s are “unprofessional.”

So I would have missed my day in the Resistencia if I’d gone to St. Louis.

I did go to Tegucigalpa, but not to get on a plane. We sat still the whole month of March, as Chemo got well settled into school. Once April started, I looked for a good chance to get away, figuring we’d go on a weekend, to minimize missed days at school. So we went Saturday, April 10, taking Chemo’s cousin Dionis along, for some big-city thrills. I asked Chemo’s teacher Regina for “permission” to miss Monday and Tuesday, and she gave him a little homework to tide him over.

We had fun, but when I called Elio and Mema to invite them to lunch, they tell me their daughter Chindy got rammed in a car accident in the morning, and her husband Alejandro got car-jacked in the afternoon. Two guys in masks burst into Alejandro’s car, guns drawn, and made him drive to a remote spot, where they put the guns to his head--and left him without pulling the trigger. What a laugh, huh? The car was found later, stripped of his little sons’ backpacks and toys, and other things. “It’s in the shop,” Elio said. And how soon will Alejandro recover? You know, Honduras is second only to Iraq for violence, per capita, or should I say, de-capita.

And I would have missed Cristian’s baby, if I’d gone to St. Louis! Cristian, you may recall, was shot in the gut back in December, and he’s got a foot-long scar from the “surgery” that saved his life. His girlfriend Maria was already pregnant then, and she delivered a healthy little 8-pound girl, Jenny Catalina, on April 23, not without falling near-victim to the caprices of Honduran health care. When the due date approached, they went to Victoria, and someone told them the “materno” (the free maternity clinic) was closed. “It’s a warehouse now.” So they came home and called Erlinda, the best midwife in Las Vegas. She sort of exploded. “The materno is NOT closed, it’s just moved!” So they went back to Victoria the next day, where they found the materno, but, they were told, “It’s twins, you gotta go to Yoro for this, to the hospital.” No ultrasound, you understand, just guesswork. So the next day they go to Yoro, where ONE baby appeared, and no more. They’re back home, now, and I had to laugh. Cristian has appeared in these reports so often, he’s one of the cantina kids--raised in a tavern, littered with vomiting, cursing drunks--and he says to me something I never imagined I’d hear from him. “Miguel, I spent most of the money you gave me on PAMPERS.” He’s 20 and now he’s a father changing diapers. And something else I’m not used to from him. “I prayed, Miguel, I prayed so hard, that everything would be all right.”

I told Cristian , that’s why your life was spared when you got shot, so your baby would not be born an orphan. God saved you to be a father to your child. God may have saved me for the same reason, because I have been giving him a good amount of money. I couldn’t live with myself if little Jenny Catalina was further endangered just for lack of a few bucks....

I cannot show you a picture, ‘cause my stupid camera won’t work! But I’ve got a gorgeous shot I took before it broke of little Helen, Maricela and Blas’s daughter with MS.

Speaking of Maricela, she named her baby Mariana after my sister Mary Anne, as I reported before. So when the first anniversary of Mary Anne’s death came round April 17, I went over to the house, just to sort of bask in baby Mariana’s glow. And glow she did; it’s as if she knew. I’ve never seen her more alert, just looking intently at me, her eyes wide and bright, her tiny hand raised like a gesture of blessing. It gave me the idea to do our own version of a novenario, 9 days of prayer for a departed loved one, including any anniversary of their passing. But I wasn’t sure how to proceed. “We’ll do it here, Miguel,” said Alba confidently, when Chemo and I went over for supper. Of course, they never knew Mary Anne, but they wanted to do this for her. So for 9 evenings, we said the Rosary before dinner, just so, each night another neighbor or two joining the group.

And when Chemo’s “nephew” Joel, Alba’s boy, had his 15th birthday, I don’t know, it just was the best party. A big cake, snacks, Cokes, the usual, but somehow just nicer. I think it was because the kids didn’t just eat and run. Folks hung around a while, listening to music and just having some fun. It’s the first time I can’t show you one of my famous “cake” photos, though, since my camera is on the fritz again. And I wanted to show you a BEFORE and AFTER of Joel and Chemo, BEFORE Chemo’s operation, when Joel would carry his tiny “uncle” on his back, and AFTER, now that they are the same age, and Chemo is a head taller...

One afternoon, 25 little kids came from Uracal, a mountain village about an hour’s hike away. They needed a photo, their teacher said, to claim some kind of “beca” (scholarship) from government funds. Oh man! “My camera...it doesn’t work.” But I had to try. I got them cool drinks from the fridge while I fidgeted with my camera, turning it off and on, tapping it on the cement sidewalk, thumping it, rubbing it, cursing it, blessing it--finally, just when I think I’ll have to send them away empty-handed, a flicker! “Line up, kids!” I got one shot, as the sun slipped behind the hills. I “view” it, hmm, a couple faces hidden by classmates. “One more!” Nope, that’s all she wrote, as the camera shuts off. So, you’ll never know any more about them than I do, but you gotta see this shot...

When they told us there’d be no classes for a week, Chemo and I went to Progreso. As we come into the city 5 hours later, Porfirio, the bus driver, announces “El Progreso!” and a bunch of folks get off, but I don’t rush, I get my gear together, I want to wait till the boulevard, the last stop. I look around, and no Chemo. Instant panic, like a nightmare closing around me. “He got off at the last stop.” What are you talking about?? Porfirio knows me, he knows Chemo, he knows he’s my son, I can’t breathe, I can’t think, I can’t talk, except, “I’m getting off, I’m getting off!” I bound into the street and immediately start waving my arms like a semaphore, hoping Chemo will see me, wherever he is. I know it’s about 3 long blocks, and, indeed, I see this little form in the distance running, running, running desperately, and I know it’s Chemo. I assume he sees me, but he’s running so hard, so scared, it seems, I’m not sure, then he starts to dart across the street and I know, “My God! His eyes! His poor eyes! He CAN’T see me!” I swear I thought of Edgar in “King Lear,” stricken at the sight of his blinded, “parti-eyed” father Gloucester. I almost died of grief myself, it was all like slow-motion or something, and I finally had to tell myself, “Call him, you idiot!” I finally find my voice. “CHEMO! CHEMO! I’M HERE!” At last he knows. He slows down and I speed up. I grab him and hug him, he says nothing, like it’s all OK, but he’s shaking--or maybe it was me. “Were you scared, Chemo?” Shakes his head. “Are you all right?” Nods yes. “Couldn’t you see me?” A shrug. But I kept reassuring him (myself?) that I would never lose him again, and I told him (begged him?) never get off the bus without me right behind you. And inwardly I kept cursing Porfirio (myself?)--what carelessness, to let Chemo off by himself! And in El Progreso!

Then a visit to Morazan, trying to coincide with Fermincito’s 21st birthday. You may recall I previously reported that he had returned from about 8 months of misery on the U.S./Mexico border, hoping for a break--and all he got was a broken arm when a tractor he was trying to drive rolled over on him. Now he’s got another wound, the same kind that has punctuated this letter. He was helping his dad Fermin with the grates for the windows on their house; he was operating a grinder or a cutter or a polisher--something with a wheel--and it broke apart, the wheel shattering as it ripped off the top of his left hand, filling the wound with tiny shards. I saw the purple scar snaking across his hand like a glove, but I was not spared the sight of the butchery itself--Fermincito himself had videoed it on his cell phone! As the doctor (doctora, actually, as she picked out the pieces with a tweezers) worked for three hours, he just had recorded about 3 minutes, but that was more than enough. It looked more like a hand TRANSPLANT. Fermin, the dad, who saw it all happen, said, “Miguel, I thought he would lose his hand.” I thought I’d lose my lunch.

We get back to Las Vegas to hear the news that Will is back on the rack. Horacio is losing his position as superintendent--seems he wasn’t slurpy enough to suit the mayor, who’s trying to clear the district of liberals--so the deal is off. Wil, always the optimist, just says, If they fire me, I’ll do something else. But he was born to be a .teacher. It’s as if the mayor of Manchester told Gary Mazzola who to hire--and fire--at Parkway South. OK, bad example....

Hey, I just got a camera! In Morazan, Fermin loaned me his camera while he tries to repair mine. So take a look, including Cristian and family, and the BEFORE and AFTER of Chemo and Joel.

What did I miss in St. Louis this month, besides the Cardinals 20-inning game? Well, that you must tell me...and I wish I could be in two places at once. At least hold me in your heart, as I do you.

Meanwhile, the annual festival celebrating our church, named “Holy Cross,” starts today.

Love, Miguel

ESTA ES SU CASA--APRIL 2010

ESTA ES SU CASA--APRIL 2010

See you...in September

If this were any other April, I’d be in St. Louis right about now, accepting your gracious invitations to a chaw and a talk or a hearty meal. But, as I mentioned last month, I’ll wait till September for another visit this year.... In fact, this is the first time since I moved down here that I will spend the whole month of April in Honduras. What’s so significant about that? Well, April is the hottest month, the most globally warm, you might say. And they’re not promising any relief this year till June, when the rainy season should start, a month later than normal. I know I’ll get no sympathy from you, just enjoy your SPRING!

Chemo has a new teacher, a lovely young woman named Regina, whose husband Lindolfo, is the first-grade teacher for Chemo’s nieces Mirna and Reina. Chemo’s third-grade class had 42 kids, so they split it in half; I had to smile, I sorta think Profe Vitelio saw his chance, and shipped out Chemo to the new teacher. Well, that’s fine, I feel more confident now about his prospects for passing. The first grading period is upon us, she has to give him a break, right?

Lindolfo--I’m sure he has no idea why I smile so every time I see him. He’s the only Lindolfo I ever heard of outside of an opera aria. But if he teaches Mirna and Reina how to read, hey, I’ll be singing his praises, too!

Just walking to school each day with Mirna and Reina, as well as Chila their sister in second grade, is sort of a miracle, since they’ve never attended before. Their mom and dad, Alba and Santos, finally came home to Las Vegas after 4 months picking coffee in Quebrada Amarilla. In fact, they arrived on Father’s Day, here celebrated on March 19, feast of St. Joseph (ironically, a “father” with no children, except that one rather famous foster-child, Jesus Christ). Santitos, or Joel, their little son who stayed with them picking coffee (and so will miss school--again!) comes sauntering down the street to my house about 6 in the morning, and I jumped for joy. I take him into Chemo’s bedroom. “Chemo! Look who’s here! Who is it? Who is it?” Chemo raises his groggy head from the covers, takes a look, takes another look, “It’s Joel,” and falls back on the pillow. But pretty soon he was bouncing out of bed and getting dressed. We all went over to the house and there they all were, including the girls, who had been staying with their grandmother Natalia while Santos and Alba were away. It was a happy reunion all around, and Alba was right back at it, handing out coffee with cream and tasty rolls to everyone.

I urged Santos to attend the Father’s Day celebration at the school, but he was, of course, bushed--months picking coffee and a red-eye return in the back of a truck from Quebrada Amarilla that traveled all night. Meanwhile, I was inviting any kids who came by my house to make a card for their father, using cards that Mary Morini made from Chepito’s drawings. (She’s still got sets available, if you’re looking for cards YOU can use for Father’s Day...!) Chemo made one, discarded it, and worked on another. It astonished me: “Muchas gracias por atenderme y salvarme la vida.” (Thank you for taking care of me and for saving my life.) It suddenly confirmed the decision to spend April with him.

And Chepito is drawing again! I guess I caught him in a good mood, or maybe it goes in cycles, like sunspots. He wants to draw every day. “Do you still have ideas?” “Uh-huh.” And he does, elaborate crosses (which I keep insisting, “These aren’t gang signs, are they?”), churches, palaces, and structures that look like Alice in Wonderland. Fine, precise details, just lines, you might say, but hours of painstaking art. And the colors! You know, it’s funny that conventional wisdom calls black and white photography, for example, “realistic.” If Chepito were a philosopher, he might say, “No, color is real.” And the statement would be greeted with interest and respect, especially if the interviewer had seen his drawings.

Red blood is certainly real. But when Dulis came to me with his hand bandaged in a rag and some leaves, I did not even want to look at the wound, wounds, actually, a slice to the bone along the thumb and a gash in his wrist, from falling onto his machete somehow. I sent him off with a note to Dr. Meme (that I would pay the expenses). I caught up with him a little later, while Meme was stitching away, I think with no anesthetic, judging by Dulis’ grinding teeth, and Meme’s hands painted red like a MASH surgeon. I just glanced in every now and then, lest I faint dead away. The doctor ended the session with three shots, and told Dulis to come to the clinic for a Tetanus shot the next day. Meme was just saving me a little money. The bill was already a thousand Lempiras since this was “private” time, and the shot at the clinic would be free. I paid, but it opened a wound in my wallet. I had been counting my money every night, trying to calculate if it would last till I got my pension in April. I was expecting an emergency, you know, you have to allow for that any time. Hey, where’s OUR Obamacare?

I still had the gauzes and tape and Neobol cream and iodine out from changing Dulis’ dressings a day later when Joel limps in, with strips of rag around both knees and hands. He’d fallen, “What? Off a mountain?” I asked. He had these big red patches where skin used to be, so I set to work. By the time I had him bandaged up, he had enough white trim and red spots he looked like a cut-rate Santa Claus.

“Use the root! Use the root!” This was the cry as they started vaccinating all the dogs in town against rabies, a public service provided by the mayor. The first one was a tiny thing you could hold in one hand, a puppy. But when the next one whipped around like a kite--they shoot them up in a hind leg, because it’s the farthest away from their teeth, I assume!--a veteran of the operation pointed to a tree root that looped out of the ground about three inches. Now, don’t get upset, you dog-lovers, but they feed the leash through the root (and vaccination day is the only time dogs around here ever see a leash) and pull tight, in effect nailing the dog’s head down to the ground, while someone else wrests the dog’s hind leg free enough to inject it. Some dogs still try to thrash, but they are no match for...the root. Immediately after the shot, they are released and are meek as kittens, a dazed look on their mugs, like, “What the heck was that?” When my neighbor Lalito brought his two huge wolves that bark all night like banshees, I was chanting, “Overdose, overdose!” under my breath. But to no avail.

You can’t overdose on birthdays. Elsa, Chemo’s cousin, had her first birthday party ever, at age 11. It was also partly to thank her mother Natalia for taking such good care of Chemo and me while Santos and Alba were away. I realized this committed me to more parties--for her brother Dionis, as well as Chemo’s nieces and so on. Oh, please! What a “problem”! It’s a kid’s birthday. Childhood is not a “pre-existing condition”! You gotta celebrate. As Joan Sebastian, a Mexican composer, sings of his son, who died young, “Eres el trigo de mi pan,” you are the wheat of my bread.

And all of you are my daily sustenance.

Love, Miguel

ESTA ES SU CASA--MARCH 2010

ESTA ES SU CASA--MARCH 2010

The Obedience of Faith

I landed in Miami on Super Bowl weekend. But I kept going, on to St. Louis. I went in obedience to Pilar Harrison, who long before, in fact, ever since her husband Dean’s funeral in 1999, had called me to attend her passing as well. “You will speak for my funeral, too, Miguel.”

Pilar died January 27, but she had arranged her cremation, so the Mass and memorial service was unhurried, scheduled for February 13. This gave us time to plan a loving tribute to her life; anyone who knew her wanted to participate, from folks who knew her since the late 1960s when she first came to America from Barcelona, Spain, to marry Dean, all the way to little Katie Melching, 9 years old, who wanted to sing with her daddy Brian at the service for the “angel” who often brought supper for her handicapped mommy Angela.

Pilar was always doing for others, but she’d laugh when she’d answer the phone with her Catalan accent and some nosey caller would ask for “the lady of the house.” Pilar did not mind being taken for the maid, but it’s a mistake she never made herself, that is, prejudging others by appearances. She was always on the move, filled with the same Spirit that formed the cloistered Passionist nuns, contemplating Christ night and day. Pilar took their grocery order every week, way out to the convent at the west end of Manchester Road. The big congregation at her funeral was as varied as a random round-up at the U.N., yet we were all linked by our love for one particular person.

I excerpt my “eulogy” below, but I have to add one annotation. After I spoke, I kept hoping for a sign from Pilar that she forgave the embarrassing confession I made in the speech. On Ash Wednesday, Teresa Jorgen and I went looking for a fish fry. According to the newspaper, there was a fish fry at Incarnate Word Church, where we’d just had Pilar’s funeral a few days before. That would be a nice coincidence, we thought. We got there...and nothing. Some kids playing in the gym, another little after-school group in the cafeteria. What the heck? So Teresa said, Let’s go to Gulf Shores, a favorite spot of Pilar’s just up Olive Street Road.

As soon as we walk in, we hear a blues guitar and a big greeting, “Teresa! Miguel!” It was Brian Melching, Katie’s dad, who plays and records under the name Pennsylvania Slim, and he’d just started his set. OK, this was no coincidence! A gal who grew up under Francisco Franco’s dictatorship in Spain, diggin’ the blues--this was the sign I was waiting for. Nothin’ better than the blues to make you feel good about your hard times. As Teresa exclaimed, “Pilar loved Pennsylvania Slim!” While we ate our fish and chips, Brian dedicated every other song either to Pilar or Teresa or me, and none of the other customers seemed to mind. We got his latest CD and played it all the way home.

Pilar, I guess, planned everything but the weather. Frozen! I cleaned snow off the car--Pilar’s car! which I was “borrowing”--at least four times. What is the matter with you people?? How do you live like this?? I took pictures like some tourist from another planet, to show back in Honduras, where my daily phone calls reported hot, sunny days.

On the other hand, I was warmed up by good times with good friends, even when we were cleaning out Pilar’s condo, the stories we told, the memories we shared. But the friends I was most eager to see were the ones I hadn’t met yet--the babies! Little Jaslyn, born last October, the daughter of my nephew Jason and wife Sonja. Of course, if you wanna ooh and ahh this charmer, you gotta get a line ticket, there’s such a crowd! (Actually, speaking of tickets, Jason’s receiver coach at Illinois, Greg McMahon, is the special teams coach for the New Orleans Saints and invited Jason down to Miami for the Super Bowl. He couldn’t quite get Jason into the game, but he got him into THE PARTY!!)

Then I got to meet Ellie Florence, born in December, the daughter of Parkway North grad and St. Louis Symphony graphic designer Carol Stanton and her five-star chef husband Kirk Warner. (As Carol said, “I had NO trouble with my food cravings” during her pregnancy.) Ellie’s a cutie, already tempting a nickname like “Stringbean.” She cries a little, but maybe because she’s already a diva!

Way too early for a Cardinals game (though spring training is starting), I yielded to the meatloaf grandmaster Rams’ wisdom, who frowned at the prospect of my doing such a quick turn-around to come right back in April, and then disappear again till God knows when. “Why don’t you spread it around?” So she suggested I return later in September, in time for my October birthday--and maybe a World Series game.

And, indeed, I really must attend to business in Honduras. I spent 200 dollars on phone calls back “home” keeping track of Chemo. School finally started, a week late, and Chemo is cottoning up to his new teacher, Profe Vitelio. And he’s shepherding his 3 little nieces to class every day, for the first time really in their lives. So that’s working.

But the extracurricular activities were more disturbing. Every phone call, Chemo had another request, new shoes, new toys, new clothes, but the most persistent wish was for a new portable DVD player. “But you already have one,” I would say. (That was the big present I got him after his open-heart operation.) “No, it’s...scratched.” Pretty soon, I hear he’s sold it! For 300 Lempiras (about 15 bucks, when it cost ten times that). “No, I didn’t! Who told you?” That’s a story in itself. I called Cristian, the teen who got shot , pretty often, and most often Pablito and Chepito would be over at his house, so one day they’re hemming and hawing and beating around the bush till Cristian finally puts his sweet as pie little sister Mariela on the line, who tells me, with obvious prompts from the boys, “Chemo sold his--what’s it called?--‘portatil.’ Oh, and it’ my birthday.” Their deniability thus preserved, I could honestly tell Chemo, “they” (Chepito, Pablito, or Cristian) did not tell me.

But that’s not the point, Chemo! I talked to Dora, I talked to Natalia, Chemo’s grandma, who never leaves the house, but she was was so upset she crossed town to confront Chemo along with Dora. And Dora got it back, from Walter, a nice kid (I thought!), though the money question remained to be clarified. Chemo finally admitted his enterprising--though his monosyllables were a lot harder to decipher than Tiger Woods’ apology.

Other, even more bizarre stories kept circulating, but I had to dismiss these as fantasies. I couldn’t have Dora running down every rumor.

But even before I got back to Las Vegas, I had to bail out three Las Vegan teens in Tegucigalpa--Gerardo, Marvin, Olancho. Well, not really bail them out with cash; I sweet-talked them out of custody. The day I got back from the States, I invited them to Pizza Hut in the mall to celebrate Gerado’s 19th birthday. Gerardo is the brother of Cristian, the kid who got shot; also invited was Marvin, whose life Cristian saved by taking the bullet; and their mutual cousin Olancho. You know how malls are with teenagers now. Talk about profiling! I was already in the restaurant waiting for them with an order of Hut Wings when the manager, Roger, who’s been a pal for years since he was an eager-beaver waiter, comes running up to me. “They’ve been arrested!” (Even he knows these kids, from previous invites.) In a panic, we packed up the Hut Wings and I hurried off, with a floor-walker, to the security office on the roof. “They took them to the police station already,” I was informed. What, not Guantanamo?

I grabbed a cab to the station, which is right next to the hospital where Chemo got his heart operation, so I knew the area well. I expressed equal parts of dismay, shock, subservience, solicitude, understanding, and sternness, whatever worked. Eventually, I was ushered into the sergeant’s office. I explained that I come to the capital city once a month and invite friends from Las Vegas now living and working--I emphasized WORKING, that is, that they were responsible, not slackers--in Tegus. Then he called the boys in and sat them down and told me, eyeing them all the time, “Sir, you know, as a former teacher [we’d already discussed that] that you can recognize a bad student the first time you see them; I’ve got twenty years of experience as a police officer and I can tell you right now, these guys are not as pure as you think they are.” Nerves, I guess, but I came very close to what would have been a very inappropriate laugh when he said “pure” since “puro” is also the Spanish word for cigar. “They’re not the cigars you think they are.” In fact, they did look pretty scuzzy--well, they’d come straight from work! But I agreed with the voice of authority, meanwhile shushing Marvin, who was muttering under his breath about how unfair this all was. What I did not say was that, as a teacher, I had in fact dedicated my whole life to fighting prejudice, precisely, NOT to judge anyone by their appearance. But let him have his way--we got out of there and crossed the street to another, smaller mall, with its own Pizza Hut, and we opened up our Hut Wings (the waiter kindly provided a plate), ordered up a pizza and finished our evening in peace.

Back in Las Vegas now, I’m in my shirt sleeves, where the weather is alternating between baking heat (love it!) and breezy cool (you would call it summer). Chemo and his nieces have yet to all have class the same day, with this teacher out, then that teacher out, but I love our little ritual: Chemo gets up early and gets ready and we go over to his grandma Natalia’s, where the girls are staying till their mom and day, Alba and Santos, come back, probably not till April, from picking coffee, and we go off to school together, also his cousin Dionis, Natalia’s youngest, in fifth grade. The girls are Chila, 13, in second grade, Mirna, 11, and Reina, 9, both in second grade with Profe Flor. A hopeful start, though I saw “Why did you not do your HOMEWORK??” scrawled on Mirna’s notebook already. You gotta understand, Madam Teacher, these girls have practically no experience being in school. Give ‘em a break, OK? Of course, personal attention is at a premium, when you’ve got 40 kids in a classroom....

The transitions are so abrupt. At 6:00 in the morning, I’m handing off my big warm Cardinals jacket to Teresa Jorgen at Lambert Airport in St. Louis, and by noon I’m landing in Honduras, hot and dry and sunny. I tell you, going either way is not easy. It’s harder every time I leave Chemo behind, and it’s sheer torture to leave such dear friends and family in St. Louis.

One transition was even more final. The whole time I was in St. Louis, I wanted to visit Tom Thompson--”Don Tomas” to his thousands of students at Parkway East Junior High (as it was called) and Parkway North High. But it was very hard to catch him on a “good” day, because he was so sick. Still at home, in the loving hospice care of Patricia, easing Tom’s transition to his last despedida, or farewell, I finally got the chance the Thursday before I left town. He was alert, and profoundly thoughtful; all he wanted to talk about was Pilar, how good and wise and loving she was; indeed, how good she had made all the rest of us. I didn’t stay long. “I won’t see you again, Miguel,” he said, as we kissed good-bye. “I love you.” We both said that. Don Tomas died three days later, Sunday morning, February 21, just a week before his birthday.

So strange, isn’t it? Pilar had sent for me, after her death, but, in some mystery, she knew it was an invitation to see Don Tomas, too, before his passing. What St. Paul calls “the obedience of faith” is simply love. When we respond, even God falls into our lap.

Love, Miguel

EULOGY for PILAR VILARÓ HARRISON

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Incarnate Word Catholic Church

As much as Pilar loved Dean, she did not keep him to herself. I counted myself among their friends, but I did not realize how good was their love, how rich, how full, how all-embracing, until after Dean died. Some time later, Pilar gave me...Dean’s wedding ring.

But I lost it! You see, for several years, I wore the ring for any special occasion--Pilar’s birthday, Dean’s birthday, the anniversary of Dean’s death, their wedding anniversary, Easter, Christmas, New Year’s Day, Thanksgiving--anytime I knew that I would see Pilar. Suddenly, after a certain flurry of celebrations--putting the ring on, taking it off, putting it on--somehow, I misplaced it. Lost it!

I was miserable! I searched everywhere. I’m still convinced it’s somewhere in my old apartment on Delmar. I tore up at least a couple floor boards looking for it.

I bought a ring to replace Dean’s ring--and I never really had to tell Pilar, because shortly afterwards, I moved to Honduras. Yes! I ran away! But now, Pilar knows what a numbskull I am! I’m so sorry, Pilar! But maybe she forgives me.

This ring, even it it’s not “really” Dean’s ring, does I hope do Pilar and Dean some honor. This ring is my tribute to their love, a love that included all of us. Because love is never lost. So let us love one another, as Pilar loved Dean, that nearly, that dearly, that really.

Amen.