Because We Care spends a week in La Moskitia

 

 

“Poverty is hunger. Poverty is lack of shelter. Poverty is being sick and not being able to see a doctor. Poverty is not having access to school and not knowing how to read. Poverty is not having a job, is fear for the future, living one day at a time.

Poverty has many faces, changing from place to place and across time, and has been described in many ways.  Most often, poverty is a situation people want to escape. So poverty is a call to action — for the poor and the wealthy alike — a call to change the world so that many more may have enough to eat, adequate shelter, access to education and health, protection from violence, and a voice in what happens in their communities.”

Wow, really, where do I start. My friend Layle said “I’m sure all those rich experiences are shifting around in your mind as you go about your daily routine and when you are ready to sit down and type it’s all going to flow” and I tend to believe her because she is such a spiritual soul.

I have decided to do this by days because mentally, I can’t do the whole thing at once, I saw so much.

This was a once in a lifetime trip (although I do look forward to going back, despite being hungry and dirty for a week). The people I met and the places my eyes saw will forever be in my mind. La Mosquitia (or Miskitia or Moskito, call it what you want) is one of the most beautiful places you can imagine. It’s rolling hills and pine forests or woodland vegetation with every type of bromeliad growing out of the trees, catching your eye as you drive by in a truck or in a boat. The way the mangroves grow is like nothing I’ve ever seen. There were more mango trees that your mind can even imagine and breadfruit and sweet little dark plum colored, avocado shaped berries.

I was with Nidia and her sister Rose Mary. We were hosted by the mayor of Puerto Lempira, Edgardo Saicion and his wife Graciela. They are humble, wonderful people. The municipal driver was named Eric and he was on time every single day to pick us up. He used to live on Roatán. They treated us like royalty. We listened to American Country while riding across the vast barren land.

The Mayor of Roatán municipal (and Nidia’s boss, she is a council woman) Jerry Hynds, owns Island Shipping. He offered us a 40′ container and free shipping to Puerto Lempira. Without his generosity, this mission would have not happened. Also thank you to the Galaxy Wave for donating our tickets to La Ceiba. Many thanks also to the people who donated.

So, are the people we visited living in poverty? They have shelter, food (albeit limited choices) is available and the most basic of needs. They have little to no clothes or shoes, they have no beds, they have no running water, no electricity, no toilet paper, the schools have no books or paper or pencils, crayons and coloring books are unheard of. Do they miss what they know nothing about?

This is the great debate going on in my head. Do the people that I saw in the insanely gorgeous remote areas living the simplest life imaginable really have it so bad? They know nothing about how we live. They have no TV, see no newspapers or magazines or even books. Their knowledge is quite limited and based on routine daily, not life experiences. Could the majority of these people function in our crazy world? Do they even want to? I think not, however, the children that I saw all had this blank, empty look in their eyes, they were there, but not there. Only when I could surprise them with a photo of themselves, did I get a remnant of a smile. One little girl looked at the photo, then down at her dress that she was wearing, then back to the photo. Her eyes were not believing that she was looking at herself. Can you imagine not knowing what you look like? I think the blank stare is due to lack of experiencing emotion, things are just the same for them every day. Our visit was a big deal.

My trip began at the ferry terminal at 1 PM on Wed the 8th of August for the 2 PM ferry to La Ceiba. I met Nidia and her sister Rose Mary there, we did our check in and went inside and waited for the ferry to leave. I took a small cooler loaded with food because I don’t eat meat, fish, seafood or beans. Yes, I’m a really horrible snoop and was quite nervous about what I would eat for a week.

The ferry was on time, as always, and Nidia’s taxi driver Donald was waiting for us when we arrived. He took us to our hotel, The Emperador in Ceiba. Later on Donald took us to Little Cesar’s Pizza. I was starving by that point. We had him pick us up and take us back to the hotel and we went on the roof and drank a bottle of wine. I mean, why not, we were on an adventure.

Donald was a few minutes late picking us up to take us to the Ceiba airport at 0 Dark 30 AM. Nidia gave him a large portion of her mind that morning for being late, I couldn’t stop laughing.

While paying our departure tax Nidia ran in to her friend, the man we were going to see, the Mayor of Puerto Lempira and his wife. They were on our 90 minute flight to Puerto Lempira. When we landed, I was kind of surprised to find out it was a dirt runway. Pretty smooth but I imagine it turns into a dust bowl during the dry season and a slimy mess during the rains. When we arrived, since we were guests of the mayor, there were men to carry our bags and drive us to the ferry dock. We walked around town for a little bit and visited a school where there was a celebration going on. The vice Mayor told me I could go stand in the middle of the ceremony that was going on and take photos. So, WTH, why not?

After our tour through town, {where I bought a Claro chip for 10L and a week of internet for 100L because TIGO didn’t work where we were}, we went down to the dock, we were going on a boat ride.  The dock was really long with several perpendicular docks abutting it. Problem is, the water was shallow. Real shallow and the boats, especially those with larger motors had trouble getting out to the deeper water. We loaded our suitcases on the boat and the Mayor, Nidia, Rose Mary, one woman with a small baby and another woman with 2 young children were on board. This boat had a 200HP motor on it, way too much for the type of boat that it was. The woman with the 2 kids had haphazardly put on the life vest that was given to her, it flopped and blew in the breeze the whole trip. We crossed the lake like a bat out of hell with Speedy Gonzalez, our boat captain. If we were in a race, we won for sure. No other boat would be insane enough to go that fast. It took me a long time to untangle my hair and my butt is still sore.

Once we crossed the lake we took a narrow channel that T’d into another channel. We were in the town of Kaukira. Kaukira is located on a thin spit of land between the Caribbean and the channel of water that runs between the town shores. We parked on a dock and I feebly got out of the boat. Let me state this now, I suck at getting in and out of boats. I have a knee that does not bend, it makes for very clumsy entrances / exits for me. Happy to entertain the troops, it’s all fun and games until someone breaks an ankle or falls out of a stationary boat. I did neither.

We walked through town with the Mayor, stopping here and there while Nidia looked for food. I saw a male cat attempting to force himself on a young kitty girl, she was screeching and having no part of it. Two old men sat on the porch and were oblivious to what was going on. I stomped my foot to break his attention and she ran away and hid under the low steel shelving for water bottles.

It’s nothing to have a bull walk down the dirt road. I saw 2 dogs chasing one at one point. We went to a cell phone store and the Mayor bought a baseball cap and we met the profa. She was a teacher at the Kaukira school and she had offered her house to us the first night. The boat took us over to see the place, we unloaded our luggage and the mayor’s brother guarded it while we entered another race with Speedy Gonzalez at the throttle. We went down river to see a health center that needed a new roof. The Dr spoke English so we had a nice chat. 

We did a little more touring and then went back to the teachers house to hang out. I made friends with her 4 dogs by feeding them pretzels. The teacher made food for everyone, I had rice and some slaw. The mayor and his brother were still there. They left after a late lunch and were going to pick us up at 7 the next morning. After they left, the teacher was going to take us all in her cayuco across the water so we could walk to the beach. As we were getting ready to go, the Mayor came back because he had to change the time to pick us up so they took us across to the main part of town and the teacher met us there.

The teacher showed us the third grade class room, the roof has a huge hole so they have to all move to the opposite end of the room when it rains. It wouldn’t take much to fix this.

We walked for about 20 minutes until we came to the ocean.

Here is a link about the jellyfish.

We were anxious to get back to the house and get showers and sit some where other than a boat. The electric was to come on once the generator was started. They turned on the water pump so we could shower. I’m not used to cold showers or dunking a bowl in a big barrel of water to rinse off with. This was a first for me. Regardless, it felt great to get clean. After all showers were done, it was dark and the bugs were really bad outside so we stayed in the house, Nidia and Rose Mary were working on cooking the conch and crab legs they got. Me? I ate granola bars and surfed the internet.

We went to sleep early, we were beat. At around 4 AM (about when the generator shut off) the dogs started barking like crazy and it didn’t stop for a long time. They were running around the outside of the house. We found out later a few horses had gotten in to the fenced yard and the dogs were having a fit and the horses were in a frenzy. I think I went back to sleep for awhile after that. You just never know what to expect next.

So ends our first day in La Mosquitia. Please follow along, we’re just getting started, there will be 2 more blogs about the trip.

I can’t begin to say how glad I am that I went.