San Pedro Sula Living

I immediately recognized her. She had aged a lot but had not lost the Aguilar look. So there was no way to miss her and her husband as they waited for me at the bus depot in San Pedro Sula. The last that I remember of her was she being very strict, but quickly found that absurd as she hugged me and carried my luggage to the taxi. None of her or what I was to encounter next indicated any rigidity but I instantly felt flushed with pity for her and the situation she currently lives in.

I arrived in San Pedro in August, and it was very hot. San Pedro did not seem any different from Tegus and was only better traffic wise, otherwise it was the same - dirty streets, trash everywhere, over congested, car fumes and an overall feel of a city in a hurry to somewhere except where we now drove along. Tia Mari had spent the past 25 years exactly in the same part of the city and was not going anywhere. That was why it was easy for anyone visiting to get back to her. She said that it helped to be where they were because of her husband's taxi job. It provided him with clients and was close to central park where he paid for a spot to pick up people. Tia is now sixty and showed more than that in age. She walks with a shuffle as if tired of walking even though she goes around only in car for fear of being robbed. Constantly watches channel six which continuously shows dead people or other victims of San Pedro's crime. In fact whenever I visit them, she immediately catches me up on the latest kidnappings, murders, killings, feminicidios (women killings), shootings, stabbings and so on. Things I try to avoid seeing or reading about,which I do not need to worry about in Sigua. She is traumatized! I plainly see in her how people in fear live here and understand why everyone has cable but low quality water supply. It's better to be entertained indoors than demand something essential like water to be in constant supply (and not every other day as is the case in most places including Sigua) and of good quality (not the murky brown). She sits all day reviewing the carnage that she already saw in the evening news yesterday, but this time with more detail in the morning newspapers. She gets up only to prepare food for uncle who because of his job comes in irregularly. Its easy to feel sorry for her, and I have not started on her environment or where she lives.

She is not listed in the phone book for fear of scam artists. I don't blame her. Once, when I was visiting, the phone rang but I was not going to pick up. It was not my business and the call was not mine since I did not lived there, and there was no one at home anyway. But the phone rang and rang. So I picked up and a heavy male voice immediately told me that my family that was crossing through Mexico was being held for ransom somewhere near the United States border and that if I did not wire some money immediately...well lets say that it will not be good. I immediately hung up. I don't blame Tia for not being listed, she probably gets a lot of these calls.

Everything is dying around Tia, and if not she tell tales of the dead as she did tell once about my uncle Rene. Whenever I visit, I'm given a back room with a large bed to sleep in. Once, when I was going to sleep, she began telling me about the last person that slept there, it was my Uncle Rene. She said that Uncle Rene's chronic drinking problem led him to a slow death on that bed. She described in detail for about about an hour or so of how their care had no effect on his passing away. On top of the gun shots, suffocating heat and mosquitoes, I don't remember sleeping that night. I thought to myself during that night, that we were sort of doing the same to her. It was like coming to pay our respect at someone's grave whenever we visited her (I'm not the only one from her family here now after being gone for decades). No matter what we do we cannot stop her slow descent, its like we left her here to die and what we see now is just a specter stripped away from any real spirit she was before.

I have a lot of respect for my Aunt because she was the only one that stayed behind in Honduras when all her 11 siblings and family decided to immigrate to the United States in the early 80's. She made the decision to stay behind in the crumbling society that Honduras was then. She does not regret her decision but desires to see this land where everyone moved to. Only to visit and then come back, she wants to know what's the great to do about the US. Part of the reason I'm now in Sigua is San Pedro. If Tia wanted to scare me, she was successful at first and no pleading of hers would make me stay in San Pedro. I ran out of that city in a hurry, back to that little town I had seen and my way back and from Tegus - Siguatepeque. It reminded me of Big Bear and Big Bear City in California without the lake.