Belizean Welcome

From Puerto Cortez we travelled with about twelve others in a "panga." A panga is a small motor boat, used to travel short distances between the Port of Cortez and Valencia Belize. I remember that boat ride very well. My little sister could not take the up and down of the boat as it glided and began hurling her breakfast all over the place. Everybody else kept their distance for fear of being smeared. I could care less. Dolphins were swimming along us! They swam underwater and jump once in a while as they accompanied us. Our boat also made the occasional school of flying fish leap in the air, added on top the constant spray of salt water that our boat made. We approached a coral island to refuel. The dolphins abandoned us the closer we got to the island, and as we got closer the water became clearer and clearer. It became turquoise and it looked like you could reach down below and touch the coral reef that appeared from nowhere. Fishes of many kinds swam below us. We beached on a white sandy coast quickly refueled and moved on to Belize. It was a memorable moment that will define my later life in Belize - a natural paradise with little worries while growing up next to pestering sisters (just kidding girls).

We finally arrived to Belize after the three hour boat ride and made it through customs. It was to be one of the few times that we were together as a whole family. My Mom had gone looking for us in Honduras while my Dad waited for us in the Belizean side. While the five us walked to the upstairs room that Dad had rented, a Creole kid began following us. Then he began saying things I could not understand in a language that will later become my own. One thing we all understood. He was interested in the t-shirt I was wearing - that I loved dearly.

"Maaa, look!! he shouted. "Da bway have wan Bugs the Bunny shut!!!
He began pulling and hanging on my shirt as I ran away scared from him to hide behind my Mom. He meant to tear the shirt of my back!!
"Bugs di Bunny shut!!"
"Bugs di Bunny!!" "Bugs di Bunny!!"
"Gimme di Bugs di Bunny shut!!"
It was a riot as he chased me around and I trying to push people in between. Of course my sisters were are rolling with laughter and my Mom and Dad were having a fun time too.

Welcome to Belize - I guess?

Migration Begins

There are a few things that I remember from the early 80's when I was six years old. Cindy Lauper's Girls Just Wanna Have Fun is one, Los Gatos Bravos is another and Ronald Reagan. Cindy Lauper is just another liking of Hondurans for 80's music that is still prevalent even today. The Honduran northern coast is known for Punta music where Los Gatos Bravos were causing a musical upheaval, it was a period of partying for many folks in the coast of Puerto Cortez back then, but I did not really understood why. Honduras was stuck between other revolutions. One had occured in Nicaragua and another was in progress in El Salvador. The country was a launching point for trained Contras (Nicaraguans trained by Americans in Honduras to fight the rebel army in that country), and for counterinsurgency measures against El Salvador's Farabundo Marti army(FMLN). It was Ronald Reagan this and Ronald Reagan that everyday on radio and tv and so there was no way of getting away from it.
Honduras began requiring that every male of age serve its army. Conscription was everywhere and my maternal grandparents did not like the idea because out of their 12 children three were girls and the rest were destined to serve the military. My grandfather Hector did not like where the country was going. I can only guess where he stood politically back then by the nickname he gave me - Sandino (Nicaraguan Rebel). Later in life I asked him why the nickname and he said "Its because the way you stuck to your mom, like the Sandinos loved their country. Nobody could rip you away from your mom." And it was true.
I went everywhere with my mom back then. Along with my dad she was involved with her church and so we went everywhere in Honduras setting up churches or just sizing up locales. My sisters were jealous of me because of this. One time, my little sister and I found ourselves running through streets with my mom in the lead. We were running away from the military which was arresting people that had participated in a riot. My mom's memory is fuzzy of the events back then, and I don't recall if we were part of the ruckus. We were running anyway, and I remember spending a long time hidding under a bed with my little sister listening to the running and shooting outside. Going places with my mom was not easy and this proved to be true later in life.
What did it for my grandparents was the lost of one my uncles who had joined the army. His death took them over to a launching point where it was decided that all the Aguilares were leaving and coming back was not going to be an option. My grandfather personified the love/hate relationship that many Hondurans have with the United States, blamed for all societal ills but its the first place that everyone is headed. My grandparents were herding their family to the US and there was no stopping them. Except that not everyone in their family completely agreed with their decision. For instance, Tia Marin and uncle Rene decided to stay in San Pedro. Both in the older kids section of the family and so with more connections and excuses to stay behind.
Like Moses in the desert, my grandparents lost a few along the way. My uncle Juan Carlos died in Southern Mexico in a boating accident. While swimming in a river, a boat rode over him an split his head. My aunt Olga decided to stay in Mexico City. I guess she liked the city and decided it was good enough to live in. Uncle Gonzalo is in Tecate which is on the border with Mexico and the US. My mom said that it took her family about three years to make it out of Mexico and that after many tries crossing the border illegally, Uncle Gonzalo just gave up and stayed at the Mexican border where he works as an electrician. I don't think he tried hard enough, it must have been easier to cross the border illegaly back then. Everybody else landed in Baltimore, Maryland. Someone had mentioned to them that there was a fishing industry there that offered good money.
This was the early 80's. When Cindy Lauper was singing Girls Just Wanna Have Fun and Hondura's economy and politics were tanking. My mom and dad had been spotted by their church as good church-planting material, and so it was decided that they should head out of the country. The decision was easy for Mom. She, being the oldest, had lost her family to migration and there was no reason to stay in Honduras. Fifteen years will pass before we heard anything from them. So while her family toiled through Mexico, my family headed on a different path.

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.

The Birth of a Boy

Tia Rosa was only twelve when she became the substitute mother of my dad. According to her, the events that lead to that point were foreseeable. The relationship between my grandparents was rocky from the start. They were mistaken if they thought that having a baby would bring them together. They realized this fallacy way before his actual birth. Their final separation was punctuated by my dad's birth; who they had a hard time developing any semblance of a relationship. Migration did not help matters or maybe movement was only a byproduct of people falling away of each other's reluctance for forgiveness, but in the end they tried.
My grandparents were both from the valley of Otoro (Jurla). Their meeting was not at a church or on a warm summer day, but at a bar in town despised for its ill repute. My grandmother worked at the bar and fondly remembered by many old timers in town who frequented the place. Juan Turcios (mentioned before) was one of them, but an example of a life turned around from addiction. He had turned to God years before my meeting him and spoke of those times regretfully. He had metioned how my grandmother was liked by many in his circle back then because pretty young women working in bars were uncommon and despised by the mostly Catholic community. She was brave to be seen there and worse to work there. You can see this culture wherever you go in Honduras. Hand picked pretty young women usually front banks, restaurants, maquiladoras, bars or superstores. It is common knowledge that older woman are discriminated. It becomes really difficult for them to find a job in tourism, garment and retail industries which churn the Honduran economy. I know that we can relate with some of this in the US, but there is no apologizing or hiding it here -its in your face (non sequitor).

My grandfather was a notorious skirt chaser. He was not known for being a hard worker but someone always after quick money. Daughters were warned to stay away from him - he only meant trouble. Somehow my grandmother did not get the memo and fell for him. Nobody approved their engagement and in an attempt to prove the town wrong a three-day marriage fest was organized. This is the first thing people remembered when they recalled my grandparents. A three day marriage party never seen in town before nor later.
"A celebration of drunkeness, loud music, and lots of food," said Tia Rosa.
"They were trying to prove something, which did not work because the relationship only lasted for six months," she continued.
My grandparents brief marriage stint was marked by many threats of separation. He complained that she could not cook or keep a house clean and she complained that he never brought money home to buy food. One day he asked her to pick up all her belongings and dragged her to her family's home. My great grandmother met them at her home where he said "here is your daughter, I have no use of her!" My dad was born after their separation.
Many witnessed this fiasco and it was not difficult for my grandmother to obtain a divorce - an uncommon separation in those days (out of an average of 20 annual marriages only 2 divorced in those times according to a local historian). Both of them knew that a baby was on its way and probably feared its coming more and more. My dad was born in a small adobe house (next to where I stayed during my initial visit to Otoro). Tia Rosa said that my grandfather never came around during my dad's childhood and that my grandmother had a habit of picking jobs that took her out of town leaving my dad in her care.
"At least she tried," Tia said. "He only came once when your dad was thought dead, his recovery was a miracle. After that he disappeared."

Throughtout the years that followed. My father did small errands for his dad, saw his mom once in a while and by the time he was sixteen took to the road. He came back to Otoro once in a while and slowly distanced himself away. I cannot blame him, the place probably only brought bad memories. My Tia Rosa always thought of him and once in a while people would tell of unexpected encounters. One day Otoro was proud for my dad. A picture appeared in national news. The first page of a newspaper showed him rescuing a nurse during the 1969 soccer war between Honduras and El Salvador.
We visited my grandad once and he came to see us in Choloma once. I only remember seeing my grandmother once when she was visiting from Australia. She lives there now and there is little communication with her. Tia Rosa said that my grandad felt guilty for all that happened. He changed and became a hardworking landowner. According to Tia he came often to sip coffee with her. In the end he did not have a real family but took care of a forgotten boy like his son.

Mari's Loss

Mari Tosta Medina (5th oldest "cousin" of mine) has felt the loss of her dad more than anyone else. Out of her eleven sibblings, she is the only one that works "la finca" (small farm). Throughout the years, Hernan Tosta Medina will hire workers to help on the 8 manzanas, but really relied on Mari to oversee its care. The two worked hand in hand planting, sowing, and mantaining the 14 acres. No one felt the effects of his love for the bottle more than Mari. His drinking habbits gradually took him away from farmwork until completely losing touch with the land he had inherited from his dad. His drinking became uncontrollable throughout the years and finally took him to the grave at the age of 73.
As she showed me around the farm, she continuously apologized for the unkept aspect of things. Vegetation had engulfed cash crops, zampopos (big ants that can carry you away in your sleep) were stripping the leaves away from many trees, cows were breaking in and eating their corn, and stagnant water was creating mosquitos. She explained that her dad had done a better job at keeping the place clean and productive. She doubted that the help she currently hires was doing what they were being paid to do. On top of things, because of recent criminal reports, Tia Rosa had limited her trips to the farm which lies in the outskirts of Otoro. She did not like the idea of a single woman catching rides from strangers to travel back and forth from the milpa. After her father's death, her daily trips ceased abruptly and are now limited to random days when her younger brother is around with the family's truck. She misses the daily work at the farm, and it bothers her to think that things are only getting worse.
That afternoon, as she led me around the makeshift fence of the farm, she pointed out the trees that lined the perimeter. She explained that it had taken her a span of 25 years to plant all the trees that now lined their territory. From the apparent age and sizes of the trees it was easy to see from where she had started.
I followed her closely as she walked nimbly from one corner of the milpa to another. She knew every inch of the land. She could have been blindfolded and would have still made her way around. I felt awkward at her brusqueness as she used her knife to cut things appart and then tossed these to me. Things were dirty and mostly crawling with ants. Some I tasted and some I hid in my backpack. She offered me a little bit of everything that was in our way as we scurried along. A little bit of sugar cane, a guayaba, nance fruit, oranges and weird stuff that looked like avocados that had grown hairs. She pointed at things that were not easily served such as corn husks, coffee beans and overhanging plantains. She also made me drink from a water fountain that poured from the earth out of nowhere. I of course hesistated at this final offering as I have done at any water source here in Honduras but did at her insistence and did not regret it. The water was whitish in color, cold and very tasty. It tasted like someone had poured a bucketful of sugar in the water - very sweet.

She asked about the States in a way one does when seeking affirmation on a set opinion. She of course confirmed through me that immigrating to the States was never a good idea and had never occured to her because one will certainly miss all this greenery we were currently sorrounded by. I agreed with her and confirmed her notions that fresh clean air, pitch black starry skies, and green virgin lands were disappearing and if not scarce as in the case of starry nights. I tried to boast about California's agricultural capacities to which she did not reply until later at night during dinner time. She did not speak about it but gave me a slice of pineapple and after expressing that this was the sweetest pineapple I've had in a long time, she asked "can California do that?" No response to that on my part, point made on her behalf. The case is that no one can argue with someone that offers you the fruit of their labor and land and its ten times better than something being chemically produced for mass consumption.
Mari is the only one out of my 12 "cousins" that was given a piece of the milpa. Her dad and Tia Rosa had confirmed in writing before his dying that the farm not be apportioned amongst everyone, but that Mari be the only one given one of the best located acres in the farm. My other cousins say that when Mari was barred from going alone to the farm she had exclaimed "you are ripping my heart appart!"
In defiance and as if to avoid daily disappointment she moved to Tegucigalpa and only comes to Otoro when the family truck is available. As was the case that afternoon when she showed me around. She mentioned that Tegus is not an ideal location for her to be, with all the smog and cramped space and that she spends most of her time watching tv at her brother's house. She misses the farm a lot. The piece of land that her dad had worked with her company most of his life until his death last year. It's because of this that out of everyone of the Tostas, Mari feels the loss of her dad the most.

Sins of our Fathers

"I heard you arrived."
"Yes Aunt. I got here a month ago."
"When are you coming to visit me?"
"School is starting next week, I'm a little tied up right now. Give me two weeks and I'll be in Rio Lindo."
"The Manzanarez have a habit of forgetting their family. You are not like them are you? I figured you guys were completely gone from the face of the earth."
"No ma'am, I'm certainly different. I'm the one calling aren't I?"
"That's right."

That was in August. It's now November, and I still had not made it to Rio Lindo to see Aunt Elsa. Maybe that's why I almost bit my tongue back then.

Desertion

"Tia" Rosa had obviously been waiting for me. I was guided by a "cousin" to where she sat. There were a couple of chairs in the middle of the patio area that they called their living room. This looked like where they did their tv watching and guest entertaining. I was told that people in Otoro will come out in hordes to greet a fellow family member that was coming from the States. Yes, they were there in the back waiting, but first I was going to be lectured by my Aunt. She was meticulously rocking her armchair back and forth and carefully eyeing me as I came in and introduced. There was a big picture of a man in the anteroom, but I supposed that he was no longer around and Tia Rosa was now in command of her family and this current situation. This was a woman that I did not know existed until I had to come to Honduras. My dad had mentioned that maybe I should get in touch with a lady in Honduras where I could stay once I got to Otoro. He had given me her phone number which I did not use until I was in Tegucigalpa. Through our brief conversations I had gathered that she was a serious woman short on words, the kind that say a lot with very little and when joked caught you off guard because you never expected it. Our first conversation was no small talk and divulged in our relationship. Eventhough she was not my real Aunt, in agreement and by her request I was to call her "Aunt" from then on . She had motioned for me to sit in front of her and was diving in.

"I feel abandoned by your father," she had begun.

I was not expecting this!

"I took care of him like my own son since I was just a girl."

"Twelve!" she punctuated.

"Then one one day when he had just turned sixteen he just got up, left, and never really came back. Just stopped by once in a while as he distanced himself more and more until completely disappearing."

I began wondering if I was being welcomed or was about to be told why I was being turned away. It seemed to me that this was not a conversation to be had between my Aunt and I.

"Tia," I began, trying to defend myself and instantly felt queazy using the family term. "I'm in Otoro because I want to learn about my roots. I feel that there are many things that I don't know that I should, and after here I'm leaving for San Pedro Sula to do the same with my Mom's side of the family." She quickly gathered that I was putting whatever regrets she had on my Dad and that I was feeling unwelcomed.

"Sure, this is not about you but about your Dad. But he called me last week after decades of no communication and now expects me to host his son. Put yourself in my shoes and see how that sounds."

What a welcome! I thought. I was fidgeting and sweating in my chair, and it was not because of the 120% humidity that blanketed the air. My body language said it all. I was seating at the edge of the chair and held a stance that said "I want out of here."

"Let's calm down," she said. "It's just something that I had to say."

"I know that you are tired from your trip. This room on the right will be yours. It was where your father was born. You came to the right place to learn about your family."

As she said this, she signaled to those waiting on the side to come along. I still had mixed feelings about this place where I was suppose to stay. I felt like I'd just been rebuked in front of everyone and it was now time to put that aside and get to know them. I could not put in order or remember everyone that was introduced. When I was alone in my small room, I took a piece of paper and began to draft a family tree. If I wanted to get to know my family history, I will have to learn their's first. They seemed to be a large family of about twelve. Mostly women and only two men. This was a strange situation, I did not know If should be angry at my dad or at my Tia for ambushing me. Or if I should just make up an excuse that will get me out of here. In any case, she seemed to be the type of woman that will not keep any secrets and will not hesitate to tell me everything about my Grandfather.