At Weeks End
No wonder people living in Central America are wont to make feverish efforts to migrate to the United States, to the extent of crossing arid land fraught with danger and illegally across the border.
In the 1990s I made five trips to the region Panama, Costa Rica, Belize twice and Honduras to report on humanitarian aid activities of the 891st Engineer Battalion.
Honduras was the country that opened my eyes most to the plight of living in abject poverty and daily in fear of bodily harm. We spent nearly a week at San Pedro Sula, a city in its northwest corner.
The first eye-opener was two armed guards positioned day and night at the entrance to our hotel. During an outing to a night spot, we were frisked, men and women alike, before being admitted.
We were told strolling a large plaza in front of our hotel was ill-advised. But, being confident Americans, we ignored the warning. One of our party, a woman from Pittsburg, quickly learned of the plazas danger. As she walked along, a lad of about 10 snatched a wristwatch from her arm and dashed away.
At a banana plantation, we learned a fellow was shot and killed the week before for foraging, taking a basket of the fruit for his family.
On a journey to the Mayan site at Copan, containing stone ruins including a huge pyramid, two Honduran soldiers armed with machine guns rode our bus. Bandits frequently stopped vehicles on the lonely roads outside San Pedro, we were told. This time the military presence apparently discouraged an attempt.
After visiting the archeological site we stopped in a small town, where bottled water and beverages Coke was popular and some food were available. I paid dearly for eating street food a few days after returning to Iola, becoming deathly ill.
At Copan we were besieged by young boys begging a handout (of U.S. money) and most of us, including myself, responded. The best of the lot was a young man who spoke English well and had quite a spiel about the education he hoped to obtain, perhaps in the U.S. He also had pretty good knowledge of panhandling.
En route to and from Co-pan, for lack of a better description, were numerous small farms, but unlike any we were familiar with in the U.S.
Some living quarters were made of whatever was available, including small tree trunks and limbs that grow at an amazing rate in the hot, humid forests, including in a place once used for construction. Thatched roofs were common; windows seldom had panes.
SO YOU WONDER why people living in such circumstances dream of coming to the U.S., even at the risk of death or imprisonment.
The smallest and least attended home in Iola would be an amazing dwelling for some of the people we noticed going about daily life in the Honduran countryside.
I suppose times have changed in the past 20 to 25 years, but still many who live in such ways, far foreign to any in Iola, yearn for the chance for a better and safer life here.
