Sunday, December 04, 2005

The Real Meaning of Over-Sugared Coffee

On the 27th of November, Honduras had elections to elect a new president. It was very interesting to see the election process in another country. While the idea is the same as in the United States where there are two main leading political parties and a few smaller ones that don’t even have a chance, the propaganda and leading events in the campaign are very different. In the United States the candidates usually discuss their plan in interviews and criticize the opposing candidates (mud slinging). Here, I almost want to say that the politics are even more Mickey Mouse. Months before the elections during the campaign, the people pack themselves in the back of pick up trucks and drive through the communities in caravans yelling, singing and waving flags that represent their political party. Here, people view their political party as though it is in their blood. Many of the people feel that they are born into a political party. They vote with the same political party as their grandfathers did and do not usually change even though a candidate may be bad. There are also many people that don’t vote because they feel that they are regular people and apart from the government. Instead of the viewing the government as a group of selected people to represent them, the people see government as a separate corrupt piece. One dirty trick that one of the candidates used to gain votes was to pay people five hundred lempiras to single mothers. Plainly, the candidate is BUYING votes by giving away money. There is a joke that I heard about the politics of Honduras that I will translate into English and share with you. It starts by saying that a man dies and goes to heaven. He enters heaven and he sees a clock representing each country. The man asks the angel there in heaven’s door why God has a clock for each country. The angel says that God uses the clocks to measure the amount of corruptness in each country. The man notices that the hour hand moves slowly for Canada and also for Sweden. When he glances at the clock for the United States, he notes that the hour hand moves faster at a steady rate (more corruption). Then he realizes that there is no clock for Honduras in sight. He asks the angel, “Where is the clock for Honduras?” The angel replies, “There is no clock here for Honduras because God uses it for a fan”

On the day of elections, many of the people are sent to work in the voting tables in the surrounding villages in the mountains. At two thirty a.m. we woke up in order to be in the park at three a.m. and pack ourselves like sardines into truck that would head up the long curvy road to the mountains. Everybody was stuffed in the back of the huge cargo truck, standing up and hanging onto the wooden sides. I thought of the movies of Shindler`s lists where all the Jewish people are stuffed into trucks and carted to concentration camps. I smelled the invading scent of armpit sweat. I shook hands with one of the teachers that works in the village of Guadalajara. He returned my greeting with a wide smile and “Que gane Pepe Lobo!” (May Pepe Lobo win!) To my direct left (pressed against my side) my neighbor who sells me fresh bananas every morning states, “Urge Mel!” (Elect Mel!)
At four a.m. with the night and the stars still holding onto the act on the main stage, the engine roared and we crawled up the mountain. We crawled around curves, up gravel roads, through streams, and through sleeping villages of adobe houses. First, we arrived in the community called Llano where we stopped at the school to drop off a group of people to set up and work the voting tables. Unfortunately, the school, where the voting is held, was locked. The teacher, with the key, lived in Moroceli. We had to call Moroceli with a cell phone and order for her to find someone with a car and bring the key to open the school, set up the voting tables, and start the voting process. Needless to say, the voting system is a bit unorganized and the voting opened several hours later when the teacher arrived with the key.
When we finally left Llano, the night had already tip-toed away, like a sly cat, and the sun began to dance in its rays and daylight. We passed through Buenas Noches, another small village where several more people hopped off the wooden planks of the cargo truck and became part of the long voting process. Next, we stopped in the village of Mata de Platano. Some of the local politicians entered the small town school only to realize that they had left some of the materials necessary for voting back in Morocelí. They yelled at the Military men for not reviewing the voting packages ahead of the time. The military men stated that they were not responsible for checking the materials, rather only for the protection of the people and for any possible breakouts between the people of opposing parties. Once again, we had to call back to Morocelí and order for someone to bring the missing materials all the way up to the mountain.
I felt the cool mountain air and wow did it feel good in comparison to the hot dry air below in the valley of Morocelí. It gave me a feeling of freshness, of new life, a new vigor of adventure. I don’t know how else to say it – it gave me strength and the hunger to hike and to really know the mountain in all its vastness and culture it kept in its green nooks and crannies. 8:30 a.m., all waiting. I was not going to wait one more moment. One foot in front of another, hand in hand, in love with Steve and nature we spend the day getting to know the mountain.
A man carrying a machete on horseback rounded the corner and greeted us, “Buenos Dias.” His kind greeting invited me out of my shyness to ask for directions to the Biological Reserve.
“WOW! You are going far!” he stated in surprise, “It is at least three hours from here, farther up the mountain. Are you going to the waterfalls?” he asked.
I had heard so much about the reserve, but its great distance from our pueblo of Moroceli had always deterred me. Indeed, finally knowing and feeling the fresh water from the waterfall was in the plan for the day. “YES!” I stated. Steve rolled his eyes and suggested that we walk just for a couple hours to see it in the distance and then go back to observe the presidential elections. “Which direction to the water falls?” I asked, stubborn as a donkey. The man swerved his arm one way and then curved it around a few times. It really looked like he was doing the chicken dance, rather than giving me directions. None the less, I knew that I had to start just following the road up and then look for some type of intersection. We shook hands: his tan crusty one holding firmly onto my soft white one. With a kick of dusk from the horse’s hoof and a quick lift of his white sombrero, he was off down the mountain to vote. A group of little brown adorable children were kicking an old soccer ball back and forth. They were so cute until they set eyes on us and then they turned into statues frozen in fright. I gently waved to them and said warmly, “Hola, como estan?”
Blank long stares. I continue to walk past them and feel their heavy gaze glued to my back. “Adios,” I added, one last attempt at conversation. And then under my breathe, I whispered to Steve, “I CANT STAND THE WAY THEY STARE AT ME! I feel like a monkey or an animal at a zoo!”
He rubs my arm calmly and states, “Teresa, what would you do if a person with dark green skin walked around the corner and greeted you?”
I hesitated in my hypocritical reply and then admitted, “I would stare at them!”
“You see!” Steve stated proudly, “They have probably never seen white people before.”
Each bend climbing around the mountain brought steep inclines, men on donkeys, horseback, random cows, and frigid frozen children. “Buenos Dias,” I greeted a man on foot, holding a machete. “Buenos Dias! Did you come with the politicians?” He asked. I explained that the politicians were waiting for more voting materials to arrive from Moroceli and that they had still not started voting. He had a firm handshake and proceeded to sit down on a rock while we headed forward on our hike. We came across a stream. We looked for some stones to step across in order to save the time and hassle of taking off and putting shoes back on. Steve took a large leap and made it across. I hesitated, attempting to calculate the best route, least likely to surrender myself to the water and a punishment of wet feet. As I hesitated, I looked up and realized that I had an audience of ten pairs of eyes staring at me! I felt like a clumsy green alien. The older lady in the group saw my predicament and pointed me to where they had arranged sticks in order to create a makeshift bridge. “Muchas, muchas gracias!” I told her, squeezing her arm warmly.
“Oh, Darn!” Steve exclaimed, “I forgot to bring water!” He cupped his hands in the stream and took a few gulps to quench his thirst. “Don’t get amebas!” I yelled matter of factly. He rolled his eyes, knowing perfectly well that my concern was well rooted. All it takes is one cow, donkey, horse, or human to poop in the stream to make it contaminated with bacteria or amebas.
OH NO! Yet another incline, with a dusty road slithering slowly, painfully (on the thighs) up the mountain. I felt big drops of sweat streaming down my cheeks in a slimy red glaze. A quaint white adobe house welcomed us at the top and the señora inside was pleasant enough to give us water. Her several children and grandchildren, sisters, brothers, aunts, and or cousins (a mountain of family members) surrounded us and gazed at us while we sipped the water and explained that we had hiked from Mata de Platano and were planning on going to the middle of the waterfall. “Oh… You are going far! About 2 hours from here,” the middle-aged man announced.
“Would you like something to eat? While it is poor food, at least it is something.” The señora said warmly from inside her kitchen. We eagerly agreed and she signaled us inside. I saw the large white wood oven and felt the head of the sticks burning below the hot simmering pot of beans. The corn tortillas were just the right texture and a little bit soft in the center. Oh, and of course, any Honduran meal has to be topped off in the end with a little cup of way over sugared coffee (more like sugar with a little added coffee). Well energized with the bowl of beans, tortillas, and the unforgettable kindness of strangers, we hiked, hiked, and hiked, painting our bodies redder and with a thick clear coat of sweat. A boy on his bike stopped peddling at the sight of us and stood frozen. He stared at us until we rounded the corner, out of sight. One more curve and another stream to hop across and there it stood proud. In the distance we saw the face of a mountain and resting on the front of the mountain, were large waterfalls bending over the crest of the mountain and reaching to hide the water below the tree tops.
“Where are you going?” a friendly man asked, catching up to us from behind. Steve explained, once again, that we had left from Mata de Platano and were headed to the water falls. The man introduced himself, said that he was sitting on a rock a ways back and saw us passing by. He knew from sighting us that we were not from here and wanted to make us welcome to his pueblo. We thanked him for his kindness and he offered to walk with us the ENTIRE way! He shared with us that he is involved in a coffee cooperative and is trying to work on starting a tourism project in the mountain area. Certainly, a tourism project would start easily being that there is a lot of natural beauty. The biggest thing that the area lacks is development. I doubt that many tourists would walk nine hours to see nature, no matter how much beauty it offered. Also there are a lack of businesses to offer places to stay and food. The man offered that his people were very friendly and that anyone could stay with any of the families or eat with any of the families living in the area. However, knowing my own culture well, I realize that many foreigners are not as accustomed to such an open culture and would not likely feel comfortable approaching a stranger’s house looking for a place to stay and eat for the night. We enjoyed sharing cultural stories and tourism ideas for the area. “Lets take a rest at a señora`s house,” the man suggested. Once again, we found ourselves as the centerpiece in the kitchen. Then the señora of the house, her sons, her grandsons, granddaughters, cousins, and mountain of family members enjoyed looking at us while we sipped yet another cup of over-sugared coffee. The man of the house knew a short cut to reach the base of the mountain. With plenty of good company, we set off again. We stopped every few minutes to pick fresh lemons, limes, and oranges off the trees and used the machete to cut our way through the heavily forested areas of the trail. I could hear the rush, the power, and the magnificence of the water crashing downward. And finally, we could see it. I felt the water and let it flow through my fingertips. IT WAS COLD! Five hours of hiking from Mata de Platano and finally we touched the cold mountain water.
We thanked the men over and over for being wonderful guides and over and over again we told them that they really aught to be proud of the beauty of their country. Worried about nightfall, we didn’t overdue our time at the falls. The nice family wouldn’t let us go without picking more oranges and lemons and stuffing our backpack. “Oh, and just one more thing before you go,” the señor stated. We had to try his freshly made sugar cane juice. We waited while he prepared the stalks and put them through a grinding machine. His two sons pushed one end of the grinder until the juice flowed out of the bottom and filled up two plastic cups.
It was already dusk when we finally left the family’s home in the middle of the mountain. Honestly we didn’t care nor did we feel scared to walk in the dark. We felt so grateful for the kindness and humbleness of the people. It wasn’t until six thirty that night when we finally arrived in Mata de Platano again. We practically ran back over the hills to reach the school where the elections were being held. Since we knew that the election tables closed at five, we were afraid that the rides back to Morocelí would have already left. We were so happy to see the truck still sitting on the edge of the small community of houses. Apparently, a great number of people from the outlying areas had arrived all during the day to vote and the politicians were still counting up the votes for each candidate. We took advantage of the extra hours we had to wait in order to ask for food in one of the houses. “Do you have any food that we can buy?” we asked one lady standing in her doorway. She offered us a plate of beans, avocado, and corn tortillas and we gladly filled our bellies. She asked us where we were from and I explained that we lived in Morocelí in the valley below the mountain. She stated that she herself was new to the area. Just as I took a big gulp of the bean soup with a chunk of green avocado, she announced that she had lived most of her life in Tegucigalpa until her son was killed by a gang member working as a police man. Tears filled her eyes as she took my hand and told me she felt safer here in the mountain far away from the gang members. We stuck forty Lempiras in her hand and thanked her over and over again for her kindness and the wonderful food.
I had had enough adventure and thoughts to eat and ponder over for one day, but the politicians didn’t finish counting votes until nearly eleven thirty at night. Just when I thought I was going to sleep in the back of a haul truck, the engine turned over and all the politicians jumped inside the back. We were sardines again and I felt even more like a Jewish hostage being carted off to a concentration camp as it was dark, dreary and all the people in the pueblos had already gone to bed. A long bumpy ride, clinging to the sides of the truck brought us safely back to our pueblo where all the towns’ people were eagerly waiting for the results in the park. With our hair painted white with dust and our muscles sore, we felt like ancient people. The people hung out in the park celebrating an election of the new liberal mayor while I went home for one last adventure. I was a crazy dirty woman desperate for a shower to make me feel clean and feminine again. However, all my babies (seven baby bunnies and the mother) lived in the cement bathroom stall in protection from the roaming cats. So I bathed in the nude in my backyard in front of the wash bin.
Election Day, hiking nine hours, a middle of the night ride on the gravel road, bathing in the nude-- it all makes a great story. But the best part of all that will never leave my heart is the kindness and openness of the people. Thank you, God for such a beautiful day. I pray for that poor woman in the mountain that is living in sadness for the brutal loss of her son.

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