OPINIONS & EDITORIAL

Journey to Xibalba

"... Do not look at monuments and palaces. Do not tarry in gilded cathedrals and fancy concert halls. The essence, the soul, the tragedy and the hope that is Honduras are all found at the core of its indigenous communities."

A typical home at El Carisalon. Photo by W.E. Gutman

COPAN RUINAS -- Discretion, cunning, stealth are useful commodities even in the very best of times. To Don Crescencio, they are essential virtues, the very tools of survival in a realm where the wrong word, credulity and imprudence will kill.

We huddle at a table, side by side, facing the wall in the darkest corner of the El Sesteo Restaurant.

"I was told you know the way to Xibalba." Don Crescencio stares at me, uncomprehending, his eyes narrowing with suspicion. He's never heard of Xibalba. But the word -- the abstraction -- in the fullness of its Mayan resonance, awakens a strange clairvoyance of time past and kindles intuitive images of teachings now lost, ancestral wisdom submerged under centuries of alien doctrine and hostile rule. His copper features soften.

"Xibalba, you say?"

"Yes." I draw closer. "It's a place where misery, suffering, disease and death reign, where tears turn to rivers and the laughter of children is seldom heard. The Spaniards call it infierno. I hear there is such a place not far from here."

Don Crescencio smiles without pleasure. The abstraction is all too real, the password all too clear. He leans into me, speaking in a low, raucous voice, his hand at my back, his lips burning my cheek, his breathing labored from chronic bronchitis, perhaps worse. What he tells me is not to be repeated. Not even in a murmur. Some secrets are set free to confer trust, to bestow eminence and dignity to a new relationship.

Xibalba is a circumstance, not a place. It reaches across a hundred villages, a thousand communities, it touches nearly a million people in Honduras. Don Crescencio hopes that the truths I unearth do not fall on deaf ears. It's a tall order.

"See you tomorrow at ten," he says. I turn briefly to pay for the soft drinks. Don Crescencio vanishes like an apparition.

Don Crescencio is punctual. We have coffee. I sip mine; he gulps his down. He's anxious to get going. He feels ill at ease and does not like to tarry in the peaceful village of Copan Ruinas. After all it is here that his brother, the charismatic and beloved Maya-Chorti leader, Candido Amador Recinos, was brutally, senselessly murdered last April. Don Crescencio swears he can still smell the blood.

"Frontera, frontera! Guatemala, Guatemala!" exhorts a young boy perched atop an open pick-up truck, his voice hoarse from a regimen of daily broadcasts to campesinos and roving backpackers. Don Crescencio flags the vehicle. "Climb in, sit down and be quiet. You don't know me," he instructs, looking the other way, his lips barely moving.

"Where do I get off?"

"At the junction, by the schoolhouse. Go."

I comply and straddle a wheel well. There are 13 of us, men, women, patriarchs and small children, two bicycles, an old automobile tire, several rolls of barbed wire, a handful of malnourished chickens that cackle plaintively, a suckling pig in a canvas sack. We all huddle in reluctant intimacy, the wind in our hair, dust scouring our faces. It is about six kilometers to the junction and my coccyx will hurt for days but the scenery is stunning and I hang on for dear life as the truck navigates the winding, bumpy road ahead like a cockle shell on a stormy sea.

The truck screeches to a halt. Several riders disembark and scatter. A toothless old man lifts the brim of his sombrero and signals for me to get off. I comply. The truck groans back into gear, gains momentum and hobbles out of sight behind a hairpin turn. I am alone. An eerie silence prevails. I look for Don Crescencio but all I see is a ribbon of road and the mountains. In the distance, vultures ride the thermals against a searing sky.

Two young men leap out of the bushes and, with unsettling urgency, beckon me to follow. I hesitate.

"No te preocupe, Don Crescencio is waiting."

I relax. Meet Paulino and Adam Garcia, my guides. The trail we take is fringed with heavy scrub. Paulino leads, setting a brisk and cadenced stride that I try to emulate. Adam takes the rear. It is about three kilometers to El Carisalon, on foot, mostly up steep, winding inclines and dizzying slopes strewn with sharp rocks and gouged with depressions that jar every bone in my body. Panting, bathing in sweat, I stop. Paulino points to a tree.

"Sit in the shade, rest." A cooling breeze wafts through the foliage. I shut my eyes briefly. I reopen them. Bending over me, a young boy -- one of many lookouts posted strategically along the way -- hands me a grimy tin cup filled with water of dubious origin.

"Don't worry, it's well water." It's the cup I worry about but I drink.

Waist-high in a field of yellow and blue flowers, we proceed under a merciless sun. On either side, as far as the eye can see, green meadows and fertile pastures stretch from ravine to towering escarpment. But the meadows are fallow and not a single beast can be seen grazing the rich grasslands. Suddenly, several bursts of gunfire shatter the undiluted silence and reverberate from peak to peak. Glancing at each other knowingly, Adam and Paulino quicken their pace.

In the one-room adobe schoolhouse, an elder learns to read. He strains against darkness and dancing shadows as shafts of light dart through an opening cut into the wall. The heat is oppressive.

My eyes adjust to the dim light and I spot Don Crescencio. He must have wings, I muse. There is a dozen men and women, all sitting stone-faced at wooden benches, their arms folded upon rough-hewn school desks that have seen better days. Don Crescencio rises and introduces me. Everyone looks at me with a mixture of lethargy and circumspection. Mesmerized, several children, barefoot and forever wiping the amber slime that oozes from their noses, peer through the doorway at the bizarre encounter.

Don Modesto Garcia Oaxaca, the El Carisalon tribal chief, speaks first. He tells of his people's wretched "vida de subsistencia," of periodic famine, of disease, of broken government pledges to protect against police brutality, to silence threats by Copan and Ocotepeque landowners, to counter the demented claims of title to wells and acreage by Guatemalan ranchers, to defend against intimidation by paramilitary Cobra commandos.

Tribal counselor Juan Manuel Mansia concurs. "We're in a no-win situation. Japan donates 12 million dollars to help Honduras' indigenous people. The money evaporates in a bureaucratic maze and none of us ever sees a centavo. We ask for an audit but all we get is double-talk and more empty promises. Meanwhile, the cattle people are out to expropriate our lands -- at the point of a gun if need be."

Jose Alberto Martinez, the other counselor adds: "A sinister argument being advanced to justify expropriation is that we -- the Chorti -- are Guatemalans and therefore not entitled to our lands. History and legal documents prove otherwise. Copan indeed was founded by Maya from the north but our families have lived here in Honduras for generations. Yet, most of our lands are occupied by Ladino cattle ranchers, tobacco and corn farmers, and coffee growers."

Dario Fo, the Italian humorist and political gadfly, calls expropriation "a euphemism for thievery." I share the witticism but no one laughs. In lean times, the obvious is a superfluity.

A loving young father cradles his second child as wife, inside, is in labor with her third. Photo by W.E. Gutman

The others speak out with simple eloquence.

"Look at us."

I too sit on a hard wood bench, further traumatizing a sore rear-end, but I look, transfixed, at the unadorned face of poverty -- abject; all-encompassing. I look at frail men and women in tatters, disquiet and despondency adding age to their years. Everyone is coughing. Coughs give way to uncontrollable spasms. Spasms yield thick secretions that are unceremoniously regurgitated on the school room's mud floor. I suspect tuberculosis.

A visiting teacher from the National Teaching University reads from the International Labor Organization's Convention 169, a document outlining the inalienable Rights of Indigenous and Tribal Peoples. Ratified by Honduras in 1994, the compact states that Indians are entitled to possess lands they have lived on and, if insufficient, to acquire new ones. As with other covenants entered into by Honduras, ratification is a perfunctory formality.

"What rights?" exclaims the old man who has learned to read. "So long as our rights depend on government accountability, the only right we have is to be poor, ignored, marginalized, lied to, harassed, killed."

The truths Don Crescencio has asked me to convey scream at me. Alienation. Disorientation. Overpopulation. About 378 people live in El Carisalon; 150 are children, naked, wallowing in mire or hanging at the breasts of pregnant mothers. Disease, despondency and humiliation fester in a setting of idyllic beauty, all suffered with equal doses of numbing apathy and bitterness, endured with God's help and, when God is not looking, with the shaman's incantations and the otherworldly exhalations of copal incense.

Older than her age, this 27-year-old
Chorti woman is pregnant with here seventh child. (Photo by W.E.Gutman)

Photographing the women and children becomes a science, the marriage between patience, opportunism and luck.

"The women are timid, the children wary," I remark.

"They are," Don Crescencio agrees. "Too many stories about abductions by gringos."

"But these stories are untrue."

"I know. But the others believe."

"Why don't you tell them?"

"It's better this way. It keeps the community on its toes."

Taking photos is also an intrusion, a breach of privacy -- a threat. Photos rob people of their soul. So purloined, the soul wanders aimlessly after death, forever lost in a two-dimensional limbo from which no one escapes.

"Hemorrhagic dengue fever, infantile diarrhea, dysentery." Don Crescencio enumerates the scourges as we begin our slow descent to the well. "Cholera is never far away. We need more potable water. We need latrines, health centers. There's no money for doctors. When there is, we can't afford to buy medicines. We need to educate the adults. The beautiful land you see around you, is for the most part untilled. There's no money for seeds. There is no money for tools. We're afraid to work the fields. We're exposed, vulnerable. You will tell the world, won't you? And for the love of God, tell those willing to help NOT to do it through the government. We yearn for self-empowerment, not charity. International aid makes for great headlines but it leaves the legitimate beneficiary holding an empty bag."

The man running for mayor in San Pedro de Tutule, La Paz, says it best: "Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, United States -- you want to redeem Honduras? Help the people at the bottom. One by one. Hamlet by hamlet. Barrio by barrio. Directly. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Any other path is the Devil's geometry."

W. E. Gutman is a Connecticut-based investigative journalist and a frequent contributor to Honduras This Week.

The leaders of Honduras and El Salvador have signed the historic "Accord for the Execution of the Program of Demarcation of the Border Between El Salvador and Honduras." This treaty is an agreement to physically mark the border between the two countries, as proposed in a 1992 decision by the International Court of Justice in the Hague.

A time limit of one year has been set in which both countries must resolve the specifics of the border between the two nations, a situation that has caused disagreement for over a hundred years.

Everything is ready for mapping the border except for the most delicate matter...the people living on border land; people who will go to bed one night as Salvadorans living in El Salvador and will wake up the next day living in Honduras. One solution is that land owners in the border regions be allowed to sell their lands to the government, for example: Salvadorans who occupy territory that is now under the jurisdiction of Honduras can sell their land to the Honduran government at a fair price and return to their country with money in hand. Those who choose not to move can opt for Honduran residency and later citizenship. Many Salvadorans have traditionally inhabited our country and their descendants now live here as Honduran citizens.

The real necessity is harmony between these two small countries; harmony that can later be geared toward economic development in benefit of both countries. At every level Honduran and Salvadoran business people have started to develop their plans. Many groups have already begun to work together regardless of border disputes. Political borders often do not stop commerce and in the emerging world of globalization, borders do not exist. Nevertheless, the desires of the people must be respected. So the border will be marked to guarantee peace among the two peoples.

Foreign Minister Delmer Urbizo has promised efforts toward understanding and peace so that the demarcation can take place in harmony without losers or winners.

Even though some opposition groups in each country still complain that the other side was favored, we trust that they are only seeking a moment's notoriety and that eventually we all seek the same goal: tranquility and an end to regional differences.

Last week, 120 meteorologists declared an indefinite strike, demanding that the government fulfill promises to raise their salaries.

This action left the 13 meteorology stations across Honduras, as well as the four international airports, without weather services. Flight plans filed by pilots were not approved, and control towers advised planes to "fly at their own risk."

The repercussions from a strike such as this are limitless: all commercial air traffic is affected, and weather reports necessary for commerce, communications, agriculture, and tourism are not available.

Meteorologists currently earn $120 to $130 a month, depending on their seniority. They have told the government that if their salaries are not raised, the government is free to go ahead and fire them, because they are not able to feed their families with the wages they earn.

Strikers argue that the number of years they have dedicated to the job means nothing to the government; a starting employee in the Meteorology Service earns Lps. 1,500 a month while an employee with 20 years of experience only earns Lps. 2,000. The government justifies the low pay scale by the fact that most employees in the Meteorology Service have only a high school diploma.

Until several years ago, public employees received regular, automatic pay raises, as well as additional reevaluation of salaries in times of inflation. There was also a system of negotiations and disciplinary actions to be taken in the event of a strike.

In recent years, however, a lack of foresight and planning, as well as the discontinuance of regular pay raises has resulted in wages for public employees which do not cover their basic needs. The most visible manifestation of this public policy has been a year filled with near constant strikes by important public employees such as medical workers and university personnel.

As we have said on other occasions, stability must be provided to public sector employees, and permanency should be rewarded, so that each employee has a higher production level. Unfortunately, as we have also said on previous occasions, many politicians see their public offices as a buried treasure chest to be sacked instead of public funds to be used to run the necessary public services.

The damage done to the country when the entire Meteorology Office is closed is enormous. Not only do we lack the necessary internal weather information, we once again are seen in a bad light in the international arena.

Technology improves day by day, but even with all the new meteorological equipment, we still need employees to collect and manage the data. And those employees must be paid.

As you know, three Honduran street children -- Sandra Yamilet Gonzalez; Olman Francisco Oliva; and Fany Cerrato (16) were shot at by an unknown assailant in the early morning hours of December 25 on the corner of Morelos and Cervantes Avenues in downtown Tegucigalpa. Sandra was seriously wounded in the right leg. Olman was wounded in the right shoulder. A third bullet missed Fany.

As a fellow journalist and frequent visitor to Honduras, I urge you to demand a full investigation of this latest case of attempted murder of homeless children and to help bring the perpetrator(s) to swift justice.

Honduras' friends and detractors alike are watching.

W. E. Gutman
Ridgefield, CT

Dear Editor:
The article Earthquakes are major part of seismic events in Honduras that appeared in the December 29 on-line edition of Honduras This Week provides excellent reporting of the efforts of UNAH scientist Carlos Tenorio and his colleagues Diego Careres, Gonzalo Cruz, and Jose Jorge Escobar.

Earthquake preparedness in Honduras begins with their work to understand the seismic risks for urban centers. Applying this knowledge to building codes and project planning will save both lives and property when a major earthquake occurs.

I was particularly impressed by Rosibel Pacheco de Gutierrez's concise, accurate and descriptive reporting of this complex scientific subject. I look forward to updates from Honduras This Week on the seismic hazard study and other science-based stories as well.

Robert Rogers
Editor/Publisher
Honduras Geology

Every day we hear more complaints of the insecurity of Honduran citizens due to lack of law enforcement and criminal justice systems that can deter crime. On various occasions, if not daily, tourists are attacked, and their complaints seem to go unheard. In addition, there are daily deportations of Hondurans residing illegally in the United States, and many of these returning citizens have been deported due to criminal activity, drug trafficking or gang activities in the United States.

The Honduran Police Force seems to have its hands tied by many factors. Among the complaints are the fact that the police cannot capture anyone without an arrest order issued by a judge and minors are almost never detained or prosecuted to avoid criticism by human rights groups. The profile of the average policeman is poor. They are only required to have completed third grade. Yet, the government cannot demand a more qualified work force due to the low pay: approximately $90 a month for a job in which they must work more than 10 hours daily, as well as risk their lives due to poor equipment.

As a result, this week one hundred and ninety-three police officers have announced that they will not be returning to work in 1998 due to the high risk and low pay involved in their jobs.

There are many good intentions to improve the police force including a police detail dedicated especially to tourism as well as ideas for a mounted police. But in this time of transition, as the police force is transferred from military to civil power, it seems that no one wants to make the necessary decisions.

Many groups are working to better equip our police forces, including efforts by the editor of Honduras This Week, but this is not enough. There is also a necessity for more material things such as health and life insurance and better pay for the officers, and more motorized and communications equipment to improve the working conditions of our most necessary public servants.

There are only 8,000 police officers. Aside from increasing the salary to attract a more highly qualified personnel, the number of officers must also be increased. Then the laws must be strengthened to support the work of these valuable officers.

"...this week one hundred and ninety-three police officers have announced that they will not be returning to work in 1998 due to the high risk and low pay ..."

By JORGE FLORES McCLELLAN, First of two parts

A long time ago, living in Teguz, I had a best friend. He was an American my age and we had the best of times.

One day, he told me that he and his father, a USAID (Agency for International Development) official, were going on a trip. They were taking a small plane to go diving in the Bay Islands. "Bay Islands? Where is that?," I asked, knowing the name only in Spanish. He said somewhere in the Caribbean, in Honduran waters.

At this moment, something happened to me. I wanted to go, but couldn't. I was curious and hurt in my immense pride of being a Honduran who had done a lot of travelling in my country. He knew a special place I didn't and I felt ignorant inside my absolute knowledge, or so I thought, of my beloved countryside.

This question nagged me for many years. Where? What is this place? Is it a secret jungle-carpeted heaven with crystal blue lagoons known only by a privileged few in my land? But I was young with that title, you are also stupid. I knew perfectly well where these islands were. They were in my social studies and Honduran history books, of course!

And nowhere else for all I knew. In those times there was no tourist information at all. These images and dreamlike versions of the place haunted me and I could only imagine my friend and his father in a secret, movie-like setting, alone and adventurous, discovering for the whole world, a place where no civilized man had been since European sailors and (uncivilized) pirates had set foot centuries earlier. I wanted to go. They were swimming in uncharted waters, where only the bold, the few, had gone before. In part, I was right, in part I was just plain pendejo. It took me 16 years to find the place.

Ignorance is the key word to understanding the young or the people of the Third World. I was in the best school in the country and had read all the history, but I had not assimilated it or cared. I had no idea whatsoever of the island's topography, biology, oceanography, people or beauty. My daydreams came close, but everyone understands that to know a place, you have to know the place. Imagination or self-inflicted fiction cannot take the place of a dream-destroying, first hand experience. When you go to a place of which you have an image, this image will disappear forever to be taken over by the real thing.

Living in this country in the '60s and '70s was lethargic. Only the rich, lucky, adventurous, or government officials got around to discovering the secret, mysterious, far away wonderful places. The roads were terrible and dizzying, the planes mostly antiques and most airstrips were dirt or mud anywhere they would fit, without instrumental aids, lights, tower or radio. In these small airports, you could find cows, horses, pigs or the like. (No kidding, I saw a few). It was not only Honduras, it was a freaking adventure.

And so, I am a Third World man. Inside of me, when I see a tourist or traveller of any kind, I say to myself, welcome to my humble home.

If you haven't been in the Honduran Caribbean, I pity you. Christopher Columbus set foot on the American continent on our North Coast for the first time and the first Mass ever on the continent was in Trujillo, 100 miles from La Ceiba, where he saw Pico Bonito, one of the tallest mountain's in Central America from sea level up, and exclaimed "Nombre de Dios!" (The actual name of the 160 km. mountain range, Name of God). He then proceeded to name the waters Honduras (depths or deepness) and then, set out a towel on the beach to get a tan, with a coconut rum in his hand, I'm sure, before discovering other nice places.

Hundreds of years later, I, on an expedition of my own, found myself in these same waters, one sunny day on a dory or panga or big dugout canoe, with a small diesel putt-putting towards two faint humps on the horizon. For two hours since I started my voyage from La Ceiba, I felt I was going to paradise, a new life in Eden. I was headed toward Cayos Cochinos (Hog Islands, now site of an Smithsonian Institute experiment), between the Bay Islands and the mainland.

As I got near, I was overwhelmed by the breathtaking and virgin-like beauty. It was a 360 degree movie. The waters were all the hues of green and blue you could imagine and more, the jungle was shiny and plush and screaming with life, the fish were playing around in a welcoming committee, and the sand was like fine sugar to my eyes. Only the sandflies, the scourge of all the islands, tried to stop my invasion.

I spent my time doing some work with some Ceibeno and American entrepreneurs, or so they thought. I was in ecstasy, young and wild and free, running around, hiking and fishing, partying with some poor but very friendly fishermen in their village, East End, which now, I understand have been evicted due to the Smithsonian. Almost every night I slept on a small dock, the waves under me rocking me to sleep and the full Milky Way, down to the last minuscule dot of light, hypnotizing me, with an occasional shooting star, to sleep.

I snorkeled with my guide and co-worker, Buye (Chief), a Garifuna from La Ceiba. We drank beer and ate fish and worked and talked. He told me about the good old times as if they weren't right there and then! Back when nobody lived there except fishermen and an occasional luxury yacht, timid in these, our waters.

Then, I noticed something again. The few and old, but very conspicuous mansions in Cayos Cochinos belonged to Americans and Europeans, a sign that meant they were there to stay and had been there for a long time, and it didn't fit in my picture of the islands in my school books. Again there was that pain in my immense pride of being Honduran.

Still, I didn't know Roatan, except as a long hump in the horizon and the quest was still burning in me.

From the time my young friend told me about the Bay Islands, to the time I set foot on Cayos Cochinos and claimed them to be mine, about ten years had elapsed. In between that time, I drifted from desk to desk with a ball and chain on my foot in advertising agencies all over the country, but always getting closer to my secret island daydream. I lived in San Pedro Sula, La Ceiba and Tela. In La Ceiba and Tela, I swam the Caribbean almost everyday or walked the beach or saw the sunset and always heard the surf rumble me to sleep. From La Ceiba I saw Cayos Cochinos everyday and a few Ceibenos even asked me what those two humps were!

I felt some of that anger in me to see others as ignorant as I had been, with the difference being that they saw the place from their own houses. But this is a blessing in disguise: the less people knew about it, the less damage they could do by going there. Nobody knew and nobody cared about the islands except some wise worldly adventurers and the few thousand islanders themselves, of whom, of course, I was ignorant.

One good day in Tela, in 1991, I made a friend. A Frenchman called Georges, traveler of the whole wide world, conqueror of many cities, ambassador to a country now in civil war in Africa, and now dedicated to discovering other lands. He told me he had just come from Roatan only to return there soon since he liked it so much.

I was instantly all ears. I wanted to know, to hear stories and descriptions just like the Spaniards when Columbus returned. He told me all he knew and now I had a whole new album of pictures in my mind. He told me names of people, nice people, colorful people, descendants from English colonists and free slaves now living in a close knit community and speaking a strange mutation of old English.

They were known worldwide and foreigners came to visit and stay for a while and eat their food and swim and fish in their pool and treasure chest, the Honduran Caribbean. The place was quiet, with no electricity, the tourists were mainly backpackers without malice and the barbecues on the beach were the best. A slower lifestyle could only be comatose and the weather, the constant Trade Winds, and the water, were medicinal to cure and cleanse the sandals of any traveller with dust from the Sahara to Las Vegas. The villagers were very conservative, and a strong sense of community, like in any island, kept the place in place. Generators and yourself were shut up at 11 p.m. Have a little rum, a little smoke, a little sex, but you better not bother your neighbor.

I met someone else in Tela. A German girl who was also going to Roatan at that time. She also knew the place my friend Georges was talking about. I had just come from Punta Sal, a wildlife reserve near Tela, and had all the time in the world, so I could follow her, I said, in three days.

Images began shattering the moment I set foot on the paved airstrip of Roatan. A Boeing 737 landed after my small plane and a school of divers with Hawaiian shirts and shorts were heading to the biggest and newest hotel, Fantasy Island, one of three big dive resorts in 1991. Bus and taxi drivers swarmed around me offering to take my luggage and me for an inflated fee. But I knew better. I was heading the other way, to the until then, down to earth, humble accommodations in West End. I took a bus on a nice paved road, 20 km to the west. Another 30 km to the east would take you almost to the other end of the island, Port Royal, an old English fort from the buccaneer days, and other secret getaways.

No description prepared me for West End. My picture faded like wood on an old dock in the tropics. When the paved road ended, it seemed we were going straight into Halfmoon Bay, then we took a sharp left on to the West End Strip.

Finally I was here. To the right, the blue-green Caribbean, with a little peninsula here, a dock there, a huge house on stilts like a cake on the reef and snorkelers splattering and puffing like crippled dolphins all over the water this side of the barrier reef. To my left, a few houses, very few cottages for tourists, a dive shop with a sign, "Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but bubbles," a couple of restaurants and two modest hotels. The United Nations Backpacker Commission was grabbing some sun, food, and drink, swatting at the swarms of sandflies or smelling of repellant. It was all very peaceful and it seemed, in slow motion. The bus stopped and with my own backpack and the map Georges had made, I looked for Sam Miller's Restaurant and Rooms. I walked 50 paces and there I was.

My girlfriend from Germany was nowhere to be seen but Georges was there with other friends and introduced me. All the hellos were said, I sat down with a cold soda and just smiled while my mind was racing and then just strolling as I got the feel of the place, absorbing the atmosphere of this new planet. It was great, the sun was getting lower, the beach and palm trees were magnificent, an occasional coconut falling from a palm, (never sit under a cluster of coconuts), the atmosphere was cozy and the jokes were funny. The medicinal Trade Winds were perfect and making me sleepy. Or so I thought.

After about an hour of welcoming and storytelling I began to feel tired. Very tired. I said I was going to my room to rest for a while and everybody said, OK, see you later.

I didn't get up for five days. I had malaria.

Images began shattering the moment I set foot on the paved airstrip of Roatan. A Boeing 737 landed after my small plane and a school of divers with Hawaiian shirts and shorts were heading to the biggest and newest hotel, Fantasy Island, one of three big dive resorts in 1991. Bus and taxi drivers swarmed around me offering to take my luggage and me for an inflated fee. But I knew better. I was heading the other way, to the until then, down to earth, humble accommodations in West End. I took a bus on a nice paved road, 20 km to the west. Another 30 km to the east would take you almost to the other end of the island, Port Royal, an old English fort from the buccaneer days, and other secret getaways.

No description prepared me for West End. My picture faded like wood on an old dock in the tropics. When the paved road ended, it seemed we were going straight into Halfmoon Bay, then we took a sharp left on to the West End Strip.

Finally I was here. To the right, the blue-green Caribbean, with a little peninsula here, a dock there, a huge house on stilts like a cake on the reef and snorkelers splattering and puffing like crippled dolphins all over the water this side of the barrier reef. To my left, a few houses, very few cottages for tourists, a dive shop with a sign, "Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but bubbles," a couple of restaurants and two modest hotels. The United Nations Backpacker Commission was grabbing some sun, food, and drink, swatting at the swarms of sandflies or smelling of repellant. It was all very peaceful and it seemed, in slow motion. The bus stopped and with my own backpack and the map Georges had made, I looked for Sam Miller's Restaurant and Rooms. I walked 50 paces and there I was.

My girlfriend from Germany was nowhere to be seen but Georges was there with other friends and introduced me. All the hellos were said, I sat down with a cold soda and just smiled while my mind was racing and then just strolling as I got the feel of the place, absorbing the atmosphere of this new planet. It was great, the sun was getting lower, the beach and palm trees were magnificent, an occasional coconut falling from a palm, (never sit under a cluster of coconuts), the atmosphere was cozy and the jokes were funny. The medicinal Trade Winds were perfect and making me sleepy. Or so I thought.

After about an hour of welcoming and storytelling I began to feel tired. Very tired. I said I was going to my room to rest for a while and everybody said, OK, see you later.

I didn't get up for five days. I had malaria.

According to preliminary figures, the current government will be leaving a Lps. 1.8 billion deficit for the incoming president. A large part of the deficit is the result of various strikes that occurred during the year and had to be resolved with wage increases for many public workers. Many of the unions took strategic advantage of the pressures of an election year to make their move for wage increases.

Among those striking for higher wages were the medical internists; recent graduates doing their practical experience for certification purposes. Even though this practice is considered to be the students' way of repaying the government for financing their education, they demanded a pay raise. They got one.

The second example is the new civilian police force. For many years the police have been under military control, and under military budget. The police have transferred to civil power, but it seems that their budget did not follow them. Now there are demands to provide them with their own funds. What about the funds in the military budget that were previously used to finance the police? The Armed Forces does not seem to want to part with this money.

Another problem facing the incoming government is the prospect of energy shortages, which will require buying energy from countries with higher productions. This problem was conveniently ignored during the campaign season, and now rests on the shoulders of incoming leaders.

President-elect Flores will be looking for his own part of the budget to seek funding for programs to benefit investment and social welfare. Without a reserve budget, the new budget will come short in trying to meet all the obligations. This budget deficit will probably be handled as many before have been handled: not by planning, but by lack of planning and going day by day, attending to the most immediate obligations.

In this situation it is the poorest sectors that suffer, as solutions to problems of housing, employment, and social services are put at the bottom of the list of priorities. This causes deficiencies in nutrition, education and housing; three very serious sacrifices to make in a country that needs to improve the capabilities of its work force in order to strengthen its economy. It is time to look at the Honduran economy as a macro-economy, not a micro-economy. It is also time for more discipline in spending.