It Takes All Kinds: Variety Even in Honduras
Every community, town, or city is a microcosm. True,
some may seem more homogenous on the surface, but undoubtedly once one dives
into it more deeply, the world becomes complex. Even a very small country like
Honduras, where I spent my childhood, has a surprising variety of people and
cultures.
Growing up, I was sheltered from much contact with the
“outside world”, always living in neighborhoods inhabited solely by Standard
Fruit Company employees, with a high percentage of expats. Some that I remember
were of American, Dutch, Indian, British, and Cuban nationality. An occasional
visit to the market or to the countryside gave me glimpses of those more
representative of Hondurans in general, but I can’t remember visiting many
homes or really getting to know how they lived.
Our international school, with mostly American
teachers, had only a small percentage of non-Hondurans. I found myself trying
to fit in by imitating the Spanish accent of my classmates when I spoke English
in the recess yard. Was that the budding linguist in me?
There were a few Islanders
in our classes, that is, whose families originally came from the Bay Islands
off the Caribbean coast, the largest being Roatan. The Islanders were an
unusual group in that their first language was English, but they had their own
dialect. Blacks seemed to be the majority, but those that I remember at my
school were white.
At one point our family started attending an
English-speaking Episcopalian church with an American pastor and a high percentage
of Islanders, mostly black. The pianist, Miss Popanken, was white, of eastern
European origin, but had previously lived in Belize. In that church I learned
to adapt my accent again, at least on occasion, for the liturgies and songs.
There was a little hymn: “Dear Lord, three things I pray: to see Thee more
clearly, love Thee more dearly, follow Thee more nearly, day by day”. The
Islanders pronounced, “clarely”, “darely”, “narely”… and so did I, at times.
They also pronounced the “v” sound as a “w”: “Wery God of wery gods, begotten
not made”.
Two women served as our domestic help in my latter
years in La Ceiba: Amina and Lolita. They were total opposites! Amina was a Mestizo
single mom, who wore low-cut necklines and loved to dance. Lolita was a black
Islander from a strict church, who wore long sleeves and thick stockings in the
humid tropical heat. She was scandalized by wild modern dancing and such. Once
Lolita took me to her church, and I remember the children touching my hair,
fascinated by its smoothness; likewise, their plaited curly locks intrigued me.
It was not until I was a few grades into school that I
realized there was another sub-group in the local culture: the “Arabs”, whom I
later learned were Lebanese. The last names of these classmates contrasted
considerably with the Hispanic ones: Dib, Kawas, Busmail, and so on. Many of
their parents owned or managed the nicer “almacenes”, stores selling dry goods
and imported items, for example. Though I didn’t get to know much about their
culture or cuisine, I recall that my Dad once dined at one of their homes and
was honored with a succulent treat, in their opinion: sheep’s eyes. He managed
to gag one down.
Once in a while, I had the chance to see Caribs, as
the Garífunas were called. They were “black”—in reality Afro-Caribbean, but
were totally different from the Islanders. The Garífunas speak their own
language, and their culture is combines both African and indigenous influence.
I recall that around Lent, colorful Carib dancers went out into the streets,
accompanied by their own instruments. Our main contact with them was when we
bought cassava bread, a dry, crisp sort of flatbread made from the manioc root,
after processing it to remove cyanide. For us, its flavor was enhanced when
buttered and sprinkled with Parmesan cheese, certainly not the way they
consumed it.
Back in the 50’s and 60’s, as far as I can recall the
population was, in contrast, much more homogenous in Ontario, where we spent
our summers. Despite my somewhat “protected” expat life in Central America, it
was much more varied and colorful in terms of the people that surrounded us,
for which I am grateful.
posted by margie @ 9:20 PM
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Uzziel (2 años) y su hermanita de menos de un mes. Uzzi (2) and sister (less than a month old)
