Crossing the sea to get to class

By crossing from one side of the island to the other, those children risked falling in the sea and losing their books and, in a worst case scenario, their lives: and because of these risks, some parents were reluctant to send their children to school, choosing instead to keep them at home, and as a result, a generation of children of Pandy Town did not learn to properly read or write in Spanish, the Honduras official language.

“Though most the children of Pandy Town learn to swim at an early age, some of the parents were afraid of sending their children to school because they had to cross the sea in dories to get to the school house” says Virginia Hernandez, a local business woman whose parent sent her to la Ceiba to complete her primary studies.

In the mid to late 70s, there were plans to build a bridge between Pandy Town and Oak Ridge Cay that are separated by approximately 20 feet at its closest point and 40 to 50 at its longest, but the mostly white residents of the cay, who were considered well off, refused the building of the bridge that would have connected the two community, thus making it easier for the kids of Pandy Town to get to the school house.

There were plans to build a bridge between Pandy Town and Oak Ridge Cay.

“They were going to build a bridge, but the people on the cay didn’t want it” said Edith Dilbert, a former student of the Marco Aurelio School that was located on the Oak Ridge Cay.

In addition to traveling across the sea to get to school, the children of Pandy Town also had to face the issue of language barrier; English was spoken at home and Spanish at school and most of the teachers that taught at the school did not speak the language of the students, who were fumbling and failing their classes, but being sent to the next grade in spite of the fact that they were not prepared to move to the next level.

“I made it to the third grade and am still not sure how I got there” said Joonel Solórzano, “We would copy whatever was on the black board, but we did not understand it because we did not speak Spanish and our teacher did not speak our language.”

Building of the Marco Aurelio Soto School

In the early 80´s a more appropriate school building was to be constructed in Pandy Town, but because there we no land on which to build, the new school building was diverted to downtown Oak Ridge. The two-story building would have, in addition to offices, six different class room that would house each grade separately, instead of cramming everyone in the same room as it was done in the previous school.

“Because most of the children attending Marco Aurelio school was from our community, when they decided to build a bigger school, is was to be placed in Pandy Town, but no one wanted to give land to build the school”, said Mrs. Thelma Almendarez, a community activist and a former council member of the municipal corporation of Santos Guardiola, “And some of the elders argued that it was best to put the school on the other side so the black children could mix with the white”.

The bad news, however, was that this new and much needed school would be built in Down Town Oak Ridge, an area known to locals living in Pandy Town as (the other side). The children of Pandy Town would have to travel even further to get to the school house and some parents were even more reluctant to send their children to this new school, but there was no other option.

The new school named “Escuela Marco Aurelio Soto” built on the other side was to provide the children of Oak Ridge, mostly of Pandy Town, as most of the kids from down town oak Ridge attended a nearby private school) with a more appropriate learning environment; however this was a difficult task because, even though the national language in Honduras is Spanish, the primary language throughout the Bay Islands back then was English.

Children who were not sent to Spanish school (the educational system in Honduras provided a Spanish only curriculum was instead sent to English school at the home of local teacher who wanted to keep the English language alive.

One such teacher was Mrs. Rose Pouchie McKenzie for whom the school in Pandy Town would eventually be named. “Aunt Rose would even teach some of the children for free” said Elda Pouchie.

The teachers working at the Marco Aurelio School, who were assigned the task of educating the children of Oak Ridge, were brought from the mainland and they spoke no English. The students spoke little to no Spanish making teaching and learning a difficult task for both the teachers and the students, and again, some of the students were being sent to grades that they were not ready to attend.

Extensions of the Marco Aurelio Soto in Pandy Town

Throughout the 80`s, there were extensions of the Marco Aurelio school proving classes to the generation of citizen who were not able to attend the school house on Oak Ridge Cay for one reason or another, but the school age children of Pandy Town continued hustling their way to class in dories and speed boats to the school in Down Town Oak Ridge.

In the mid 80`s Mr. Brimley, a resident of Pandy Town fitted a large boat with a small engine and offered to transport the kids of Pandy Town to the school building on the other side, as Downtown Oak is referred to by the resident of Pandy Town. Mr. Brimley did this for a few years and did not get back support and eventually he stopped and for the children of one of the oldest communities in Santos Guardiola, and back then, the community with the largest number of children attending public school, back to hustling their way to school.

As if the Marco Aurelio Primary school was not far enough, once completing the 6th grade, the children of Pandy Town had to travel to Jonesville to attend middle school or Plan Básico, again, traveling in dories or speed boats; and even longer ride compare to the travel from Pandy Town to Down town Oak Ridge.

Almost 40 years after the Marco Aurelio School was built, in Downtown Oak Ridge, the children of Pandy Town were still facing educational disadvantages and waiting for a school to be built in their community, which would affect their learning and their opportunity for a better life.

In the early 2000, an extension of the Marco Aurelio Soto institution was once again installed in Pandy Town, offering first grade only in space rented private home. Later that same year 2nd and 3rd grade was added to the program and the school was translated to the Methodist church in Pandy Town.

“An extension of the Marco Aurelio was placed in Pandy Town and the municipal helped us by providing and paying for two school teachers” said Vicky Leticia Sanchez Pandy, the first director of the Rosabella McKenzie Bilingual School.

Fighting to Establish a School in P. Town

In 2002, a group of local women, including Mrs. Rosabella McKenzie, decided that it was time for the school in Pandy Town to become independent and severe it connection from the Marco Aurelio School, they form a commission, got organized, presented a request to the Department of Education in Coxen Hole, Roatan, thus their long journey of established and school in Pandy Town begun, but not without difficulties and opposition.

The opposition came from the direction of the Marco Aurelio School and the director of the Dionisio Herrera School in oak Ridge Bight; they feared that their matriculation number would drop. “The director of the Marco Aurelio School and the Dionisio was against Pandy Town getting a school. He was fearful of his matriculation dropping, since most of the student attending that public school was from Pandy Town” said Elda Martinez a local teacher and community activist.

The request for a school in Pandy Town sat in the school district office in Roatan for years, going from the top of the heap to the bottom and back again. “Each time it reached the bottom, I would take it back to the top”, said Leticia Pandy, and (EIB) Intercultural Bilingual Education Teacher.

One of the problems with getting the school built in Pandy Town was that each time after election, the district employees would be replaced, based on the winning party, and this bureaucracy prevented the request for a school in Pandy Town to be noticed.

In 2007, a new school district director, seeing the need, and having the assistance of Leticia Pandy, an Intercultural Bilingual teacher from Pandy Town, who was back then a secretary at the school district office, decided to look at the request.

The Rosabella McKenzie Bilingual public school was finally approved in 2008 and that same years in June, Vicky Leticia Sanchez Pandy, who had previously worked in the educational district office and was instrumental in getting the school approved, become the teacher and first director of the school, giving classes to all 6 grade-1-3 in the morning and 4-6 in the evening, but that was only part of the journey.

According to Vicky Leticia Sanchez Pandy “It was hard teaching all six grades, three in the morning and three in the evening, but I had support of at least two of the parent who was always there with me, bringing food and offering support”

The following year, the municipality office of Santos Guardiola provided the school with two teachers, the matriculation increased and the fight to get a building began.

Building a School in Pandy Town

Between 2009 and 2017, there were offers from public and private institutions to build a school for the children of Pandy Town, but for different reasons, including the lack of land on which to build along with some political issues, the school was never built.

Mrs. Charles Sutherland, from Canada, raised funds to build a school for the student of the Rosabella McKenzie, and for years he tried, along with some community activists to make this happen, but because of the lack of land on which to build, some political issues and other factors, the building was never constructed.

Besides Mr. Sutherland, there were other philanthropist, organizations and institutions that attempted to purchase properties and build a school in the community of Pandy Town, however, finding adequate property on which to build had always been a problem.

Ten years after the Rosabella McKenzie school, named for a local English teacher who was a proponent of education and one of the local women who fought so that the children of Pandy Town would have their own school was established, and approximately 8 years of being housed in an old building rented from the Methodist church, a building was to be constructed for the children of Pandy Town.

In the early months of 2018, School the world was contacted by a member of the community of Pandy Town about the need for a new school and they responded almost immediately. After meeting with the mayor of Santos Guardiola, who was responsible for part of the building, and the community, who had to also be part of this three-way partnership, it was agreed upon to that the building of the Rosabella McKenzie school building.

In June of 2018, after much struggle and obstacle, the first building of three class rooms was completed, in a combined effort between School the World, the municipality of Santos Guardiola and the community of Pandy Town providing the labor, the children of Pandy Town had its first school building.

A few months later, another nonprofit organization, specifically (CEPUDO), via the municipality approved another three classrooms building for the children of Pandy Town, again with the land being acquired in part by the mayor of Santos Guardiola and in part by the community, the second building was completed in August of the same year and in September, the children was in their new building.

The future of the children of Pandy Town

Thanks to School the World, mayor Carson Dilbert and the municipal corporation of Santos Guardiola, CEPUDO and members of the local patronato and of the community members and the former and present directors of the Rosabella McKenzie School, for the first time in history, Pandy Town, one of the oldest communities on the east side of Roatan, has its own school. The children of Pandy no longer have to travel outside their community to receive classes, the disadvantages are less, and their future looks a little brighter.

Accompanied by her band mates, guitarists Timothy Blanton and Alex Poitier, known collectively as Caron and the two old sexy guys, the 43 year old has been mesmerizing fans with eclectic music that ranges from reggae to blues, and every genre of music in between. “I do a little bit of everything,” says the groovy singer. “I love all kinds of music, and if you come to my house, you might hear a little Otis Redding, some Bob Marley, and even Rancheras”

Caron Pinnace got her first paid gig at the age of eight, singing for one of her uncles and some friends who needed to practice their guitar skills for their church services. “They used to pay me one lempira for my singing, but the real benefit, which I did not realize at the time, was that I got to practice and train my voice”, she recalls.

“I was the girl who sang at wakes and in church programs.”

At the age of ten, while she was fixated on Disney channel and its musical characters, Caron was asked to sing at a Christmas program in Pandy Town’s Methodist church.

While fighting against her nerves and the fear of singing in public, she made her way to the altar. There, her rendition of “Away in a Manger” left the churchgoers in awe, and that was the first time she realized that she could sing.

Before hitting Roatan’s music scene, she sang at different events in her community. “I would sing at wakes, birthday parties, and at church”, she says. “I was the girl who sang at wakes and in church programs”.

Caron’s first musical venture away from her familiar surroundings started six years ago. “My then partner, Paul Cleckner and his Bandidos group members would sometimes practice at our home,” she says. “During one of those practice sessions, I got to sing ‘Summertime’ and was asked to join them at BJ’s Backyard. Fighting against my nerves, I agreed under the condition that I got to sing Bob Marley’s ‘No Woman No Cry,’ which is like my musical Anthem and my go-to song when I feel like my show is getting boring,” she smiles. “That’s how I got started.”

The “born and raised Island Girl” a phrase Caron Pinnace uses to introduce herself before each show, sang at the “Music Festival for The Angels” as part of the “April Fool’s” group in 2017, and was invited back the following year.

At the 2018 “Music Festival for the Angels,” she met Blues vocalist Jack de Keyzer. “It was nerve-wracking for me to get on stage. I mean the guest singer was a legend,” she remembers. “They sent me on just before this award-winning artist, and as I made my way to the stage he said, ‘break a leg,’ and after my rendition of Tracy Chapman’s ‘Give me a Reason to Stay Here,’ he approached me again and said, ‘man I told you to break a leg, but you broke a whole body, ” she recalls with a giggle.

Following the festival, she had a show at Beacher’s; in West End. Jack de Keyzer dropped-in hoping to perform a duet with the Island Girl who had impressed him at the festival. “When I got to Beacher’s, the crowd was larger than usual, and I thought something was happening,” she says. “Then I realized they were there because of Jack DeKeyzer. We did a duet ‘Stormy Monday’ and it was amazing!”

That collaboration with Jack De Keyzer catapulted her singing opportunities to another level; most of the venues around the island wanted her to sing at their location.

Caron Pinnace has entertained at Bananarama, Infinity Bay, Beacher’s, Tranquil Seas, and BJ’s. She currently entertains at Marble Hills Farm, Conch Fritters, and Coco View. “I feel good about what my music is doing for me right now. I dreamed about being this far and would love to go further, but what I am living right now is a dream,” She says emphatically “I’m doing the thing I love to do and am in love with someone who loves me back.”

Don’t miss it every Wednesday’s at Conch Fritters “Caron and the Two Old Sexy Dudes.” Noon to 2!

Roatan’s East Side Looks Towards Brighter Future

Santos Guardiola, is the largest in area of the four municipalities on the Bay Islands. It did not always exist in the obscurity it finds itself now, but was once a thriving fishing community with more fishing vessels than any other municipality in Honduras.

“I remember Oak Ridge harbor being busy with fishing and cargo boats in and out all day long,” said Joonel Solórzano, whose stepfather owned the popular Blue Bayou restaurant overlooking Oak Ridge Harbor.

Established in 1960 and named for one of Honduras former president, S.G. boasted a dry dock that kept local fishing fleet in top shape and a seafood factory that exported its goods to the US and employed hundreds of workers from all over the island.

Santos Guardiola has lived in the shadow of its little sister.

Decades ago, Santos Guardiola was also the center of entertainment. “Back then, we were able to party for days with no problem and there were no crimes to worry about,” said Zelda Nixon, a resident of Pandy Town. Santos Guardiola was also home to several popular bars and restaurant including the famous and now defunct, Casa Grande in Pandy Town. There was also Happy Landing on Oak Ridge Point and Blue Bay restaurant on Lawrence Hill, Oak Ridge.

Compared to its sister municipality on the west, Santos Guardiola has been struggling when it comes to growth, development and finding its own identity. Santos Guardiola has lived in the shadow of its little sister to the west for years, however, S.G is slowly moving out of obscurity and back into its own light.

Created in 1960, the youngest municipality in the Bay Islands has seen a resurgence of old businesses and the upsurge of new ones. Super Economico, a supermarket in Oak Ridge, near the bus stop, opened its doors in January of 2017. “My father liked the area because of the land and sea proximity,” said Claudia Ramirez who helps run her family business.

With steady growth and construction taking place on the Roatan’s east, the building supply and hardware chain, Madeyso, inaugurated a store in Pandy Town, in June of 2017. The store employs 10 workers from the area. “We opened a store in Santos Guardiola because we had more clients on the east of Roatan than anywhere else,” said Jolanie Romero, a sales adviser working with the company since 2013. “It was difficult to cover all the [eastern] communities requesting material such as Diamond Rock, Pandy Town, and Camp Bay, in one day.”

In 2015 the petroleum company Texaco opened its first gas station in S.G. at the entrance of Oak Ridge. In summer of 2019 BIP (Bay Islands Petroleum) and Circle K convenient store opened facilities in Jonesville.

In the last five years the municipality has been paving and improving roads all over the area, as small businesses continue to hit the economic trail on the east. “I was motivated to open my restaurant because of the changes taking place”, said Kislen Dilbert, owner of Island flavor restaurant in Politilly Bight. “The roads are better, which allow people to come to the east without wrecking their cars,” pointed out the former Justice of Peace for the municipality of Santos Guardiola. Happy Landing bar, on Oak Ridge Point and Henry’s Cove Resort and restaurant, in Punta Gorda, both re-penned after years of hibernation.

The growth and development have reached as far as Saint Helena, a once forgotten Santos Guardiola outpost.
This sleepy island was recently the recipient of one of the largest educational centers on the east end, it acquired community wide electricity for the first time provided by RECO, and it’s now home to the first concrete built municipal community dock in Santos Guardiola.

With all the development taking place and plans to build the first cruise ship dock on the east, the municipality of Santos Guardiola seems to be coming into its own fifth year. “If we prepare ourselves, tourism could have a huge effect on our community,” says Alex Avila, councilman for tourism and owner of Mamery Garinagu Center in Punta Gorda. “There are negative aspects of tourism, but if we are creative, make use of our natural resources, it could make the tourism industry on this end sustainable, we should be Ok”

The closing of the municipalities’ only banking 2018, had some negative effect on businesses. “The closing of Banco Atlántida has affected our business, but we are still here thanks to the support of some loyal clients that appreciates our services. To provide even more convenience to them, we convinced Ficohsa bank to open a stall in our building,” said Claudia Ramirez.

Wendy Gale, president of the patronato of Camp Bay, believes that with the building of the new cruise ship dock, banks will return and so will other businesses.

Councilwomen, Genie Hernandez says that “tourism is going to be good for S.G., but it’s important to have control so it doesn’t get out of hand; with development comes responsibility.”

The municipal office has also benefited from the changes; it helped increase; its tax revenue. It increased from 32 million Lempiras yearly to 52 million Lempiras in 2017, which has allowed for more municipal funded projects to be completed. The latest of which is the renovation of the old lighthouse in Oak Ridge, a reminder of Santos Guardiola’s prosperous past.

With things looking up for the east end of Roatan, it seems that the municipality might be regaining its place in the economical realm of the Bay Islands and finally moving out of the shadow of its little sister, and back where it once was.

She was born on the third of September 1931, 88 years ago. Doña Eufemia is quite independent and gets around with no difficulty at all. She lives with one of her daughters, but up to a few years ago, before the roof of her small home deteriorated, she lived alone.

Miss Eufemia is quite healthy, even though the findings of an Ophthalmologist she visited recently were not that reassuring. “According to the eye specialist, my mother only has five percent of her vision left,” says her daughter Maria Lopez. “But she could still thread a needle, and she sees everything.”

Miss Eufemia’s memory is as clear as her vision, and she remembers her childhood days with fondness. “We were poor, and our parents couldn’t afford to buy us toys, so we found ways to have fun,” she says. “There was a type of grass that grew at the edge of the sea, we would cut it, wash it and use it to make dolls, that how we played.”

Miss Eufemia had a strict mother who taught her how to show respect and salute the elderly or suffer the consequences. “I was an obedient child and showed respect to my elders, but I was scolded for walking about,” she says.

As a child, Miss Caballero attended Juan Brooks primary school on the west side of the island for six months. At the beginning of the week, she would paddle to Coxen Hole and spend the weekdays at school before paddling back home on the weekend.

She grew up at a time when there were no roads, electricity, wooden or cement homes. “When I was growing up, we would walk bare foot on the edge of the sea, because there was no road, and we had to be home before sunset because there were no lights,” she says. “The houses were made of mud walls and cohune leaf top, but we were safer and happier back then.”

Miss Eufemia’s father took care of his family by sailing to Belize in a dory where he’d purchase provisions for a small shop that was run by her mother. “My dad would leave for three days and return on the fourth day with a drum of chicken, corned beef, powdered milk and such for the shop,” she remembers.

She had her first daughter at a young age and had planned to marry her first love, but her groom-to-be ran off to the mainland and married someone else. She eventually met and married the second man in her life, and they procreated 13 children, 12 girls, and one boy, of whom she has outlived all but five of her girls.

‘Our parents couldn’t afford to buy us toys.’

To help take care of her family, Miss Eufemia washed clothes in Oak Ridge and grated coconut in Jones Ville. “I would grate from 100 to 200 hundred coconuts a day for them to make oil,” she remembers.

In addition to washing clothes and grating coconuts, she also baked. “I had my ground where I planted sweet cassava, sweet potato, and coco (Taro root), which I would use to make bush cakes to sell,” she said. “I still bake Johnny Cakes and buns, and when I can’t do it, my daughter does.”

As another way of making ends meet, she would get up at 2:00 a.m. and paddle to Sandy Bay, where she would sell conch at five cents a pound.

Miss Eufemia is the mother of 14 children, grandmother of 33, great-grandmother of 36, and great-great-grandmother of 4. She remembers when neighbors and friends would share what little they had. “Today, you could give your neighbors all you have and never get anything in return,” she says. “The Bible says you should not only open your hands to receive but also to give.”

Ninety Years Old and Vibrant as Ever

Miss Vida was born in Port Royal on July 30, 1929 and raised on Calabash Bight Cay, with her parents and four other siblings. Her father, Mr. Haldane Greenwood, married her mother Nina Ebanks of Oak Ridge Cay and worked as a captain on a boat that ran between Roatan and Belize.

The family did not have much, but her dad made sure there was food in the kitchen. “Dad would bring home sacks of flour and other foods, but what we liked most was the jars of stewed plums,” remembers Miss Vida.

She did not do much playing but had fun none the less. “We would all bathe in the sea on Saturdays, after we finished our chores,” she remembers. “Mother would take us to cake sales where there was live music with someone playing the accordion and another playing the guitar.”

Miss Vida remembers Christmas with fond memories: “My dad would put some rapadura (block off brown sugar cane) and pine skin in a drum and let it sit for a week before it was ready; that was our Christmas drink. Each of us got a glassful, and Christmas was done,” she said. Her father passed away when she was eight: “My mother washed and sewed clothes to take care of usand the family helped with whatever they could.”

After the birth of her first child, Miss Greenwood went to work as a housekeeper and cook on Oak Ridge Point making 20 Lempiras a month. “I had to paddle from Calabash Bight Cay to Oak Ridge Point to get to work,” she says, “The wind would be so strong sometimes that it would take the paddle out of my hands.”

‘I lived this long because I was an obedient child’

In all, Miss Vida had seven children and has outlived two of her three daughters and one of her four sons. While Miss Vida moved to Lucy Point 11 years ago after her home in Calabash Bight burned down, her children moved away to Bonnaca and La Ceiba. She still prefers the quietness of the place that saw her grew-up. “I don’t like living here, it’s too noisy,” she protested with a frown and a chuckle.

On most days she gets up at 5 am, washes her clothes, cooks and sweeps her yard. By 7pm she is ready for bed. “I don’t need anyone to mind me, maybe someone to help me clean the house and do the dishes but that’s it,” Miss Vida said emphatically.

Miss Vida was baptized in the 80s and is a member of the Oak Ridge Chapel Church on Oak Ridge Cay. “The Bible says that baptism doesn’t save you, it makes the world see that you are not the person you used to be,” she says with assurance.

“I lived this long because I was an obedient child, the Bible also says that. If mama told us we could not go somewhere, we could not go,” she says. “Kids now a day are not obedient. If you tell them not to do something, they do it anyway.”

The grandmother of 27 and great-grandmother of 46 seems to be in good health with her only complaints being her declining eyesight, periodic bouts of weak spells and headaches.

Miss Greenwood never married and has no regrets. “Life is what you make of it, sometimes it’s good and sometimes it’s bad, but you keep on living and doing what it is you do,” she says in a calm and gentle voice.

Poet and Teacher with Roatan Roots Shines on the Mainland

As a child she was always interested in the written word” I remember reading Dr. Seuss’s “Cat in The Hat” and “Walk About” by James Vance Marshall. She read the little Red Hen and the Never-Ending Story among others and by the age of 16 she had already published her first journalistic article and has been writing ever since.

A dedicated writer whose work reflects everyday issues and concerns realized that she wanted to be a writer when she started loving herself. “I realized I wanted to write when I started loving myself… and realized that the written word has the power to generate ideas, inspire revolution and change the way we see ourselves and even our place in history”, she says.

The realization that she wanted to be a writer was re-enforced by the works of prominent African American poets Maya Angelou and Langston Hughes; Spanish poet Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer as well as her favorite Honduran poet, Robert Sosa.

As a poet, essayist, novelist and writer, she has published numerous books of poems, short stories and essays. She has also won numerous awards for her works including “El Premio Nacional de Literatura y Poesía” an award she has received three times. One of her recent books titled “Poesía, Cantos, Ceremonias y Vestimentas de La Cultura Garifuna” details the cultural and traditional aspects of her ancestors.

Though she believes that everyone has some creativity and that can be developed, extended and fertilized, becoming a great poet is not easy. “To be a great poet”, she says “takes inspiration, constant motivation and professional attitude”.

As perhaps the most recognized and read black poet in Central America, Xiomara Cacho Caballero has learned many lessons on her journey to becoming the first Garifuna woman to ever publish a book in Honduras. The most important lesson she has learned: “Is that in our development as human beings, we reach for auto determination when we realize that honor is much more important than finances and that everyone, without exception, and we most advocate respect and all other moral values,” she says.

Honor is much more important than finances.

Being both a poet and writer is no easy feat, and Ms Caballero sometimes find it personally difficult to write poetry, “One of the most difficult things about my personal journey as a black poet was to get started and give rise to the Honduran black poetry, to balance the verbal and structural experimentation with traditional ways; to consolidate the words of a marginalized people, and to integrate ethnic thoughts into Honduran poetry…”.

Poet and writer Xiomara Cacho Caballero could also be defined as an activist for social change as she writes about the social and economic problems facing the black community and is inspired by those issues, I’m inspired by social, educational and religious injustice, the socio ethnic inequalities that puts the predominant ethnocentrism perspective in crises she said.

Hailed by “La Tribuna”, one of Honduras leading newspapers, as “The Voice of the Garifuna Homeland”, Xiomara Cacho Caballero is an alumna of the historical black university Harris–Stowe State University in St. Louis, Missouri as well as of the Universidad Pedagógica Nacional Francisco Morazán, in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. She speaks four languages including Garifuna, Spanish, French and English; some of her poems are written in those languages.

The poet, who has been teaching at university for more than 25 years, also believes that each time a poem is written a poet is born and she hopes that someday society will give poetry the fundamental importance that it had in earlier times.

As a constant advocate for change and improvement in education and everyday living for the black community and Hondurans in general, “My current project involves supplying the libraries of the Bay Islands with documents, books, and historical, educational, inter-ethnic materials that strengthen bilingual intercultural Education.

As a scholar of her culture and the reality of black existence in Honduras, she attempts to share her experiences and those of her people in her writing; an opportunity she uses to depict the black veracity in the Bay Islands and the country. “Literature creates identity. Through my writings I try to materialize the black presence. Through memory, and literary imagination in which I show today, black identity as a culture that can’t be ignored… Literature is a way of fighting discrimination…” Says the poet whose favorite poem is one she wrote about her mother entitled “My Island Mother.”

“My island mother,                                                    
 Spent her existence
 Cooking and baking coconut bread
 Giving food to her chickens
 And taking care of the family garden
 She sold conchs, fish, crabs and shells,
 She cleaned her white sand beach
 Sailed in tornadoes,
 Hurricanes, high and low tides
 Between rains, drizzles
 Thunder and lightning,
 She walked to work in Jonesville…”

Every year, on his birthday, his family comes together from as far as the US to celebrate the special day. “By the help of the Lord I’ve lived this long. Every year the children have a birthday party for me with cake and ice cream,” Mr. Victor says with a subtle smile. “I can’t get to them, so they have to come to me.”

Since suffering a fall that fractured his hip five years ago, an injury on which the doctors were reluctant to treat with surgery because of the possible side effects of the anesthesia on a man of his age, and for which they instead recommended bed rest; Mr. Jones has been bedridden ever since.

Prior to the hip fracture, Mr. Victor was up and about and took care of himself. “He was able to support himself besides cooking,” said his daughter Verne Jones who has left her job in the US to help take care of her dad. “My sister Linda would spend the night,” she said. A house worker, who has been with the family for years, would do the cooking.

The eldest of four children born to Gustave and Lena Jones, and the only one still alive, Mr. Jones was an example his younger siblings. “I never gambled, smoked or drank alcohol, but I loved to hunt for rabbits and deer and loved to fish,” he remembers.

Mr. Victor does not speak much Spanish because while he was growing up “The teacher would come from the mainland, stay for a few months and leave never to return,” he said. Mr. Victor did receive English lessons however, and one of his teachers was Mabel Bennett of Flowers Bay.

Alert and sound of mind, Mr. Jones can recall incidents that happened when he was a child such as a story he related to his late daughter, Linda, five years ago. He told of a church bell that was donated to the Bethany Methodist Church in Jonesville Point and was later thrown into a pond during an altercation between locals at the school house where it had been stored for safekeeping after the church had been leveled by a hurricane. The bell was never recovered.

Some of Mr. Jones’s fondest memories, as a child, come from the time he spent on the family farm with his father who was a farmer and kept a few cows and hogs and grew enough provision of plantains, bananas and other fruits and vegetables to feed his family.

Some of his not so fond memories include the difficulties of traveling from one area of the island to another: “I remember when you wanted to get to French Harbor; you had to paddle or walk to get there.”

I never gambled, smoked or drank alcohol, but I loved to hunt for rabbits and deer.

Mr. Victor, who worked as a seaman, started his career at the age of 16 with the Standard Fruit Company and worked on a ship that belonged to Joe Gough of Oak Ridge. The ship ran from Belize to Tampa Florida, delivering bananas. As a seaman, Mr. Jones has traveled around the world twice and favors the country of Singapore amongst all the places he has visited.

Working as a seaman during World War II was scary, he recalls, “we had to sleep under the lifeboats, which was hard to do because of the discharge going of all hours of the night,” he said.

The end of the war was welcoming news for the seaman who would spend months on the sea before going home to spend a few months with his family. “We were coming out of Tampa when the War started and we were passing through the Panama Canal when it ended,” he said. “Passing through the canal we heard the celebration; guns going off and ships blowing their horns and when the pilot came aboard to take us through, he told us that the war was over”, he remembers.

Like for most islanders of his generation, country and western was Mr. Jones favorite kind of music to dance and listen to. “We used to kick-up our heels every now and then at the Miramar club in Pandy Town,” he says. “I loved all the country singers, but my favorite was Earnest Tubb.”

Mr. Victor was married to Ema Midence of West End for 62 years and they had five children, of which three are still alive. Mrs. Jones has been deceased for 24 years, but Mr. Jones still remembers the first time he saw the 17-year-old doing her chores. It was the day he fell in love.

He is the grandfather of 11 and great-grandfather of 15, still live in the home where he lived with his wife from 1942 until the day she died, and where they raised their children.

The Senior James Pouchie of Calabash Bight

The soft-spoken gentle man celebrates his birthday on December 29. He is the second of 13 children born to Mr. Yule Wendell Pouchie and Mrs. Sera Pouchie. Life has not been easy, but Mr. Pouchie talks of his journey through this world with a satisfied smile on his face. The way he sees it, life has been good to him. He remembers the path that he has had to follow on this journey with fondness and gratitude.

At a young age, while his younger siblings were going to school, he had to help his father on the family farm where they grew yucca root, bananas and coco which they sold around the island and in La Ceiba. If business was good on the mainland, his father would send for more produce. “I would load the paddling dory with the produce and take it to Capt. Ray’s boat on Pointed Cay, now Oak Ridge Point, to be shipped to La Ceiba,” he says.

As a teenager, Mr. Pouchie got the opportunity to travel and work as a sailor in the US but needed his father’s permission to get his passport. After Mr. Pouchie insisted that he needed to work to help with his younger sibling: six younger brothers and five younger sisters, his father reluctantly agreed for him to travel to the US. “Because there were no roads back then, I had to paddle to Coxen Hole to pick up my passport. I was very excited,” he recalls.

I like the independence of being my own boss.

Mr. Pouchie worked on the boat in Texas ‘heading’ shrimp, something he became an expert at doing. While most boat hands head one shrimp at a time, he was heading one in each hand. For a while back then, the white captains would only work with an all-white crew while the black captains would work with an all-black crew. You had the ‘white boats’ and the ‘black boats,’ said Mr. Pouchie abut the segregation in US fishing industry.

While working in the US, Mr. Pouchie earned $150 per month, most of which he would send most back to his family. One time a son of one of his captains tried to cheat him out of his wages by paying him 50% less than what he was supposed to earn. Not accepting the injustice, he refused to work until the boss agreed to pay him what he had rightfully earned. The captain was afraid of losing the one worker who could do the job of two men and, in the end, agreed to pay him.

A religious man, Mr. Pouchie was baptized in the Seventh Day Adventist Church in Calabash Bight where his father was once the leader, and where Mr. Pouchie also spent a stint as a preacher, something he loved doing.

James Wendell Pouchie is as healthy as many 20-year-olds. He does not take any kind of medications and his diet consists of mostly seafood. “I love fried bara [barracuda] and I eat a piece of meat every now and then,” he says. He has, however, suffered many accidents. At the age of 13 he accidentally split his left knee in two with a machete and later he busted a vein in his left arm while lifting a load on the farm. At the age of 40, while hunting deer, he stood up on a stump and the shot gun slipped out of his hands, hit the ground, discharged, and hit his left arm leading to an amputation from the joint down. After losing his arm, Mr. Pouchie had to abandon his profession as a seaman. He loves to tap dance and he says he talks to God every morning and evening. “If you always remember God, you would not worry with the world.”

Mr. Pouchie enjoys the simple life; he says that there is too much foolishness happening with technology, he had a cell phone, but gave it away. “I could live without a phone”, he says. “It’s too much torment and it’s hard handling it with one hand.”

“Rebecca’s Table was started because I saw the need in the community” says Mrs. Betty Mesa, head of the program since its inception in 2004. “Everyone that comes to Roatan sees the paradise, no one sees behind the scenes where there’s much need”, she says. “When we first moved to the Bight no one wanted to be here because there were no roads and no resources, now it’s a great place to live” she explains.

The idea to start the children’s meal program came from Pastor Harriet of the Oak Ridge Chapel Church on Oak Ridge Cay. “Back in 2004 Pastor Harriet asked me to start a feeding program that would provide food for the children once a month, I agreed, and with L.400 lempira we embarked on the journey of feeding the children”, says the leader of Crusadas del Evangelio Church in Oak Ridge Bight.

For the first two years of the program, Mrs. Mesa and a couple of volunteers from the church cooked the meals at her home in Pandy Town, they would then hire a taxi dory to take them to the Bight where, on the street, they would feed the children that came looking for a meal.

In 2005, a young man from the US by the name of Howard Lee Rey who was teaching English at an institution connected to Oak Ridge Chapel befriended one of Mrs. Mesa’s two daughters and offered to help by providing L.1, 500 lempiras monthly so that more children could receive food and so that they could be served once a week instead of once a month.

“The hardest thing for me is to see a hungry child,” says Mrs. Mesa. “After the amount of children we were feeding increased, I would sometimes spend the money for the electricity to buy more food.” Seeing the need for additional provision to meet the needs, Howard Lee offered enough money to feed an additional 50 children; breakfast on Wednesdays and lunch on Fridays. Before going back to the US, the young man asked if building a dining area would enable the program to continue to expand. “I told him: ‘If someone could build a kitchen I could start cooking in the neighborhood and not have to travel with pots and pans from my home in Pandy Town.”

In 2005, with a donation of $20,000 dollars from Mr. Lee’s parents back in the US, 5,000 Lempiras of their own, and the help of 17 members of a Methodist church in Alabama, Mrs. Betty Mesa along with her late husband, Mr. Jesus Mesa, started to built the kitchen and dining room that would serve the children eating at the newly christened, Rebecca’s Table, named in memory Rebecca Neal Norvell, Mr. Howard Lees best friend, who died in an accident in 2002. Rebecca loved children and in her honor, her parent provide $400 dollars monthly to help keep the meal program going and they try to visit the center each year. At a cost of Lps. 2,000-3,000 weekly, Rebeccas Table feeds from 100 to 150 kids every Wednesday afternoon. On special occasions such as Children’s Day and Christmas Day, and during the first week of school when breakfast is served instead of lunch, the cost of the program can run well over Lps. 5,000 for the week.

The walls of Rebecca’s Kitchen are lined with decorative paintings created by Rebecca’s mother, and there’s a picture of Rebecca, age 22, on one of the walls. She would, no doubt, have been proud of the work being done in her name.

Pandy Town is a Gold Mine of Talented Athletes

At 15 years of age, Quinn was spotted by a recruiter and taken to San Pedro Sula as a third division reserve player. He remained with Real España for two years before moving back to Pandy Town where he received the best advice from then coach, Orlando Lopez. “If you learn to manage your temper, it will make you a better player, if you play angry, anyone can beat you,” said Pinnace. Quinn says that his father has also warned him about his temper and about the importance of “air”. “My father said that ‘if you don’t have air, a child could beat you in soccer’”, so he tries to stay healthy to keep up with his game. There is no doubt that for Quinn, as for most young men in Pandy Town, around the island, and all over Honduras, sports, especially soccer, are a big deal. Participating in sports also helps these young men better control their tempers. Pinnace also plays basketball, a game at which he is very proficient, but confesses that soccer is his first love when it comes to sports.

Besides being born in a town where most everyone plays soccer, Quinn was also born to a family of accomplished soccer players. His father Alexander Pinnace, was once one of the best players in Santos Guardiola, and was also recruited to play with España at one point in his career. He also happens to be the grandson of one of the best goalies who ever played in Pandy Town back in the 70s and 80s. As fate and genes would have it, and despite the limited resources and opportunities available to island players, it was almost impossible for Quinn to not become a great player himself. Currently the center-forward player for the Oak Ridge Strikers, Quinn has also played with the Warriors, a Pandy Town team that was sold and now plays out of Juticalpa, and with the under seventeen national team when it was required.

“When you talk about high level players, you have many including Quinn Pinnace”, says Luis Alvarado, one of Quinn’s first coaches. “Pandy Town is a mine of talented players that you will not find in any other part of Honduras, but they have the tendency to ignore the rules.”

Quinn understands that following one’s dream and being up there with the best takes preparation, commitment, and sacrifice. “Love, dedication, and passion for the game makes a good player” says the young man from Pandy Town who still has hopes of making his dreams of playing in a major league a reality.