A Tegucigalpa Duo Entertains and Inspires

The couple’s move from Tegucigalpa to Roatan came suddenly in June 2025. “I had a small tragedy in Tegucigalpa. I lost everything I had,” Aguilar says. Rather than breaking them, the setback inspired the couple to make a dramatic change in their lives and move to Roatan. José García, the blind musician already performing on the island, suggested they come there.

The musicians began performing on the street in West End and gained other contracts. The couple also performs in front of Taquería Raúl in West End. For one hour, from 3 to 4 p.m., the duo plays at the Ramírez Store in Sandy Bay. They have their toddler son next to them. José García, another blind musician, joins the duo for two evenings a week at Blue Marlin. Their toddler son, Schneider, accompanies them. “With this, we sustain ourselves, thanks be to God,” Aguilar says.

They were taught music at the Pilar Salinas School for the Blind in Tegucigalpa. The school was founded in 1948. Pilar Salinas Padilla, who was born in 1924, later founded another school for the blind in Guatemala. In 1978, she founded the Artisanal Center for Industry and Rehabilitation for the Blind. That school prepares blind people for professions. Salinas died in 2005.

In Santa Lucía, outside Tegucigalpa, Michael and Daisy attended the Artisanal Center for Industry and Rehabilitation for the Blind. “It is there they taught us, or rather awakened our musical talent,” Aguilar says. The couple learned to play a variety of instruments.

in Tegucigalpa I lost everything I had.

They were taught by singing coach Mr. Visitación Salgado. The professor who teaches musical instruments is Oscar Orlando Disqua. “In Tegucigalpa, there are musical bands of blind people,” Aguilar said. “They perform at events on contract.”

The graduates of this school play in musical groups all over Tegucigalpa and Honduras. “In Tegucigalpa, they leave us tips, but it is less than here,” Aguilar says about playing in parks and other public spaces in the Honduran capital.

There are several blind people who support themselves by asking for money, but there are also those who are self-reliant, creative and inspire others, often those more fortunate than they are.

Bay Islands’ Only Children Home

After decades of service, Majken Broby Children’s Home in Gravel’s Bay closed its doors in 2023.  Bay Islands now has only one children’s home – Greenfields Children’s Home in Sandy Bay, and it’s easy to miss. 
Its signage and a steep driveway are located on a curve, and usually marked by two orange cones placed on the dividing line of the main road in Sandy Bay. It has a sign next to a metal gate that’s says “Sandy Bay Lighthouse Ministries.” The site consists of three parts: there is the Greenfield’s Children’s Home, a Beacon Christian School, and a mission center for volunteer groups.
Most of the children at the children’s home come from complicated, sad, and sometimes tragic backgrounds. 

“When kids come to us, they come through bad situations – all kinds of abuse,” said Orsy Cruz, the onsite director of the home. “We see the families split and neither the mother nor the father wants to be responsible for the kids.”
Orsy, originally from Sandy Bay, has been involved in the ministry since 2005. In 2008, he became the onsite director, while his wife Vanessa took on the role of administrator.
The garden around the school is full of fruit trees: breadfruits, mangoes, and bananas. It is a like an island sanctuary where a child can heal, grow, and experience their first steps 
in life. 

Childrens Home

When the project began, there were a couple mishaps. From 2002-2004 it was a run by Brad Warren, an American who operated child sponsorship international from the site. Eventually, after a scandal, Warren left the island in 2004 for Kenya where he became involved in another child sponsorship international operation. “When we started, we had to start all over again. We had to pay for the property,” said Orsy. “It was a bad start.” Orsy believes that God eventually helped things to settle down and thrive.

Currently, there are 24 people working at the Sandy Bay Lighthouse: 11 staff working at the Children’s home, 12 teachers, a dentist, and a part time psychologist.

Sandy Bay Lighthouse Ministries provides opportunities for children and the community in general. Greenfields Children’s Home also helps children transition to independent young adulthood. At 14-15 years of age they can go to a high school, and Orsy has an agreement with Methodist High School in Coxen Hole. Typically, they spend two-three years studying at Methodist High School in Coxen Hole. The home also helps with arranging internships for the teenagers and getting them valuable work experience.

Another program at the orphanage is called 18 plus, and gives the young adults an opportunity to pursue studies at a university. In 2025, two young adults are enrolled in the program and attending university.
The children’s home has a capacity to accommodate 24 boys and 24 girls. “We have always between 20 and 30 kids,” say Orsy.

“We have helped over 400 kids since we have been here.” Some of these children spent a day or two at the home, others spent many years.

While the only children’s home in the Bay Islands is in Sandy Bay, La Ceiba has three private children’s homes. Secretaría de la Niñez, Adolescencia y Familia [SENAF] runs a children’s center in La Mosquitia. SENAF is the entity in charge of children’s welfare in Honduras. “Government has a few children homes, but they are the worst,” says Orsy. “They are always involved in corruption.”

The whole island benefits from this place.

The Honduran government is the watchdog – in principle at least – who looks after the welfare of children in the country. It makes sure the accredited children facilities fulfill certain requirements and keep minimum standards. The Honduran government typically doesn’t provide funding for children in private children’s homes.

The Greenfields Children’s Home has outlived two government agencies responsible for child welfare in Honduras. In the early 2000s, INFA was in operation, later replaced by DINAF, and today the government entity is known as CENAF… In Honduras, CENAF is the legal authority that can move children away from a family’s custody, based on documented abuse or neglect

Private children’s homes in Honduras typically do not receive monetary support from the government, with one exception during Juan Orlando Hernández’s several-year presidency During 2014-2022, the Sandy Bay children’s homes were receiving around 8% of their budget from the government. “As soon as this government [Xiomara Castro] took over, they eliminated [the support],” said Orsy.

Beacon School

The school attended by the children of the home is just a few meters away. It is a smart, two-story concrete building located just below the children’s home. The Christian school is called Beacon and is run by 13 teachers.

Approximately 140 to 150 children from Sandy Bay attend the Beacon School, where they each receive a scholarship that makes education more affordable. “They pay 30-35% of what they would be pay at a regular private school,” says Orsy.

The Beacon school has opportunities for the children to learn about the environment around them and business skills. One of these projects is tilapia farm. The 12 tilapia pools are located above the school and produce fish that are then sold to locals. “It’s a project that teaches older girls and boys how to run a business,” says Orsy. The fish are grown, fed, and harvested, and then sold to buyers in the community. It is a bilingual Christian school, and 13 teachers work here.

Outreach Ministries

Now in early March, the grounds of the orphanage are humming with the enthusiasm of the volunteers who made their way here to help for a week. One such volunteer and board member is Don Shire, a professional musician from the United States. Shire’s adventure with Roatan began almost by accident, in 2002. “I came here on a cruise ship looking to do mission work with a group,” said Shire. “I was looking for opportunities to serve.” During his island visit, Shire visited Glenn Solomon Children’s home in Gravels Bay. It was there he learned that the island needed another place for neglected children.

Honduran government typically doesn’t provide funding.

He is a professional trumpet player who does concerts in churches all over the world. He sometimes meets people after his concerts who want to serve. “I recruit in my concerts people who want to come serve,” says Shire.

Shire makes a statement that can sum up the entire project. “The whole island benefits from this place being here,” he says. Shire is one of eleven board of directors members, most of them American and Canadian. He also helps in orphanages in India, Haiti, and Ukraine.

The whole island benefits from this place.

A team of volunteers will typically spend a week on the island. They often help out with construction projects or in the gardens. Other times, they drive to outlying communities to evangelize and visit poor communities around Roatan, giving away bags of groceries to those in need… The master plan is to have one mission group per community, all the way to Oak Ridge. In 2025, the organization is expecting 20 volunteer groups that come for a week to contribute their skills and enthusiasm.

The intention is to help, and the mission groups do so by donating groceries, building bunk beds, repairing roofs, and doing general home repairs for those in dire need. The volunteer program is affiliated with three Protestant churches in the United States along with individual donors who provide the much needed donations that keep the place operating.

The baseball field portion of the property was turned into mission housing, and there is an adjacent dental clinic that not only tends to the children but offers affordable dental care service to islanders. “We are not a business. We are interested in serving the community,” says Orsy.

Percentage of Islander Children with Disabilities Grows

Forty children were evaluated on the first day of the visit at the French Harbour’s Adventist Medical center, which currently serves as a temporary non-emergency facility after a fire destroyed the Roatan public hospital.

One of the caretakers who came on October 31 was Victoria Cabreras, from Flowers Bay. She brought in Ian, her 10 year old grandson, for the preliminary evaluation. Little Ian did not speak until he was six years, and communicates infrequently. “We’ll see what the doctors will say, and so that we can help him,” said Cabreras.

After three days, a total of 140 children had been attended to. However, many other children with disabilities did not come. In 2015, a government medical census team visited Roatan and registered 112 people with disabilities, including 25 children.

Parents don’t know where to go and don’t know where to turn.

According to Connie Silvestri, founder of CATTLEYA center for the disabled, the parents of disabled children are often afraid that the child might run onto the street and be injured by a passing vehicle. While some parents see this strategy as their only tool of how to keep their disabled child safe, often that is not what the child needs. “Ignorance is such a big issue. With ignorance comes abuse,” said Silvestri. “They [the disabled children] get beaten a lot. They get tied down, they get chained down.”

Repeatedly these parents don’t know where to go and don’t know where to turn. The disabled children are often misunderstood and suffer in silence. “The children can’t express what they are feeling and they can’t talk to anyone,” said Silvestri.

In 2012 Silvestri has launched CATTLEYA with a part time teacher and two volunteers. CATTLEYA which stands for “Con Amor, Trabajo y Terapia, Logramos Educar y Avanzar” -With Love, Work and Therapy we Educate and Advocate is an island NGO that has a school component called CEDICA – “Centro Educativo de Desarrollo Inclusivo Cattleya” (Educational Center for Inclusive Development) where children and adults come to receive specialized attention.

The NGO is located at the Jackson Memorial Library in French Harbour. CATTLEYA makes it by with what it has, and sometimes it is not much. CATTLEYA has several sponsors that help out – Max Cable provides free internet, Arcos gives free water, and Norman family has given the use of the building for the last eight years. “Our teachers are not really specialists. None of them are therapists, none of them,” said Silvestri. “My everyday worry is how much more we could be doing. We need to educate the educators.” The three CATTLEYA educators are taking online courses in psychology at UTH.

CATTLEYA is taking care of 36 individuals with disabilities. The center is open from 7:30 am to 4:15 pm, five days a week. While the vast majority of them are children, some as young as four, there are also three adults in the program. To manage such a diverse group of students, the center takes care of their patients in developmental groups, with the biggest group having 13 children.

The children attending CATTLEYA suffer from a broad number of disabilities: autism, down syndrome, traumatic head injuries, and deafness. One disability dominates above all the rest, however. “More than half of the children here have autism,” says Elizabeth Peña, the director and math teacher at CATTLEYA.

According to Silvestri, there were no autistic kids on Roatan in the 1980s or 90s. Since Silvestri’s son was born with Down syndrome in the 1980s, she has been paying attention to families with special needs children on Roatan. Back then the island was relatively small, and the community living here was tight knit. The first known cases of autism on the island appeared in mid 2000s.

The origin and the frightening increase of autism rates was a taboo subject in the US, and in many ways in Honduras. In the 2024 United States presidential election, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s candidacy for president brought badly needed attention to the issue of childhood vaccinations and autism. Kennedy has been nominated to head the Department of Health and Human Services, and has shown documents linking the American health crisis to an explosion in required childhood vaccines.

Frightening increase of autism rates was a taboo subject in the US.

While only one in 1,000 US children in 1995 had autism, in 2024 that number has risen to 1 in 25 children. The official government stance in the United States and Honduras is that the causes of autism are a great mystery; there are powerful interest groups vested in not determining the cause of autism. The pharmaceutical industry is one of these groups. “We got all of these new vaccines, 72 shots, 16 vaccines… And that year, 1989, we saw an explosion in chronic disease in American children… ADHD, sleep disorders, language delays, ASD, autism, Tourette’s syndrome, ticks, narcolepsy,” said Kennedy, who wants to test every vaccine to the same rigorous standard as drugs already are.

Autism rates increases are indeed astronomical, and California is a record holder in this tragic category. In the last 35 years, the autism rate in California has catapulted 4,300 percent. In 2020, according to Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network, 1 in 22 California children have been identified to be on the autistic spectrum. California is also a national leader in childhood vaccinations.

The increase of autism has not only caused harm to children, it has caused destruction to entire families. “A lot of relationships end because one of the parents never accepted [their child’s disability], or didn’t want responsibility,” said Silvestri. “They abandon the family and leave to start a new life.”

After a Fire, Three Hospitals are being Built on the Island

Roatan has found itself in a health crisis. On April 19, around 9pm, Roatan Public Hospital in Coxen Hole burned down in a spectacular fire. The fire destroyed 95% of the 33 year old building except for a portion of the office annex.
No one was killed or gravely injured in the fire and 60 interned patients were transferred to two nearby private island hospitals. Wood Medical Center in Coxen Hole received most of the patients and the private Hospital Centro Medico Sampedrano (CEMESA) received another dozen. “All the emergencies were attended until May 10 [for] free,” said Dr. Jackie Wood, owner of the Wood Medical Center who also helped to build the original public hospital in 1991. “My heart was broken and I cried all night. You do not imagine what I feel to see all that work [turn to] ashes.”
The firemen concluded that faulty electric wiring was the reason for the fire. “A couple years back we had a fire in a maternity room for the same reason,” said Dr. Wood.
The spring of 2024 has been full of fires breaking out all over Roatan. There has been very little rain since the rainy season ended on the island in March. Dry as bone trees and cohunes became prone to catching fire and strong winds made things especially difficult to handle.

While the fire was a disaster, it also became an opportunity to quickly and efficiently upgrade the islands hospital facilities. While the public hospital building was gone there were plenty of doctors, underutilized private clinics, a network of community clinics, a semi finished hospital in Dixon Cove, and there was an 18,000 square foot Adventist center.

Instead of quickly finishing the new public hospital in Dixon Cove, the central government decided to build a “temporary” hospital in Coxen Hole. Instead of using facilities that are available, the government set up tents in hot weather at Julio Galindo stadium in Coxen Hole.

“My heart was broken and I cried all night.”

Another site in Loma Linda area of Coxen Hole was chosen by the central government as a site for an emergency, provisional 40 bed hospital and is estimated to cost 100-150 Million Lps. It has been planned to be finished in 90 days, but due to a complicated, heavily sloped site, that is unlikely to happen.

The Loma Linda hospital site is adorned with a huge poster “Xiomara Sí Cumple,” – “Xiomara does deliver.” In fact after the fire and presidential visit the island was dotted with “Xiomara Sí Cumple” signs. There is one such poster at the Roatan international airport, one in Dixon Cove, one in Loma Linda and one at Coxen Hole stadium. A kilometer away, while central government authorities were erecting those signs, Roatan Municipality completely demolished the burned out hospital and practically flattened the old hospital site.

All in all, the facility that was closest to being able to function as a temporary hospital was the Adventist center in French Harbour. Little Friends Foundation along with Roatan Municipality operated the COVID center at the Adventist center back in 2020. While the second story of the large building was used for consultations and beds, the first story is being readied to function as an emergency center for the emergency temporary hospital before the provisional hospital is finished and before the new hospital in Dixon Cove is completed.

Six weeks after the fire things are far for clear for many islanders in need of medical attention and confusion still persisted. “The ambulances take you from the street and don’t even know where to take you,” said Steven Guillen, president of Little Friends Foundation, a NGO that was in charge of building the Dixon Cove hospital facility. “If you are dying, you have to go to CEMESA.”

In May a woman in labor was asked for money from treatment at Woods Medical Center, she didn’t have the funds, so she was transferred to CEMESA designated as an emergency care center. The transport she was using broke down and she was transferred to another vehicle. By the time she arrived at CEMESA it was too late and she died.

That could have been avoided. The Adventist center was ready to operate two weeks after the hospital fire. The current construction work on the hospital is being paid by the Roatan Municipality and donations. There is a blood testing center for TB and HIV being built as well.

For the time being, nurses and doctors are allocated to several centers around the island. While Roatan Municipality is financially and technically capable of building, even equipping a public hospital, it does not feel capable of running the hospital with accredited and paid staff – that is a step too far.

The history of the 20,000 square foot Roatan Public hospital goes back to 1991. According to Dr. Jackie Wood, it cost the government $7 million to build. It could have been much more, but many good willed people helped it along. “Equipment was donated from the United Kingdom government (…) donations from Roatan people and private companies from Roatan and La Ceiba and the central government,” said Dr. Wood.

The island outgrew the medical facility within a couple decades, but the road to the new public hospital has had been fret with hopes, mistakes, delays, and wishful thinking.

In 2006, after 15 years of the Roatan Hospital serving the public, then Mayor Dale Jackson decided that it was time to build a new hospital. Land in Dixon Cove was purchased as “an emergency purchase.” Eighteen years later that emergency still hasn’t been resolved.

The one million dollar land cost paid was an extremely high cost for the municipality. It took the next administration of Mayor Julio Galindo to pay off the purchase completely. There was nothing done during the Mayor Dorn Ebanks tenure.

While the fire was a disaster, it also became an opportunity.

When Jerry Hynds became mayor in 2018, he was able to secure a $2 million donation from Kelcy Warren, US billionaire and owner of RECO, for the construction of the hospital in Dixon Cove. “When the funds ran out the Municipality started using some of their own funds to complete the gray work. “The original discussions were that the Municipality would do the gray work and they would finish the hospital,” says Guillen. Windows, doors, some of the sewage and water infrastructure was also finished. Roatan municipality spent $500,000 and within a couple of years there was a large, 75,000 square foot two story building sitting on a hill in Dixon Cove.

In Honduras many things are accomplished when local and central government belong to the same political party, that was not the case with National Party in Tegus and Liberal party on Roatan. “ [Mayor] Jerry [Hynds] said: ‘If they [central government] are not going to join, we are going to finish it,” said Guillen. “He had it in his mind that he was going to finish it one way or another.”

In fact the construction of the new public hospital was a joint effort and not only Kelcy Warren’s donation and municipal tax dollars funded it. “May people donated freight, equipment time and helped to reduce costs,” said Guillen. While these donations were not enumerated by Little Friends Foundation, they likely run into hundreds of thousands of dollars.

In 2022 the 75,000 square foot Dixon Cove hospital building has been finished in raw state with windows and doors placed. The building sits on 8.3 acres site and there is a basement. Electric, sewer and gas lines could be installed as per requirement.

“There were verbal agreements, but never any written agreements with any administration,” said Guillen. Several visits by central government contracted engineers and architects took place. Recommendations were made, fulfilled, but nothing was put on paper and signed. “Every time the central government sent a crew of engineers they came up with a list of changes. Moving and creating walls, doors,” said Guillen.

The reality was that Roatan’s politicians were working with best intentions in a constantly evolving political climate back in Tegucigalpa. “The idea was to pass the facility into the hands of the Honduran health ministry in a raw state, and for them to finish it up to their standards,” said Guillen. According to Guillen the land title has been transferred to the national government years ago.

After Ximara Castro’s Libre Party won the national elections in November 2021 the relationship between Roatan Municipality and José Manuel Matheu, Honduran Health Minister under President Xiomara Castro, was going well. “We had a very good relationship with him. He brought in IDB [International Development Bank],” said Guillen. That all ended when in December 2023 Matheu was replaced with Carlos Aguilar. Since nothing was written down and agreed, Municipality was left holding the bag.

After the public hospital burned down a political turf war for credit as far as who is building what with whom’s money on Roatan intensified. It seems that Honduran president’s Libre Party was not willing to give credit to local authorities who are affiliated with the Liberal Party.

Then there was the bigger issue. If the new Roatan hospital was to be finishing with locally done contractors and donated equipment there would no way for big players to make money and make themselves seem indispensable. If local authorities would solve their own infrastructure and health problems, like Roatan has attempted, there would be no need for dependency on international loan institutions. That would mean 2000 bankers and bureaucrats in IDB Washington DC headquarters would lose their salaries, and that cannot be.

According to Honduran authorities $47 million dollars is now needed to finish the new hospital and equip it. The around $2.5 million spent on the building by Warren and Municipality is a rounding error of the estimated remaining costs. Now plenty of companies will have an opportunity to skim off the very high top and make money in the bonanza.

Roatan Municipality is financially and technically capable of building, even equipping a public hospital.

Local authorities say, that the building could be finished and equipped and ready to open for a fraction of that sum. “We could get all the equipment in very good condition donated,” said Guillen.

That is unlikely to happen. Since 2010 IDB has allocated 35% of its annual loan approval to “small and vulnerable” members and Honduras is qualified as one of them. IDB constantly needs new projects to allocate millions, and tens of millions of loans. Finding donors for a new public hospital is good business for IDB and good for its bottom line.

For average islanders worried about their health, the money, the funding and technical matters are too complicated to contemplate. Yet, the fact is there is money to be made loaning out money. There is plenty of money to be made in the construction of a new hospital and plenty of entities are eyeing the Roatan project.

It is the central government that decides what the municipalities need, often with a faulty understanding of population dynamics and local idiosyncrasies. This is how Roatan Island ended up with a Coxen Hole desalination plant and José Santos Guardiola with a garbage dump in Punta Blanca that never opened. These white elephants were paid from loans and grants by IDF and Inter American Development Bank. These projects are expensive and justify the existence of large international lending institutions.

The sad part is not only about the debt that is unnecessarily created, it is also that Honduras does need government investment in other parts of the country and is not getting it. One such example is the rebuilding of Canal Maya (In the Sula Valley, Mainland Honduras) that was destroyed in the 2020 Hurricane season, yet there are no funds and no one to rebuild it.

Other than IDB, another winner in this situation and all this chaos could be CEMESA. They have secured an agreement with government for treatment of patients. What is not known is how much CEMESA charges the government for these services. CEMESA prices are high, an appendix surgery can cost Lps.50,000 or more.

After the fire, a fund was set up out of which CEMESA is paid by Ministry of Health and Ministry of Finances. “CEMESA don’t have 11 million Lps. This in an insurance fund,” said Doctor Lastenia Cruz, Roatan Hospital Director, on May 29. “We are in front of CEMESA, we are meeting them constantly.”

There is a great contrast with how government and private business deal with a fire, and efficient restructuring. For example Waldina’s Tapestry shop, a private business that burned to the ground in French Harbour in February 29, 2024. With very few resources, but with much motivation, the owner was able to rebuild and reopen her upholstery and sail repair business within weeks of the fire. A great contrast to the paralysis and confusion of the central government after the Roatan hospital fire.

At the end of June there was no agreement what to call the French Harbour Adventist hospital facility. Some islanders still call it the Adventist Center, some call it Adventist Hospital, and some still call it the COVID Center.

Still the Adventist Center has been receiving plenty of non emergency patients. On May 27, Aldin Ebanks, a patient from Coxen Hole, went to Wood Clinic in Coxen Hole where he was told to go CEMESA. At CEMESA he was told to go to the Adventist center. All this took time, money, and transport expense. He was diagnosed with water in his lungs, and treated at the Adventist Center.

Roatan’s politicians were working with best intentions in a constantly evolving political climate.

The Adventist center is now open 24 hours a day and the number of specialists working at the Adventist center has been gradually increasing. “The Adventist center opening will cover all the services required by the population,” said Guillen. “They have greater capacity than the original public hospital.”

There is a plan to use both the downstairs and upstairs of the Adventist Center. The Municipal is making plans to turn the two story building into a fully functional hospital. The facility is actually larger than the original public hospital in Coxen Hole.“We are trying to centralize everything here,” said Guillen.

While the Adventist organization is letting the Honduran ministry of health use the facility without a written contract. Again, this could lead to misunderstandings and conflicts. Who pays for electricity costs, for maintenance costs, or for damages is not 100% clear. “They [central government] should work with the Municipality to set up this [Adventist Center],” said Guillen. “We don’t know how long they will be on temporary basis.”

Some consultation services were decentralized from the public hospital to community clinics outside of big towns. The recently opened clinic in Flowers Bay is picking up plenty of work.

The island’s medical situation will clear itself out in a matter of a year, or two. There is one question that remains and that is whether perhaps the central government and some international organizations, despite what they say and want you to believe, are not there to help you in the most sensible and efficient way, but to exploit your problems to the advantage on interest groups.

Many of us agree to pretend that police, health, education and emigration services are here to help. We are afraid to admit how inefficient, malevolent and expensive these government entities are. The cost of realizing that would be we would have to do something about it. It is easier just to go on pretending.

$47 million dollars is now needed to finish the new hospital.

Islands Biggest Music Festival

Before it was called Music Festival for the Angels, it was Christmas Concert for the Angels at Roatan Airport. Back in 2005, it was more of a classical music affair with drinks sold at the car rental booths and hors d’oeuvres served at the baggage claim area. In 2013, the venue was moved from the Roatan Airport to Lawson Rock, and in 2022 to Sol y Mar.

The musicians played their hearts out. The Roatan All Stars Band by John Karroll featured singer Brion James and Carleen Roth, among others. IMOX was led by Luis de la Rosa, Will Freidhof, and Deven Alvarado. Tyler Anthony, a Nebraskan brought country and Western sound to Sandy Bay. Midnight Flyer, an Eagles Tribute Band, closed off the night after 9 pm. “They only receive the love from the crowd and the knowledge that they have contributed to an event,” said Helen Murphy, director of the concert and long time island resident/business owner. The organizers sold around 1,200 entry tickets and 87 VIP tickets.

“This quality of bands would be easily $150 somewhere in Houston,” said Janie McVicker, a Parrot Tree homeowner who attended the concert.

The event grossed nearly $100,000 in revenue and over $65,000 in profit, said Murphy. That is split with 30% doing to the SOL Foundation and 70% going to Clínica Esperanza. “Our part goes into our general fund and is used to augment any expenses,” wrote Peggy Stranges, RN and founder of the clinic.

The Clínica Esperanza continues to grow at tremendous pace. It went from attending 8,000 patients in 2012 with a staff of eight, to 28,000 patient visits and staff of 25 in 2022, a tremendous growth of 350% in 11 years. The clinic is also a teaching facility for young doctors and nurses wishing to gain professional experience and language skills.

A new two story, 10,000 square foot clinic building is being constructed using grant funding, giving Clínica Esperanza a much needed expansion. “Daily, we are seeing between 100 to 150 patients. We’ve had to increase our staff, and they’re just isn’t room in the present building,” said Stranges.

Development on the new facility is expected to be completed by the end of 2024, and it will bring a much needed expansion of medical services to the area. Among the planned additions are a dental pharmacy and laboratory area that will include an imaging center with a flat plate, x-rays, ultrasound, and hopefully mammography,” said Stranges.

Clínica Esperanza continues to grow at tremendous pace.

Dogs, Cats and Horses in Dire Straits, Again

Facing this dire circumstance, a dedicated group of volunteers led by Tanya Walter, who moved to Roatan two years ago, took action. “I have the skills and I can help,” Walter said.

The shelter, currently staffed by eight volunteers, is in desperate need of resources. Animal crowding, incessant barking, and foul odors create stressful conditions for both animals and humans. The weekly food bill alone amounts to $3,000, not including additional costs for medical care, supplies, and medications.

Many of the dogs have never left the shelter, according to Kimberly Gow, a volunteer with veterinary training. “Some [dogs] have been locked up in pack situations for years,” said Gow. “I’ve met animals that have never left this shelter. I have one at my home right now.” Gow took in a small dog that has never seen anything else. “He doesn’t know what anything is right now. He doesn’t know what stairs are; he doesn’t know what a house is. He has no idea,” she says.

The crisis was foreseeable. Janessa Baar, founder of Roatan Rescue, was evicted from the Politilly property a year ago but chose to ignore the eviction. The local community, initially unhappy with the shelter, has since come around. “They realized we are here to help the situation other than making it worse,” said Gow. “They started to pitch in to help us.”

The volunteers have improved the situation since mid July when things were completely out of control “The dogs would get outside of the fences and run around the neighborhood,” said Walter. “It was not a sustainable situation.”

According to shelter volunteers, Janessa Baar, the founder of Politilly’s Roatan Rescue, has lost interest in the facility. “The owner had left the island and didn’t seem to be coming back,” said Gow. Communication between Roatan Rescue volunteers and Baar has been sporadic.

Baar is a colorful character who has shared her life story on social media, claiming a past addiction to drugs before finding Christianity and founding Roatan Rescue. “God is the reason RR started, and He has not brought us this far to only come this far,” Baar wrote on social media in 2021.

The shelter faces a bumpy road.

The current state of Roatan Rescue raises questions about whether the project failed due to incompetence, poor planning, bad luck, or if it was merely a vehicle to raise money. Paya Magazine reached out to Baar for comment but received no response.

Roatan Municipal Council member Nidia Webster has filed a police report against Janessa Baar and expressed strong opinions on social media. “Janessa Baar came to Roatan using the name of God and defenseless animals to line her pockets with thousands of dollars by brainwashing people out of their hard-earned cash,” Webster wrote.

The shelter faces a bumpy road as stray dogs and cats remain in limbo on Roatan. “Technically, it’s illegal to run an animal shelter here,” said Walter. “There’s a law stating you can’t euthanize an animal for population control.” While each Honduran municipality is responsible for stray dogs, existing laws offer no guidance on how to manage them.

Sammy Cortés, chief of the Sanitation and Health Department for Roatan Municipalities, acknowledges that the island lacks laws or strategies for managing abandoned or suffering animals. “It’s difficult to manage strays without laws,” Cortés said. He referred to the 2022 “Plan de Arbitros,” which the municipality follows for its operations. The closest relevant law, Article 148, paragraph 4, pertains only to vagrant cows and horses, which are to be picked up by the municipality, held for three days, and then auctioned off. The municipal law offers no guidance on how to handle abandoned or sick dogs and cats that have no economic value.

Shelter volunteers believe that focusing on adoptions is the key to resolving the issue. The program has already seen success, with 16 adoptions occurring on September 12 alone. The most significant adoption effort to date came from Mrs. Leah of Milton Bight, who adopted 16 dogs—one for each of her children and grandchildren. “She’s going to have her grandchildren collect garbage to pay the adoption fee,” said Gow.

As of mid-September, 76 dogs and cats have been adopted from the shelter. “These are significant numbers, but we have many more animals,” said Gow. Additionally, five animals have been re-homed. Andrea Izaguirre, from Jasper Animal Shelter in Utila, has taken 10 cats from the island.

Focusing on adoptions is the key to resolving the issue.

In another positive development, all seven horses housed at the shelter were relocated to a farm in Big Bight on September 13. Despite these successes, the shelter still faces overwhelming challenges. “It’s chaos. We have a plan, but it changes daily based on new issues we encounter,” Gow added.

The major adoption initiative is still in the planning stages. The volunteer group aims to assess, microchip, and vaccinate all animals to launch a full-scale adoption campaign by mid-October. “The strategy is to bring the animals to communities, churches, and schools. That way, people don’t have to come to us; we go to them,” said Walter.

A Nonprofit Provides Hope and a Chance at Owning a Piece of the Island

In 2004 the Abundant Life foundation was started with the idea to help islanders have a chance at owning their own home in a safe and vibrant community. “It’s not a housing project, it’s a community development,” says David Dashner, the man behind the vision and the project itself.

Dashner owns Grand Roatan, the islands soon to be first five star hotel. “I came not to do resort, but we got involved in philanthropy first,” says Dashner. “We provide sustainability and give an opportunity for an abundant life, for people of Honduras. We do this through three pillars of conservation, education and community development.”

Dashner is not only a businessman, but he is also an idealist with a mission. “It’s not the fact that you have money, it is what you do with it that counts,” says Dashner. “Look at the lives I’ve changed, look at the people I helped.”

It’s not the fact that you have money, it is what you do with it that counts

While Abundant Life Foundation is primarily a Dashner Family Foundation project there are other partners involved. Salvador Foundation out of Colorado Springs committed itself to building 15 homes a year for the next 10 years.

One hundred and eighty families were interviewed for the available homes. In early 2020, right before the government imposed “lock down” there were 15 families on a short list. The lock down brought chaos and doubt. From the 15 families that began the process, only four remained. While the process was long, complicated and frustrating, for the patient families there was a prize worth the effort.

Mari Hernández, a surgery nurse at the Roatan Public Hospital, was one of the four that persevered in the complex process. Her son Fabricio Hernández was fixing his motorcycle in front of their newly purchased home when. “A friend told me about the house program,” said Mari Hernández. The $5,000 dollar loan has to be repaid in 20 years. The houses are valued at $30,000 dollars.

The housing project it’s not only homes. It also includes security, grounds maintenance and home insurance. The homeowners pay a $60 homeowners fee and roughly another $60 for paying off the loan. They are paying around $120 a month in a loan that will allow them to pay the house off in 20 years.

The buildings are compact, rectangular 500 square foot structures made of foam, mesh and sprayed concrete, based on the idea “They will last for many, many years,” says Dashner. “We want to provide them a home their kids can inherit.”

By June 2022, 25 houses were built on the Flowers Bay site. Some of them are duplexes and made out of cement blocks, others are independent wooden homes with views of the sea and Honduran coast.

Dashner says that it costs around $24,000 to build each of the homes. While the houses are not free, they are affordable. They are then sold for $10,000, but with the Convivienda housing providing the $4,000 down payment. The government program provides a grant of 103,000 Lps. paid toward construction of the structure.

The development has a basketball court, a soccer field, a fountain, a playground, a computer center and a green area. The site incorporates a library, a computer center, a daycare center and a cultural center. “We are committed to enhance their culture and to remember their culture,” says David. “It’s important for people to remember where they came from.”

There are paved roads meandering the hilly project site. There is a school and a church, and multiuse buildings. The houses are set on the site purposely and are designed to encourage relationships. “At the center of the community we built a church and a school,” said Dashner.

I am really interested in healing this island.

A pastoral couple was hired to look after the church and community. “As this island develops a lot of things will be lost and forgotten and they shouldn’t be,” says Dashner. “I am really interested in healing this island and the surrounding islands.”

At the front of the property we want to build Roatan’s first public park. By reconnecting them they can work better at solving their own social problems. “It’s 100% a home housing development to provide housing for families that deserve a home on this island, but cannot afford it,” said Dashner. “I want to make sure they have an opportunity to own a piece of their own island while the island grows.” And Roatan is indeed booming.

While by far the biggest, “Los Sueños” is not the only project Abundant Life Foundation has done. The foundation built a school on Saint Helene island and also helped Saint Helena’s 61 ladies in selling artisanal crafts. That program generated $35,000 over the last seven years and the 61 Saint Helena ladies who participated received 90 percent of the sales price.

Despite Efforts of Animal Rescue Organization and Volunteers Fifteen Horses Died as Consequence of Fraud, Government Incompetence and Uncaring

When COVID-19 forced lock-down began on Roatan in March 2020, the horses at Beach Club Roatan turned from being a source of revenue to being a drain on resources. Government’s policies of forcing people to stay home affected the animals. 
Fifteen of the Fifty-five horses near Milton Bight almost starved to death as 

tourism industry collapsed and their owners left. 
Almost two years later, there are forty horses that are alive and slowly recovering. 
Yet their future is by no means certain. Their lives are held by a government institution with nameless officials and careless overseers. 

The venture began with an idea, selling horse ride tours to the cruise shippers. Back in 2018 the pair purchased horses, about 40 horses on the Honduran mainland and from horse owners around the island. Hefty American tourists paid $60 to ride a mix breed pack horse on a Roatan beach, into the water and around a man made cay.

The heard multiplied and maxed out at 55 animals. The cruise ship tourists seemed content and wrote rave reviews on trip advisor. Then things started to fall apart.

Bruce Beckner was taken into custody at the San Pedro Sula airport in March 2019. It was discovered that he was wanted on a warrant by the Federal Court in New Mexico and was arrested by the Honduran authorities. Beckner, who sometimes used an alias “Bill Evans” had been living on Roatan since 2012 and had a Belizean passport. He was charged with bank fraud in the US and extradited to Albuquerque, New Mexico in April. Bruce Beckner was to face bank fraud charges, wire fraud charges and conspiracy charges. Beckner entered a not guilty plea.

Meantime drama on Roatan was taking its own course. Mitchell suffered a head trauma from a robbery in April 2019. Jack Mitchell passed away after his health deteriorated in December 2019. “Jack’s death was the beginning of the decline,” says Sherri Visker, who runs Roatan Operation Animal Rescue [ROAR], anon profit organization on the east side of Roatan.

Bruce Beckner’s son Cory Beckner took over managing of the operation after his father was deported. Cory Beckner did not answer Paya Magazine’s questions for this article.

2020 was a tough year for the Beach Club Roatan horses. By mid March there were zero tourists coming to Roatan and the horses turned from being economically sustainable to being a liability. A several thousand dollars a month liability.

In February 2021 Honduran authorities took possession of the Beckner property and animals. Beach Club Roatan had not only horses, but ducks, guinea hens and sheep.

Prosecutor against Organized Crime (Fescco) took over the Roatan Beach Club. Another Honduran government entity OABI took over the management of the property and leased it to a person from the mainland, Fernando Barahona. Barahona did not answer Paya Magazine’s request for information for the article.

With the passage of time the conditions of the animals, especially horses degraded.

The teeth marks are visible on the rounded marks of the thick pine boards.

At end of May 2021 a neighbor alerted Sherri Visker that they saw a dead horse at the Havana Beach property. In fact the horse was still alive, but barely.

It was late at night when Visker came to try to rescue the dying horse. “We tried to get boards under him to get him up,” remembers Visker. “But he just died that night.” In fact two horses from the original heard of 55 had died. The remaining were just skin and bones.

Visker reached out to her contacts in US and Canada and managed to raise $14,000 to get the horses feed and medical attention. ROAR had two paid workers that take care of the horses. After the horses were in better shape, ROAR stepped away.

Things should have gotten better for the horses, but they didn’t. Fernando B, the caretaker designated by OABI decided to use the horses as tourists attractions once again. The caretaker did not answer Paya Magazines request for an interview.

Over the summer of 2021 tourists were being given rides on the horses, but their condition was again deteriorating. “The horses are basically starving,” a tourist “Maxine B” wrote in July on tripadvisor about her experience. “I can’t imagine that this would be legal in any first world country.”

Indeed the horses were again becoming desperate for food, any food in fact. The situation from a few months back was repeating itself. The horses were so hungry that they ate the wooden boards of their feeding pens. The teeth marks are visible on the rounded marks of the thick pine boards.

“This formerly majestic place with a beautiful beach and beautiful horses to ride is no longer that. The beach is still beautiful, but the horses have had a prolonged period with no food and are severely malnourished,” wrote Amy B from Wilmington Delaware, in July 2021. “These horses need to heal and recover, not to give rides to tourists. Hopefully they will be back to their healthy, beautiful selves very soon.”

In December 2021 ROAR volunteers stepped in again to help the starving.

OABI nor their designated caretaker seemed not interested in the welfare of the horses. “They were just skin and bones,” says Sherri Visker. In December 2021 ROAR volunteers stepped in again to help the starving animals. This time their situation was much more serious. “The thing about horses is that it easy to let them get in trouble, but it takes a long time for them to recover,” said Juan Aguilar who has been working with the Havana Beach horses for four years. When he started the horses were well fed and working with tourists.

A dozen horses died over the next couple of weeks. “The up and down of weight weakened them. They are not meant to lose weight like that,” said Visker. Eleven more horses died. “Their systems can’t handle such up and down with weight,” says Visker holding up the tears. “We even lost two horses in a day.”

While horses fought for their lives government officials at OABI were ready to auction them off to the higher bidder. In fact, on January 14, 2022, OABI tried to auction all the animals together in one lot: horses, sheep, guinea hens and a duck.

It tried selling “50 horses, 40 chickens, 4 guinea hens, 12 roosters and one duck for Lps. 290,650. The photos of the horses presented to promote the auction showed well fed horses from before the hunger crisis. And when the auction was taking place seven of the 50 horses had died of hunger. OABI was not interested in such details.

“OABI, they are shameless. They have not paid a cent towards supporting the horses.”

Seven of the 50 horses mentioned by OABI were dead and the photos presented by OABI showed healthy horses, while the surviving were just skin and bones.

“OABI, they are shameless. They have not paid a cent towards supporting the horses,” describes the faceless government entity Aguilar. “There were people coming over and offering to buy four-five horses at a time, but OABI wants’ to sell all of them all at the same time,” said Aguilar.

Eventually the heard stabilized and in March there were 40 horses on the property. ROAR has made the horse feeding program available to volunteers. One of them in Marnie Pate, from Port Aransas, Texas who has been coming to help with the horses every time she visits Roatan. It is her fourth visit since May 2021 and Pate has even decided to sponsor one of the horses. For $120 a month she now sponsors one of the horses.

It takes two bales of hay to feed the remaining 40 horses. Each bale costs $40 dollars, but its shipping from San Pedro Sula and transport increased the price to almost $100 per bale. The horses also need bags of grain and vitamins and supplements to keep them healthy. Visker says that $2,500 a month is needed just to feed the horses.

Jimmy Cooper is another paid volunteer who comes to cut grass and take care of the horses five-six times-a-week. Cooper brings the horses hay, and some vitamins and grains. “The grass has more nutritional value as it is cut fresh,” says Karen Collins, a US expat volunteer who comes to Johnson Bight several time a week to feed the horses.

$2,500 a month is needed just to feed the horses.

At the end of March 2022 two of the horses that were in the worse shape are fed outside the pens so they can feed around the clock. There are also four horses that escaped the pens, and fended for themselves. These horses were in much better shape than their penned equestrians.

There are also four Spanish horses on the property. A stud, two mares and a colt. They are the only ones of the horses that were not castrated. They are bigger, and penned in a separate enclosure.

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From a College Class to Colorful Caribbean Homes.

Arguably, French Harbour has remained one of the hidden jewels of Roatan and while the town is not a tourist destination yet, a pair of young entrepreneurs, inspired by a University course, want to change that. “We want color to become an important facet in everyday life in French Harbour,” says Ronald Pozzi, who has been coming to the island for 32 years.

Ronald and Aksinia Pozzi, are the project’s originators. The couple decided it’s too complicated to set up a NGO organization in Honduras, and focused on the goals they want to achieve. Ronald was in private banking and in fashion photography and Aksina is an entrepreneur from Russia. The Boston based couple hopes to create a tourist experience that is off the beaten path. “We wanted to create a community driven tourist experience,” says Ronald. “The Caribbean islands are all the same. You have nice beaches, nice water and what really makes the island different and unique from one another are the people, the culture.”

“French Harbour, you just avoid it going on the main ‘Carretera,”’ says Ronald Pozzi. Ronald says he didn’t want to compete to traditional tourist attractions on the island like West End or West Bay. “We want to see something unique: a city of color,” says Ronald.

Appreciation of beauty can change the world.

“Once it’s all cleaned up and looks beautiful a tourist will want to take a picture with it,” says Ronald, he wants to create French Harbour into an Instagram destination. The project combines old ideas of making things beautiful and new ideas of social media. “Appreciation of beauty can change the world,” says Ronald.

Pineapples, bananas, flowers cover the exterior walls of the first two French Harbour painted houses. In three-and-half-days two houses were painted by a group of 12 volunteers and 12 paid workers. “Juanita and Melva were very, very open and gave us permission to do something crazy: paint their houses eclectic colors,” said Ronald Pozzi about the first two houses.

Ronald feels it is important to ask people not only for their permission, but for their vision. “We are painting it based on the colors these people love.”

Rachel White, 28, was one of the painting volunteers who hoped her own French Harbour house would be eventually painted. “Pink and white. I love soccer, so maybe with soccer balls,” she said. “This is my neighborhood. It’s nice to be a volunteer.”

Ronald got the idea for the project from his collage course professor, Doris Sommer, Director of the Cultural Agents Initiative at Harvard University. “She kept saying: ‘if you want to be a cultural agent, if you want to be an agent of change, especially in emerging communities you have to create projects from the ground up,’” said Ronald. He wanted to do something that was practical, manageable and low maintenance.

The main sponsor of the beatification project is The Buccaneer, a culture center and tourist destination at the French Harbour waterfront owned by Lizette Pozzi and Constantino Pozzi, Ronald’s parents.

In March 2020 the couple plans to return to Roatan to paint as many homes as they can. “Six to eight houses are already lined up. If we have five houses painted, we can have an impact on French Harbour,” said Ronald. “It’s ideally a project that never ends as we will be painting houses on top of houses, until all of French Harbour is painted.”

The Orange Vests Movement at Roatan Airport

The volunteer program was an idea thought up by Janine Goben, Milesse Kennedy and Dainie Etches, retired island residents who saw a need to smooth the way passengers were being treated at the Manual Galvez International Airport. In 2014, Honduran immigration introduced biometric scanners, but airport officials were untrained and computers were jam-packed with glitches. Many passengers spent hours waiting in immigration lines and became frustrated and angry. “It took three hours for one flight to clear,” remembers Kennedy.

The volunteers took the bulk of the frustration from international passengers as the Honduran immigration staff learned how to efficiently use the biometric scanners and currently volunteers are present at almost every international flight landing and departing the island.

Six volunteers (…) are present at every international flight

Karen Ludlow, Executive director of the Bay Islands Tourism Bureau that runs the program, has been volunteering at the airport for four years and running the volunteer program as from August 2017. The staff of 16 volunteers, mostly retired expats and a couple Hondurans, are present at every international flight.

One of these volunteers is Paul Buillon, 75, a 31-year US Navy veteran, who has been coming to Roatan airport every Saturday for over a year. He helps with lost luggage, orientating people, keeping the immigration line moving and keeping travelers in an upbeat mood. The most commonly asked question is “How to work the ATM machine,” says Buillon.

“We are here to help them navigate, keep them happy,” says Kathy Shupe, 63, a retired American Airlines employee from Tucson, Arizona. But the volunteers do sometimes more then just that. Just in February a traveler collapsed and Buillon called airport emergency services that have an office at the airport. “I just like to volunteer. I want Roatan to have a good name,” said Shupe who also volunteers her time at the local dog shelter and Marine Park.

The volunteer’s effort is appreciated by airport managers. “The cooperation of (…) volunteers has been indispensable in the assistance provided to English speaking passengers. (…) the passengers have had a more pleasant experience,” wrote Juan Interiano, the Roatan airport manager, about the volunteers help. The volunteers have placed a smiling face on the Roatan airport experience.