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.”

The Bay Islands are the Bitcoin Pioneers in Honduras

There are over 14,100 places all over the world that’s accept Bitcoin as payment – all tracked on-line. While Guatemala City, Managua, and San Salvador are all small hubs of Bitcoin activity, San Pedro Sula has only one location accepting Bitcoin and the Bay Islands have four.

“I knew about Bitcoin back in 2009. I embraced it immediately,” says John Willms a Canadian who is “looking after” Turtle Grass Marina in Calabash Bight while his friends take a break in the US. Back in 2017, only one transaction was done in Bitcoin- it was a purchase of a pizza. “Wallet-ed [cryptocurrency] transactions took 10-15 seconds. Perfect,” says John. The opportunity to spend some Satoshis or Bitcoin presented itself on Thursday and Saturday pizza days and that is when the Turtle Grass Marina gets really busy: 1 pm till closing to be exact.

They treat us like kings and queens

Willms, not only accepts Bitcoin, but also supports businesses that take Bitcoin. “When we go to Utila we use Ecomarine because they accept Bitcoin,” says John. “They treat us like kings and queens because of that.” Gunther’s Ecomarine dive shop and another small hotel accept Bitcoin as payment on Utila. “[Bitcoin] is just another way of paying, and the money emitted by central banks… well they are just a bunch of crooks,” saysWillms.

Sometimes it is Bitcoin that finds Roatan not other way around. Three years ago the president of the microstate of Liberland was visiting a friend on Roatan and run up a bill in the Jonesville Point Marina. “He offered to pay the $120 in Bitcoin and said I can set up a wallet in seconds,” remembers Sheri Visker, manager of the marina. Her Bitcoin customer was VitJedlička, a Czech activist and politician who founded the river island country of “Free Republic of Liberland” on an unclaimed river island between Serbia and Croatia in 2015. “President” Jedlička took a liking to land on Roatan and has made several visits here looking to buy property here… in Bitcoin. One thing still missing is the Bitcoin sale sticker next to Diners Club, Visa and AMEX stickers prominently displayed at the Marina’s bar. “It’s hard to get the sticker off,” explainsVisker. “Both my sons got into Bitcoin early. I think it’s a good investment.”

Pizza and a place to stay are not the only things a few Bitcoins will buy you on Roatan. Roatan Real Estate deals in Bitcoin are in the making. Currently a home in Pristine Bay, a lot at Lawson Rock, and an estate in Sandy Bay are all offered for sale in Bitcoin.

In 2015 the Honduran government had conversations with US based Epigraph company to develop “a permanent and secure land title record system” using the Bitcoin block chain. Mismanagement and corruption of land records in Honduras has caused many conflicts over property rights. Over 80 percent of land titles accumulated over two centuries are either untitled or improperly titled. The deal was called off, however, as not even the most sophisticated blockchain could handle this Honduran land record mess.