Al and Jess have music in their veins. Jess was brought up in London by musician parents. Her father wrote his first album, “One for the Road,” a British Folk music classic, when he was 17 Her step father was a saxophonist at the British Royal Academy. “I was always around music,” said Jess. Al began playing the saxophone at around 18. A practical lad, he also served the London Fire Brigade for 30 years.

The couple met in 2014 when Jess was a chef at Books for Cooks, a cookery bookshop on Portobello Road in London. She was baking bread when Al came in with his two golden retrievers, Bill and Ben.

They immediately hit it off. They played music together, and before long embarked on a dramatic change when they purchased a river boat and departed on what turned out to be a many-year tour of English rivers and canals.

In 2020, as England shut down due to COVID, the couple attempted to continue their business. They rented a farmer’s field near their boat, served take away pizza, and played music. Their little enclave of music and pizza gave their guests “a sense of normality,” recalled Al.

“It was a musical food affair”

The lockdowns added an incentive for the family to leave England and see the world. In April 2021, they departed for Central America “looking for a life.”

It took them almost a year to find that. Al, Jess, and their little daughter first arrived in Costa Rica, but they didn’t quite find what they were looking for there. “It felt like it didn’t know what it was,” Al recalled about Costa Rica. “It felt disjointed.”

The couple also missed the sense of community. After 10 months in Costa Rica, the couple bought an old Toyota 4 Runner and headed for Roatan.

Here, Al found exactly what he was looking for. “Roatan felt more like a community, more of a multicultural place. There were American, Irish, Bulgarians and Poles here. (…) It seemed to me what the Caribbean was in 1970s. It had that vibe,” said Al. “When I think of Caribbean Islands, I think of Barbados. Here, it seemed more gritty.”

In January 2022, the couple began playing music at bars and restaurants in West End, Sandy Bay, and West Bay. While Al and Jess mostly play covers of singers like Shade, Amy Winehouse, and Stevie Wonder, they also write their own songs.

The lyrics to their original songs are about what the couple feels most passionate about: their four-year-old daughter, and living on Roatan.

Jess composes the music and writes the lyrics, and Al arranges the songs on the couple’s recording studio in their home in Sandy Bay.

(Click here to read the full article from Berkshire life magazine “Fresh off the boat”, page 64.)

You can also follow the Londoners on social media: @thelondonerscentralamerica

Hondurans chose Iris Xiomara Castro Sarmiento de Zelaya, 62, as the first female president of the country. This was also the first time a nontraditional political party has won an election since democracy was restored in 1982. Castro’s “Libertad and Refundación” (LIBRE) party is relatively new and was established in 2011 as a spin off the traditional Liberal Party. With that party her husband José Manuel Zelaya Rosales was the President of the Republic from 2006- 2009. On June 28, 2009 Zelaya was removed from office by the Honduran military under orders from the Supreme Court.

It won’t be Xiomara Castro’s first time in the presidential palace. She already was our first lady and will now be our President. This is another unprecedented event for this country. I for one am not sure what Mel Zelaya will be referred to as “former president” or “first husband.”

Mrs. Castro has published an ambitious plan of governance, and what she hopes to achieve in the first 100 days of her presidency. Incidentally these plans seem to mirror the plans her husband/campaign, manager/party leader and ex-president Manuel Zelaya had for the country 14 years ago.

Most controversial in her plan, is the establishment of a committee to review and change the current constitution. The same plans that got her husband that one way trip to Costa Rica in pajamas in 2009.

These plans seems to mirror the plans her husband
Manuel Zelaya had for the country 14 years ago.

Castro’s political party appears to hold a majority in congress. Some results are being contested and the final tally isn’t available yet. A clear majority or three quarters of votes is needed to amend or change the constitution with members of the traditional blue and red party, as well as congressman from the newly created “Salvador de Honduras” party that is also holding seats in congress. Can she push her agenda through and actually change the constitution?

The campaign manager for the “Salvador de Honduras” party, Mr. Pedro Barquero, has emphatically stated that now is not the time to even think of constitutional reform. Barquero says it’s time to rebuild the country and end corruption, time to combat extreme poverty and streamline the tax code and make Honduras attractive to investment. Mr. Barquero is the former president of the chamber of commerce of Cortes and a person to watch for a presidential run in 2025.

The Honduran Supreme Court’s seven year term will be up in 2023 and the 15 new supreme court magistrates will be elected by this new congress. Mrs. Castro’s government will be watching this very varied congress elect the new members of our supreme court.

Another controversial item on our president elect’s agenda is the derogation of the law for ZEDES or special zones for economic development (“charter cities” such as Próspera that exist on Roatan). What happens to the ZEDES that have already been chartered and approved by the current congress? Can the new congress revoke their status? Will the current Supreme Court uphold their ruling and keep them? What will the new Supreme Court of 2023 rule in this regard? Many exciting and controversial issues coming soon to a congress near you.

President Maduro’s “One small country, three big worlds” slogan just wasn’t working. In 2008 on her visit on Roatan, Paola Bonilla, Honduran Minister of Tourism announced a new slogan and said that the slogan was the result of “years of work and studies aimed at choosing a phrase that summed up the national identity.” The result: “Todo Esta Aqui” or “It’s all here in Honduras.” This slogan lasted eight years. Then Honduras yet again went looking for its identity. The result was different, but arguably an improvement: “Somos para ti.” “We are Land and Sea; We are People; We are heart; We are for you.” The tax payer bill for this insight? I dare not speculate.

Honduras is not alone. Most countries now have ministries of tourism. At taxpayer expense, consultants and marketing firms spend countless hours at the behest of the government developing and implementing campaigns to communicate “the essence” of their county’s identity.

You don’t need a ministry of something or other to tell you about your identity

Panama invested millions to figure out it is “Where the World Meets,” and the phase has done Panama well. The most well branded country of the region: Costa Rica also has the best slogan. It works, it’s catchy and they have no plans of letting it go:“Costa Rica – no artificial ingredients.”

Nicaragua saved some money and research and called itself simply “Unique,” and it certainly is. El Salvador went simply with “Impressive.” Belize’s slogan is “Mother’s Nature best kept secret,” and in 2006 Guatemala launched its campaign “Soul of the Earth.”

Even the US, managing to function without a ministry of tourism, has come up with a slogan, although a weak one: “All within your reach,” a bit ironic for the many people getting their visa applications rejected at the US embassies.

Even Roatan felt it needed to define itself. Mayor Dorn Ebanks decided Old Roatan wasn’t good enough and gave us “New Roatan.” He only lasted one term and the future of the catchphrase doesn’t look good either. There is a theory about the wisdom of crowds. When asked to estimate number of jelly beans in a jar or a weight of a cow, the average of hundreds of people’s guesses comes amazingly close to the truth, much closer to truth than the estimate of a single jelly bean or cow expert. Recently Roatanians decided to create their own branding phase and pay for it themselves. Gigantic “ I ♡ Roatan,” “I ♡ Roa” signs seem be spontaneously popping up all over the island – at no cost to the taxpayer.

Indeed maybe you don’t need a ministry of something or other to tell you about your identity. Maybe you need an explorer like Columbus, or a crowd of business owners and locals to come up with a viable name, phrase and a look.

Also, perhaps the key part of any successful country branding strategy is constancy. So let me suggest: let’s stick to something and let’s go back to the roots. And if a new slogan for Honduras is needed I have one: “Honduras – really deep.”