Her parents were Itilia Stewart and Godwin Stewart, a farmer. Both of her parents were active in Baptist Church and had a large family. Etland was the fifth child of a thirteen.

Mrs. Etland went to school in Coxen Hole, finishing sixth grade. The days were spent playing with friends, and helping parents with chores around the house and in the field. “We were poor. We had to work hard,” she remembers.

As a 10-year-old girl she remembers a hurricane that hit Flowers Bay with a brutal force and without. “We sheltered under the trees,” remembers the late September evening Mrs. Etland. “That was the strongest hurricane I remember.”

You have to be patient to your parents.

She started her family life early. She married a young man she met at school. The wedding was a simple affair. She was 20 and her husband was a neighbor from Flowers Bay – Lindberg Pinnace. The couple moved into their own house.

In her early 90s, Mrs. Etland spends her time watching to going-ons in her neighborhood. She lives in a pink, wooden house with a front porch facing the thoroughfare of Flowers Bay. She spends her time resting on a bed with a bible next to her head.

For a few years now her youngest daughter Carla takes care of her. “You have to be patient to your parents,” says Mrs. Etland on how to reach a long life. “I am proud to be here, be a member of church.”

Her days as a child were spaced by prayers that were done three times a day: at sunrise, noon and in the evening time. The life of families was concentrated around the church and religious obligations. Flowers Bay had Methodist, Baptist and Evangelical churches.

Little Dellis learned how to read, write and mathematics from Ebenezer Johnson, a schoolteacher who taught in Flowers Bay using English Royal Readers. Little Dellis completed knowledge of all six Royal Readers books.

The discipline in school was important and occasionally the teacher whipped unruly students. Mrs. Dellis remembers an April fool’s day where one of her companions “pinned a tail” on the back of the teacher and was punished. Another April fools day mischief involved taking a “note” to a faraway place.

In the 1930s, the Honduran government built a school on the point in Flowers Bay. The September of 1941 hurricane destroyed it completely. Mrs. Dellis remembers that “Nicaraguan Hurricane” well. The storm came without warning and brought high winds and a quickly rising tide endangering most of the Flowers Bay homes that were built very close to shore. “We were running in the rain, cold. We were frightened and hungry,” says Mrs. Dellis. When her family arrived at a home that was up the hill, they found it was already filled with fleeing neighbors.

Made flower arrangements for weddings.

Mrs. Dellis spent several years with her grandmother in Los Planes, a Standard Fruit community on the Cangrejal river outside of La Ceiba. She learned Spanish while studying at the local school there. In 1930s and 40s many islanders left to pursue jobs with banana companies on the mainland.

In 1950, at 21 Mrs. Dellis married Oliver Cromwell Bodden, a seaman from Flowers Bay. Mrs. Oliver worked on “The Daydream,” aboat that carried cargo between Roatan and Grand Cayman, Louisiana and Florida.

For several years the couple rented homes, but finally purchased a house lot in Flowers Bay. While taking care of the house Mrs. Dellis planted flowers and made flower arrangements for weddings and birthday bouquets. On Sundays she would sing hymns and recite bible verses at the Baptist church she joined. The couple had five boys and one girl.

In her ninth decade, Mrs. Dellis is very active and energetic. She spends her time visiting family and tending to her flower garden. She lives with her son in beautiful seashore home in Pensacola area of Flowers Bay.

Mrs. Onyx spent the first eight years of her life in La Ceiba where she attended “Charles Elliot” open school. She was an out of wedlock child and receiving her father’s last name took some time.

When she was just a couple of years old she went to live with her grandmother, Flourene Hynds, in Lucy Point near Coconut Garden. Her grandmother was an active member in the island’s Methodist church. All-in-all in 1930s there were 12 Methodist churches scattered through Roatan. The Westley Methodist church in Coxen Hole was the islands biggest. Bethesda Methodist church in Flowers Bay was the island’s oldest church building. Reverend Fred Cooper from Utila was the minister there. Ebenezer Methodist church in Coconut Garden was the closest one for Mrs. Onyx to attend.

Mrs. Onyx remembers in late September of 1941 a “Nicaraguan” category four hurricane battered Flowers Bay especially hard. The entire roof of the Bethesda church was blown apart. Many people lost their homes, but a sense of community was strong and the houses and structures were rebuilt soon. “Within a week it was up,” says Mrs. Onyx, about the rebuilding of the church’s roof.

Life for her was full of diversions and activities. “We used to have fun, we had picnics, maypole, plat pole,” remembers Mrs. Onyx who graduated from sixth grade.
She married at thirty-two. Her husband was Ewans Stewart, a preacher and a sailor from Flowers Bay. So, in 1961, Mrs. Onyx moved to the “Tom” area of Flowers Bay. Her home was just fifty paces from Roatan’s oldest church structure, the Bethesda Methodist church.

Her husband worked as a shipmate on Egoral, a boat belonging to the Litrico family. She had made several trips to Belize and Utila, and one memorable trip to Guanaja.
She became a housewife looking after the house and the couple’s one child – Allan. Mrs. Onyx participated in Church as much as she could. She would sing gospel hymns. She recalls “Blessed Assurance,” and “O Come, All Ye Faithful” with particular fondness.

She would grow cassava, popo – or sweet potatoes, bananas and plantains. The family had a cow, a horse and some pigs. There would be plenty of fish for the taking. She would just drop a line outside of the channel in Flowers Bay and grunts, yellow tails and snappers would readily bite the hook.

I can still hear the animals when they holler.

Old age has brought challenges. Mrs. Onyx has been blind since her early 80-ties. She spends her days sitting on a tall wooden chair on her porch facing the sea. There she listens to the sound of the wind, to the sea, the breeze moving the leaves of sea grape trees and caressing her face. “I can still hear the animals when they holler,” says Mr. Onyx. “I am proud of so many things. I still can walk.”

Her son Allan had a stroke, and was disabled, he now lives in the same house as Mrs. Onyx. Her granddaughter Nelcian takes care of both of them. She cooks and sweeps the modest wooden, unpainted house. “Honor your father and your mother and your days be prolonged,” says Mrs. Onyx in her soft, silky voice explaining how she arrived at her old age.

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.

The Water That Everyone Forgets Gets Badly Needed Attention

Water brings life and water brings beauty into our life. On an island surrounded by coral reefs, fresh water is an underappreciated common resource. It is a resource that belongs to all islanders, but it is often perceived as it belongs to no one. 
In order to assure this resource remains plentiful and clean Roatan needs more dams, it need more water reservoirs, more fresh water lagoons and more managed estuaries. 

While no interest is shown from central or local governments in managing this resource half a dozen individuals stepped up to manage surface water on their properties. While their approach is different, their goal is the same: conserve the rainwater that hits the island’s surface and redirect it from the sea and into the island’s aquifers. 

There are few man made water lagoons around Roatan. There are also numerous ponds and many properties live off rain water as a matter of necessity or choice. Several pioneers are blazing a trail and setting an example how others should manage island’s common, but fleeing resource. 
 
 

Gumbalimba Lagoon

For over a decade now the lagoon has not only injected millions of gallons of water into Roatan’s aquifer it has done much more. Being part of the Gumbalimba park the lagoon is also an animal’s heaven and a tourist attraction.

Times are changing in West Bay, water is becoming scarcer and the Gumbalimba lagoon is a testament to just that. In twentieth century water on the island was plentiful and forests were thick. In a current construction boom, steep building lots are being cleared to make room for houses at an alarming rate. Wells are being drilled on a weekly basis. The island’s aquifer is well below the earth surface, but the signs of its growing depletion can be seen clearly.

At the height of the 2021 dry season the lagoon was at its lowest point in 23 years. It was half full. “That is what scares me. More and more people selling water and drilling water,” says Galindo. “Fresh water could be finished one day. We need to decide how many wells per square mile the island could handle.”

Galindo suggests that there should be an oversight in managing the islands water. “Not everyone can build a lagoon,” says Galindo. “Municipality should pass laws requiring that if you build you have to also build a reservoir.” Bay Islands department has no water board authority and fresh water remains managed by individuals as they see fit.

Vern, the Estuary Pundit

A few miles away in Flowers Bay a different type of water management effort is taking place. An estuary that was once a garbage dump has been cleaned up and returned to its water filtration role in the island’s ecosystem.
Not many people look at a site full of garbage and debris as an opportunity. Vern Albert is one of these few people. He is one of the few people on Roatan that creatively solves water issues. Black water, gray water and estuary water are his element.

Vern is also a freethinker, an activist, a visionary and a bit of an eccentric. When he came to the island he constructed all the drainage of West Bay’s Grand Roatan. Back in the US Albert was a landscape contractor and he says that following the strict building codes there, helped him educate himself about creating proper water treatment systems.

Today his main focus is a small estuary site right of the main road in Flowers Bay that until a few years ago, was a local garbage dumping site. “There was zero life here when I started,” says Albert. “There was 100 meters of garbage here. The mangrove had refrigerators, carcasses, car seats, hundreds of bags of garbage.”

Not many people look at a site full of garbage and debris as an opportunity.

The estuary is in a way, a lower intestine, for the creek that descends from the Flowers Bay hills. Every 20 seconds, or so the water flow goes up and then comes down. Small organic particles float on the surface of the water, up and down with the water. “We are generating free energy that powers this rock filter,” says Albert.

A properly functioning estuary slows down the pollutants before they get to the reef and at least in Flowers Bay nature has its filters operational. “It’s working, it’s using the tidal flux to clean,” says Patty McCulla, Albert’s girlfriend who has been watching the project from its inception.

Ten feet of open rock at the end of the estuary in Flowers Bay serves as a natural filter for plants and animals. It was created with creative ideas and a lot of hard work. “It’s about cooling the water and letting the microbes interact through motion,” said Albert. “Motion creates more microbial life and more oxygen.”

Albert believes that nature systems can be enhanced. Albert believes his solution could and should be replicated in every estuary around Roatan. “Everywhere on this island you can create an estuary, if you so desire,” said Albert. “Roatan is already one giant water filtration system.”

Not many people look at a site full of garbage and debris as an opportunity.

The ability to see potential and beauty where others see pollution and ugliness is a unique thing. “He likes to find out where there used to be beautiful, clean, healthy full of life estuaries before the pollution happened,” says Patty. “He is a land whisperer. He can look at land and know where natural things are.”

Albert’s efforts have not gone unnoticed, and some islanders became inspired by his work. “I never seen more a guy more passionate about estuaries and keeping the aquifers filled and keeping water on the island and not letting it just run out,” said Jonathan Solomon, an islander who is also building a water conservation project on his land in Gravels Bay.

While there is easily over a hundred registered non profits working throughout the island, Albert is his own guide. “I’m not a nonprofit. I tried to be nonprofit, but the process was too complicated,” says Albert who feels there is a jealousy between the island NGOs. “You can get into trouble by doing the right thing.”

Albert’s efforts are also beginning to be noticed and received some recognition abroad. The UK based Latin American Travel Association (LATA) foundation has recognized his project with an award. “By removing sludge, digging out and building underwater rock walls on the side of an estuary, the project has created macro-biological ponds to filter and treat toxic water,” wrote about the Flowers Bay estuary project LATA foundation.

According to Albert saltwater intrusion has already begun in aquifers across Roatan and will continue to increase salt levels in wells around Roatan. In the US, the authority responsible for overall water strategy and water drilling permits is the water board. Roatan has no such institution and managing the precious resource is left to individual property owners.

“The [polluted] estuaries are what is killing the reef due to sedimentation and nutrient loading sewage,” said Albert. “The estuary is the most overlooked component of saving the reef.” Indeed, while most NGOs focus on reefs and clean beaches and mangroves Roatan’s dozens of estuaries have been the most overlooked part of the island’s ecosystem.

The [polluted] estuaries are what is killing the reef.

There is also a medical benefit to the estuary clean up. Along with a clean estuary, dengue and malaria transmitting mosquitoes were eliminated. Crustaceans and juvenile reef fish made their way back into the cleaned-up Flowers Bay estuary habitat. “They are filling in wetlands here all over the place. Me, I am trying to create wetlands,” says Albert. In fact he wants to have native water species, those that need brackish and fresh water to live, to densely populate the estuary.

One such species is the giant river prawn that used to naturally migrate up the Roatan creeks, and still does in some cleaner island creeks. “Roatan is losing these aquatic freshwater species quickly,” says Albert who questions the entire strategy of building concrete rain runoff systems on the island. That stance makes him a dissident and a rebel. “You never want to run fresh water in to the ocean, you want to run fresh water into the island,” says Albert. The sea doesn’t need fresh water, the island does.”

Albert also began construction of a retention pond three hundred meters away from the estuary. Albert has a vision of a place that will clean water, retain water and educate locals how to conserve water on an island with a constantly depleted aquifer. “I am fighting a losing battle, but I am not going to quit fighting,” said Albert.

Jackson Road Lagoon

Some lagoons happen as accidents or results of other actions. The Jackson Road lagoon is one such happenstance.
The roughly 200 foot wide lagoon was created when the then Mayor Dale Jackson built a road across the island in 2006. During construction the runoff water was trapped between the road and the steep hillside. Since then the lagoon with no human management has remained full of water, even in the driest years.

The Port Royal Pond

Mango Creek Lodge in Port Royal manages a smaller pond that replenishes the aquifer on the east side of Roatan. This Port Royal creak runs all year. It has been supplying Paya settlements thousand years ago and pirates replenishing their fresh water supplies 350 years ago. Possibly Henry Morgan himself filled his water bottle at the Mango creek in Port Royal.

This pond was constructed on the Mango Creek in 2003 by enlarging the size of the creek and blocking its south side with a concrete wall. “Our efforts to stabilize the useful water volumes for Mango Creek also help recharge our aquifer,” said Autie McVicker, owner of Mango Creek Lodge. “We have sufficient water year round. [Water holding] cisterns are employed at various locations, so we do not draw down the artesian formations.”

Possibly Henry Morgan himself filled his water bottle at the Mango creek.

The pond is around 30 feet wide, 120 feet long and just under three feet deep. It retains an equivalent of approximately 50,000 gallons of water. The cost of constructing a retaining wall on the creek was insignificant to the many uses the pond water provides. The water from the pond is also used to water the lodge’s gardens in the dry season.