As a youth, Henry signed up to be a seaman. He was running bananas from the border of Nicaragua and Honduras to Tampa, Florida. Mr. Henry worked at SS Caravelle, an LCI (Landing Craft Infantry) ship from World War II. Eventually he worked as a seaman on a shipping vessel hauling cargo between Tampa, Havana, the Isle of Pines, and Haiti. “We were picking up chicken feed from Haiti,” remembers Mr. Henry.

Mr. Henry’s wife Mrs. Sula, was born in Utila Cays on July 11, 1941 to Henry Rose Suniga and Evelyn Mae Howell. The two met at a dance at Wilson Hotel. “We mostly danced boleros,” remembers Mr. Henry. In 1961, they married. “Every one damn thing is different. They are hard to get along with,” says about the Caytons Mr. Henry.

Mr. Henry learned how to shrimp in Texas in Port Isabel and became a shrimp boat captain in Western Caribbean. “I was the first one to fish [shrimp] out of Puerto Barrios, Guatemala,” says Mr. Henry. “I’ve been a shrimper all my life.” He was also shrimping out of Nicaragua and Louisiana. Back in the Bay Islands, he shrimped out of Mariscos de Bahía in Oak Ridge.

While he was at sea, Mr. Henry and Mrs. Sula communicated via single side band radio. Every day the young captain would call home to Utila to check how things were. The couple had eight children; five chose to live on Utila.

I’ve been a shrimper all my life.

Mr. Henry was the first shrimp captain to open shrimp grounds near Tela and Puerto Castilla. “I shrimped till I lost my eye,” said Mr. Henry. He lost his right eye in a fishing accident while motoring between Utila and Roatan. Mr. Henry took his dory and departed solo for Roatan to take part in a surprise birthday party. He had placed fishing lines trailing in the water, and three miles outside of West End he caught a fish that was hard to handle. After a struggle, a line slipped and bobby from the fishing rod hit Mr. Henry in his right eye. “Utila was so far I thought I was going to bleed to death,” remembers Mr. Henry. “I was bleeding like a hog.”

He was closer to Roatan and decided to just keep going. “I am going carry you to Anthony’s Key, there is a hospital there,” a Roatan fisherman he encountered off West Bay told him. The Good Samaritan towed Mr. Henry’s boat to Sandy Bay and likely saved his life. Since then, Mr. Henry had seven operations on his eye. The accident marked the end of his fishing career.

Utila was so far I thought I was going to bleed to death.

An old parrot and two small dogs keep the couple company. Mr. Henry and Mrs. Sula smile and hug one another as they swing on the porch of their tidy hillside home surrounded by a spotless garden. Mr. Henry feels most proud of “the days we spent together with his wife.”

Roatan Author makes her Book Debut

Roatan’s population needs a way to anchor itself to the history of its Garifuna, English and Spanish settlers. The book “Piece of the Puzzle,” set to launch in July 2025, provides a pivotal perspective on who shaped the Bay Islands and how over the past two centuries.

The book’s author is Keila Rochelle Thompson Gough, a Jonesville-born islander. She embarked on a path to discover her own roots. That path led her down the rabbit hole of family stories, secrets and old photographs. “When I started doing research, it was not to write a book, but then all these stories started coming alive,” Gough said. “It was then I decided to write the book.”

The book-writing process was cathartic for Thompson. “It made me realize how much more confident I am and what my family represents,” says Keila. On the book’s pages, she writes about “lives rich with industry, perseverance, success and sometimes tragedy.” We learn about people who wove the fabric that became the Bay Islands. These stories had a profound effect on how the islands are shaped today. They were fundamental to the history of the Bay Islands but also shaped the character of the Bay Islanders who walk the streets of the island.

The author has relatives throughout the British Western Caribbean—Cayman Islands, Jamaica and Belize. For many of them, and many other islanders, “Piece of the Puzzle” tied the strands of their history together. The book has been a wealth of knowledge and a source of understanding about how they are related across time and archipelagos.

Thompson Gough wrote this book as a tribute to her ancestors, her contemporaries and the children who will now have a reference for knowing where they came from. It is the kind of book you can keep open for reference or dive into to read island stories.

Culture dies without someone recording its origins.

The book’s pages not only display the author’s love and passion for her native Roatan, but also represent a work of diligent research that will serve as an invaluable source for other researchers and lovers of Caribbean culture, especially Bay Islands culture.

She searched old island cemeteries, looking at tombstones. Especially the Oak Ridge Cemetery provided a wealth of knowledge. The faded tombstones revealed their secrets to a persistent researcher.

She visited neighbors and sometimes grumpy nonagenarians. She was given treasured family documents, letters and testaments. Often, the greatest wealth of information came from nearby—her great-grandmother Cora Wood.

Thompson described them and sometimes gives them life in print within the pages of her book. “I felt very privileged to be a descendant of such a determined, resolute, and historic ancestry,” writes Thompson, who began in 2008 but had to put the project aside for so many years.

She took on the role of genealogist, contacting and visiting archives in Belize, the Cayman Islands, Jamaica, and the Honduran national archives in Tegucigalpa. “There was no history book in our schools to teach us specifically about the history of the Bay Islands,” writes the author.

“The Piece of the Puzzle” is a well-written, large-format book that serves as a great resource for anyone interested in the history, culture and ethnography of Roatan, the Western Caribbean, or Honduras. The 530-page, large-format “Piece of the Puzzle” is illustrated with numerous photographs of island life and interspersed with historical information and island stories.

The book is a good source for a history lesson on Roatan and the Bay Islands. It creates a record of island families and heritage. The author traces the origins and history of Roatan’s families who arrived on the island in the 1840s: the Goughs, Coopers, Thompsons, Boddens, Abbotts, Woods and many others. It is a book one can get lost in. If you love history, if you are interested in Roatan, if you appreciate a good story, this is your milieu.

Keila has launched her book, “Piece of the Puzzle: The History of My Ancestors on the Bay Island,” at GiLeis Café in Roatan. The book was released on Amazon on July 1 and became available for sale throughout Roatan in August. It is available for purchase in Roatan, on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and as an e-book on Apple Books.

Mrs. Anita’s Tough Life Full of Struggle

Her parents moved to Oak Ridge and that is where Mrs. Anita went to five grades of school. Mrs. Anita spoke Spanish at her home, but even today she still prefers speaking Spanish and her English is burdened with a heavy accent.

When she was 18 she met her future husband – Mr. William Nixon. “We met at a dance in French Harbour,” remembers Mrs. Anita. A year later the couple had a wedding. There were cookie and candies and Mrs. Anita had a glass of wine to toast. That was the only alcohol she had in her life.

Mrs. Anita life included many people addicted to alcohol and nicotine. Her husband worked hard doing carpentry, farming and fishing, but he also drunk quite a bit. This made getting ahead for the family difficult. It also created a poor example for some of their children. These addictions have fallowed the family through generations and she had seen her children and grandchildren succumb to vices. It has not been an easy life for Mrs. Anita or her family.

We met at a dance in French Harbour.

Mrs. Anita’s family moved three times in her life. These were big, life changing events, more memorable for her than hurricanes that battered French Harbour. In 1971 Mrs. Anita moved with her 12 children to a French Harbor house close to the cemetery. Yet again, in 1993 she and her six grown children moved to a lot in Los Fuertes.

Mrs. Anita lives on a modest compound that has several wooden houses that belong to her children and grand children. At 96 she is the oldest person in Los Fuertes. Mrs. Anita dresses and washes herself; she walks to her plastic chair to see the people walking in front of her property.

She is a religious lady and above her bed there is a picture of Sacred Heart of Jesus. Mrs. Anita is Catholic and used to go to church well into her 90s. Now her wheelchair doesn’t allow her such a trip but the Catholic nuns, Franciscan Sisters of Immaculate Conception, have a convent in Los Fuertes and check on Mrs. Anita form time to time.

Today four of Mrs. Anita’s 12 children survive. She has seven grand children and 13 great grand children. Her advocate in the family compound is her granddaughter Rosita Janet Nixon. Mrs. Rosita was brought up by her grandmother and thinks of Mrs. Anita as her mother.

The cemetery is long closed off and is surrounded by a cement and picket fence. Among the aging gravestones beneath the shadows of Flambeaux trees growing along the fence, side to side there sit the matching gravestones of sisters Muriel Zapata (May 17, 1916 – April 24, 1944) and Nona McNab (February 27, 1918 – April 24, 1944).

I could not count the number of times I’ve heard the events recollected, nor the number of people recollecting them, of when the sisters died. All being accounts that evolved from the first telling – additional details here, slight variations on the details there; evolving over decades in conversations on front porches, in church yards, on the back decks of shrimp boats, from Oak Ridge clear down to Coxen Hole and points in between.

April 24, 1944 was a Monday and a day that Muriel and Nona died down off Brick Bay Point. They were among some 13 to 16 persons in a large, motorized lifeboat steaming from French Harbour to Coxen Hole to see a film. It was a religious film that was continuing to be screened well after Easter, with some recollecting the theme as the Ten Commandments and others as the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Learning of the excursion with only a little time to prepare, and so unable to find someone to look after her three young children for the day, Nona had taken them along: Gwendolyn (8), Yvonne (6) and Winfield Scott (4). Her husband, James Ray, was at sea. She wore a pea-green dress and walking to the landing near the canal bridge she had held Winfield Scott while Gwendolyn and Yvonne walked beside her. Muriel was accompanied by her husband, Edward. They were the parents of three young children who had not come along.

Life boat was broadsided and swamped, capsizing.

The weather was fresh as they left the harbor, but not expected to be a problem. Off Brick Bay Point, though, a slight change in direction and the lifeboat was broad sided and swamped, capsizing.

Utter chaos and panic. Where are the children? Screams from those who were not good swimmers, piercing above the sound of the waves crashing the reef. Everything and everyone being pushed towards the sharp reef. After some time that seemed eternal, a process of those capable of helping others past the reef and over honeycomb rocks and to the beach, and a return to help again. Nona and her three children huddled next to the keel on the upturned boat, in a holding pattern. Muriel among those helping others, going in and coming back out.One by one the children were rescued, with Nona accompanying the rescuer of the third child but, once at the beach, collapsing and dying of suspected heart failure. In dismay they stood around her, when it was realized that Muriel was not accounted for.

On April 25, at daylight, two men began the walk back to French Harbour. One was shirtless, having removed it to wipe blood from the gash on Muriel’s head and to cover her drowned body. Along the path to French Harbour, there would have been the sweet smell of mango trees in bloom and intermittently, gullies from which they drank water. The others waited on the beach in Brick Bay, some along with the children in the shade of the coconut trees. Winfield Scott remembered that it was “Berkeley” who paddled him all the way back to French Harbour. “Yes, Berkeley. That boy who was raised by Ms. Jessie.”

The chances are very good that captain and crew kept their feet on the shrimper that entire time. This characteristic can be displayed in the reaction I once heard from an islander to Nicole Kidman’s character in the movie “Dead Calm,” as she jumped off a sailboat for a pleasure swim in the middle of a deep blue. “What on earth is that woman doing, man?” he exclaimed, aghast and even a bit appalled. I dare say that there was no jumping off the shrimp boats. No taking of pleasant afternoon swims out on the shrimp grounds for our captain and his crew, no sir.

Something else that islanders have had a deep respect for is ghosts, or rather, “duppies.” Speak to any islander above a certain age and chances are quite good that she, or he will have a duppy story to tell you about. I grew up in French Harbour hearing about these duppies. The stories I’ve heard about more recently have a sort of time stamp on them. They seem to have taken hold of the island imagination up to and including the 1980s.

Of course, this is only my point of view and I’d be happy to be mistaken. One good friend said: “Duppy stories were common when there was little, or no electricity on Roatan. You just don’t hear new ones anymore. People saw things, and they just did not have an explanation for what they saw. More likely than not, they did not go and investigate any further what they had seen, either.”

Duppy stories were common when there was little, or no electricity.

Here are a few stories of Duppies that were circulated back in the day. There was a kind lady who lived in Oak Ridge, who from her front porch one day, in broad daylight, saw a headless man standing at the corner of her neighbor’s picket fence. The next day, while a friend was visiting her; the friend’s daughter came rushing into the house, looking for her mother and very upset and afraid. The friend’s daughter confirmed that she had seen the headless man as well.

Then there was the woman who would catch rides in passenger cars and buses between French Harbour and Coxen Hole in the 1970s. While en route one way, or the other, she would simply appear as a passenger. The driver would look back and, there she was, calmly claiming her seat.

In another duppy tale, sometime in the 1950s, two teenage sisters were paddling their dory back home to Oak Ridge after spending the day in Diamond Rock. At dusk they were nearing Fiddler’s Bight, not far from home. Suddenly, they saw a dark object hovering above the water top and coming in through the Fiddler’s Bight channel heading straight towards them.

There object did not have a discernible shape, though most near to a circle, and the sisters could hear voices coming from it but could not understand what was being said. They began paddling as fast as they could to shore, to “Uncle Emmet’s” house in Fiddler’s Bight. The object steadily gained on them and just as it was about to overtake their dory, vanished.

There is another Duppy story about a fellow who had passed out in his paddle dory and had drifted into this patch of mangroves late one night. Several islanders went to the man and rustled him awake. They brought him to a house and asked what had happened. “Well,” he said, coming slowly around, “I was paddling down the creek and this giant woman suddenly appears. She was standing with one foot on each side of the creek. She grabbed the paddle right out of my hand and beat me senseless over the head with it. My head still hurting, but thank God I’m still living.”

Crossing the sea to get to class

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Building of the Marco Aurelio Soto School

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Extensions of the Marco Aurelio Soto in Pandy Town

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fighting to Establish a School in P. Town

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Building a School in Pandy Town

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The future of the children of Pandy Town

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

President Carías headed Honduras in 1924, and then again from 1933 to 1949. Mr. Basilio risked his life by staying in Olancho and in 1924 he preferred to start his life anew on the then very remote island of Roatan. Even here he decided to settle in an area that was remote and visited by few people. His Olanchano friend and fellow political activist Matilde Santos followed him and eventually Encarnación Sevilla joined them as well.

Juticalpa was home to Santos Moradel who had three daughters: Viviana, Pasquala and Ingimia. Soon Basilio married Pasquala, his friend Matilde Santos married Viviana and Encarnación married Ingimia.

While US and Europe were going through the Great Depression, Honduras went through the crisis much less affected. Thousands of Hondurans lost work as US consumers demand for bananas fell. In 1935 Black Sigatoka epidemic damaged many banana plantations. Extensive banana areas around Trujillo were abandoned.

In 1935 Black Sigatoka epidemic damaged many banana plantations.

In 1937 the Triburcio Carías Andino unleashed another wave of political repression imprisoning left leaning political activists. Communists were gaining influence all over Latin America. While Carías declared the Communist Party (PCH) of Honduras illegal, the Liberal Party of Honduras (PLH) was active for a few more years.

When Filomena was nine years old, in 1937, her father decided the political climate in Honduras made it no longer safe to live on the island. With the two other Olanchanos of Juticalpa he decided to leave for Belize. They sailed from Punta Gorda on a cayuco with a small sail. They sent some letters to their wives and family. They even sent some money through Jim Gaugh in Oak Ridge. They were afraid to return and died in exile in Belize.

Mrs. Filomena had received only two years of public school in Oak Ridge, and remembers her two colleagues drowning when their cayuco flipped as they paddled to school in Oak Ridge Cay.

At 17 Mrs. Filomena married Domingo Ramos, an accordion player. Her husband was in demand to play music at Saturday evening dances in Oak Ridge and Milton Bight. He could play the accordion, banjo and cimbalom. Being a musician didn’t create enough income and Mr. Domingo worked in the fields, looked after cattle and worked as a security guard.

Mrs. Filomena stayed at home looking after the couple’s eight children. Back in the 1940s there were four houses in First Bight. “We were poor, but we gave our childrens love”, says Mrs. Filomena. “That is something I am most proud off.”

We were poor, but we gave our childrens Love.

Mrs. Filomena is catholic and in 1940s and 50s she attended Catholic Masses and services whenever she had a chance to. There would be a priest visiting the Punta Gorda Garifuna community every so often and celebrating mass at the church there. There was also a small chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows in a Catholic home in Brick Bay.

Mrs. Filomena is nimble, and moves around her blue painted cement home with agility and purpose. While Alzheimer’s has made her forget many things from recent past, her memory from her youth remains vivid.

Today, one of Mrs. Filomena’s most prized possessions as a photo of her, her husband and her oldest daughter Aida in front of their home in First Bight. It was taken in 1948 by Luis Chirinos, a photographer based in Oak Ridge that for 50 cents would take and print a photograph for local people.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ninety Years Old and Vibrant as Ever

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.”