Beneath the photo were announcements for the time and place of the wake, the church service and the burial. Someone I had not seen in person or spoken to in more than a decade—but who figured prominently in my memory of what the Bay Islands were—was gone. In the following days, memories of the era when he and I moved in shrimping industry circles came to mind organically.

I returned from the United States to Roatan in the mid-1990s with my girlfriend, intending to live on the island for at least one year.
Within a week or two of arriving, we were able to rent a home on the eastern tip of a cay along Roatan’s south shore. On the day we moved in—having few belongings made this quick—we sat on the porch swing, feeling like we were finally settled into the house.

The first thing that enveloped us was a steady breeze coming off the grass bar. A sense of familiarity came over me—I was home. She sensed this satisfaction in me, and it pleased her. Before long, we saw a school of sprats, a gray mass against a large white area on the grass bar. The mass was eluding a barracuda that was on the hunt. The school of sprats seemed to feint the barracuda’s strikes as if it were a single being. After a time, the gray mass reached the channel and disappeared from our view.

Son sat on a wooden chair next to the open grave.

Yellow and red hibiscus flowers had opened along the narrow dirt paths of the cemetery grounds, with the leaves of the hibiscus plants still damp from overnight squalls. Gravestones—more recent ones fashioned by a stone worker from up The Point—stand sacred to the memory of islanders who passed long ago and more recently. A group of Black men, women and children from off The Hill had gathered for the funeral. Mr. Leonard stood tall among them—an uncommon sight, as he was without his wide-brimmed hat, left at home out of respect. While making their way along the paths to the freshly dug grave, the adults brushed the hibiscus leaves at their hips and thighs, the children at their shoulders and torsos. Their clothing was damp in those areas.

The deceased’s adult son sat on a wooden chair next to the open grave, with two lengths of strong rope with frayed ends curled at his feet. He was silent, his face streaked with tears as he watched his mother’s simple, unpainted pine casket. It was placed on top of a varnished mahogany table. Standing near the trunk of the trumpet tree, under whose branches the woman would be laid to rest, a local pastor delivered the sermon.

“Friends, we must tend to our many-colored garden in our dedication to our Christian will and our belief in God Almighty,” he began.

Hair brushed and parted, freshly bathed and wearing our best dress clothes, we walked to the West on the coral marl street talking excitedly about the night ahead. Polala joined us when we walked past his house, as Doc and Elo did at their houses farther down. By the time we reached Mr. Homer’s movie theater, which was next to the bridge connecting The Hill with French Harbour Point, Old Break had joined us and we had become a group of six or seven boys all under the age of ten. Each of us had his Lempira or two allowance for the evening secured in a front pocket.

There was already a crowd gathered in the street in front of what was the largest building in town. There were other boys and girls our age, teenage boys and girls flirting with one another while wary of their parents’ strict gazes. The kids from The Hill were selling pastels and enchiladas at a brisk pace. The ticket window opened on to the street and the line moved quickly. It was 75 Lempira cents for the upstairs seating area and 50 Lempira cents for the downstairs. When the kids from The Hill had finished selling their pastels and enchiladas, they got in line and bought tickets with the money they had made. At the same time, they were careful to secure the little profits to take home to their mothers after the show.

It was standing room only on Saturday night when “Jaws” was screened at Mr. Homer’s. The beam of light above the center aisle projected the New England beaches, Roy Schneider, Richard Dreyfuss and the killer Great White onto the screen.

There were teenage boys with their backs leaning against the projection room wall, Fiestas and glass bottles of Coca Colas and Tropicales in hand. They had packets of Chiclets in their pocket to chew on before talking to the teenage girls after the show. The profiles of the tallest of these boys were occasionally, and briefly, reflected in silhouette on to the screen as they elbowed and nudged one another for more comfortable standing positions.

Occasionally ,empty drink bottles would roll down the slanted floor, clanging against the barrier that separated the two seating areas. Steven Spielberg’s film had reached Roatan, over a year after it had premiered in the United States.

Mr. Homer’s theater operated from the early 1960s through the late 1980s. Island movie theaters also operated in Coxen Hole and Oak Ridge. Usually, a movie made the rounds of the Roatan theaters after the film was brought over from La Ceiba. Coxen Hole was the first in line, followed by French Harbour and then Oak Ridge. At one point the theater in Oak Ridge was operated by a Mr. Carlos Bulnes.

There were two theaters in Coxen Hole, one of which often showed Sunday matinees of Kung Fu movies with Spanish subtitles. The theater was located in a single story, unpainted wood building with hard pew benches. Slivers of afternoon sunshine shot through the vertical openings in the walls.

The freshly roasted peanuts the kids sold outside of that theater were delicious. Once, my friend Doe had spent a night down in Coxen Hole and had gone to the movies. A few nights later Doe was sitting next to me at Mr. Homer’s and would not shut up about what would happen next.

While US unemployment rate fell to 4.1% the country’s labor participation rate is at 62.7% and matching that of 1978. 95.4 Million Americans are no longer in labor force and living from savings, family aid, receiving government benefits or doing ad jobs. part time workers looking for full time jobs are considered employed. US defines its unemployed as someone who is “actively seeking work, and available to take a job.”

Nicaragua

From being the safest country in Central America, Nicaragua has spiraled out of control in matter of weeks. The spark was Socialist government’s plan of raising retirement tax from 6.25% to 7%, but the fuel was the president-designate Daniel Ortega’s suppression of opposition to his third consecutive term as president. Ortega, thought by many to be suffering from Lupus, has pointed to his vice president cum wife Rosario Murillo as successor. Police through the country has fired live munitions into crowds killing over a hundred protesters in April and May. Sandinista government thug gangs have attacked protesters and many detained are tortured. The continuing protests are likely to end in a regime change, early elections or a government crackdown.

Venezuela

According to NY Times, American cities have a hard time catching up to the safety of many African and Middle Eastern cities. The first 45 cities listed as most dangerous are in North and South America and not a single one is in Africa or Middle East. The news outlet doesn’t consider Tripoli in Libya, Karachi in Pakistan, or Mogadishu in Somalia as dangerous, but puts two Honduran cities and four US cities in that top 45. Supposedly the most dangerous of them all is Caracas, Venezuela with 111 yearly homicides per 100,000.

Iceland

With its cool climate and cheap energy rates produced from geothermic power plants, Iceland has become a bitcoin miner’s paradise. Bitcoin mining is the process by which crypto currency transactions are verified and added to the public ledger, AKA block chain. Miners are rewarded with generated bitcoins that appear at a rate of 12.5 every 10 minutes. 80% of bitcoin mining cost is electricity and the activity consumes more energy than country of Ireland. If and when price of bitcoin reaches $50,000 the global energy expected to be used in bitcoin mining is estimated to increase five times, surpassing that of Egypt. While US energy costs averages 21 cents per kilowatt hour and Iceland is 11 cents. With Roatan’s energy at 35 cents and temperatures in high 90 bitcoin mining on Roatan is a losing proposition.

Japan

Business of android is booming. After cleaning robots, fast food robots, parking security robots, vehicle driving robots, men are discovering sex robots. Animatronics talking heads with programmable personality and memory are convincing Japanese men that it is simpler to have a robot than a girlfriend. The android’s artificial intelligence allows it to respond to different scenarios initiated by the owner and it has programmable voice, humor and temperament. Japanese are purchasing these love dolls for $8,000-$20,000 each.

Syria

White Helmets, a pro-Syrian opposition rescue and propaganda organization, faked a Syrian government gas attack in Douma, Syria on April 7. The group placed and photographed undamaged munitions shells and bribed local kids to participate in filming footage later disguised as authentic. Within a week of this staging and with no thorough investigation Democrats and Republicans applauded president Trump decision to fire 105 tomahawk cruise missiles, costing $1.9 million apiece, on Syrian government forces as deterrent. Rand Corporation (the company constructing the tomahawk missile) stock got a bump while damage to Syrian government was limited.