Vol. xxv #2

September, 2004

--Gonzalo Penche

My name is Gonzalo Penche. I'm 22 years old, a theatre student in Madrid. I had just finished my second year in theatre school, a year that was quite difficult and a great deal of work. My plan for the summer was to look for a temp job (my specialty) and spend the summer in Madrid making a bit of money.

But my mother had other plans for me: one day she came into my room and asked me what I was planning on doing for the summer. I told her what I had planned and with a disapproving expression she told me: "You are getting out of here." "What?" I responded. "You heard me. This summer I don't want to see you in this house. So start figuring out where you are going; I'll arrange your ticket and you arrange the rest however you want." She left and I remained staring open-mouthed at the empty space she left behind.

You're probably thinking that my family is rolling in money and we can do that sort of thing at the drop of a hat. Nothing is further from the truth: my mother works for Iberia, and gets tickets for almost nothing for herself and her immediate family. And obviously if I had to clear out for the summer I wasn't going to get off at the first stop; but my problem was how to finance a stay in a foreign country for a whole month, since I didn't have a cent and my plan to work during the summer was so that I could begin the school year with a bit of breathing room. Then it came to me: an NGO. The perfect solution: I wouldn't have to pay much for living expenses since NGO's work in poor places, and in the process I would be dedicating the summer to something that wasn't just me. The next obstacle was where and how.

Out of the blue my aunt called and told me she had a childhood friend, a Jesuit who had been working in Honduras for 30 years. His name was Padre Santi and by chance he was in Madrid at that moment, so we were able to set up a time I could talk to him personally. He asked me what I knew how to do and I told him I am an actor; he responded that the city where he lives is the home of teatro la fragua and that seemed to be the perfect place to land. After that there was a month of e-mail contact with Santi (now back in Honduras) and Padre Jack, the director of the teatro. In the course of that month we worked out that I would live with a family in El Progreso and work with the teatro. Since I was only going to be there a short time it wasn't clear whether I would be able to incorporate myself into one of the plays that was already on the boards.

I left for Honduras on July 24 at noon Madrid time, and 12 hours later (which included a stop in Miami) I arrived at 6 p.m. Honduras time. The country from the air in full daylight seems like a paradise: lush green mountains down which tumble numerous rivers that then snake their way towards the Caribbean. There is a lot of vegetation and few roads or other signs of civilization. That, I must confess, produced in me a shiver of emotion: I had embarked on a month and a half of adventure.

El Progreso is a city with few paved streets; the rest are dirt full of holes and loose rocks with few signs of maintenance. Transport is by car, bus or bicycle. There are many of the latter, and after a couple of days Jack got me one as my personal transport. I was very surprised by the poverty of the people and of the government, which isn't even capable of paving the streets of the cities. There is political advertising everywhere, and it's not even an election year. The faces of candidates for the 2006 elections smile at you from every available space and within three days I recognized many of the names and faces. Just seeing their faces made me think "I would never vote for these guys"; behind the smiles I could only see corruption and cheating.

There is nothing of beauty in the city, not a decent statue or memorable monument; the only sign of urbanity is a plaza that occupies a block downtown, but it's populated mainly by drunks and beggars. The majority of the houses are small single-storey affairs in which the family lives with chickens and dogs. The house I am living in belongs to the Gómez-Nolasco family, the family of Wilson Gómez, one of the actors of the teatro. The house is two-storied and could belong to a working-class neighborhood of any developed country. And I thanked God for that, since in the neighborhood there are not many others like it. The electric and water companies leave much to be desired and frequently there is no water, and many times when it rains the electricity goes. The people accept this reality resignedly and without making a lot of fuss about it. They seem like very happy people compared to Spaniards, who tend much more to bitterness and stress. Although on the other hand I sense they are accepting of their lot, probably too much so.

The teatro is a large building which, before it passed into the hands of the Jesuits, belonged to one of the banana companies which dominated/dominate so strongly the politics and the direction of the country. It is a theatre with capacity for an audience of about 300. The rectangular stage is not elevated; bleachers rise from its level on two sides and the front. It has all the essentials: back-stage, box-office, lighting control booth, offices with Internet access and even an open-air refreshment stand. The truth is that the place is enchanting, and the actors are very lucky to have a space like this in which to work: in Spain it would be very difficult to find anything like it.

The actors received me with great friendliness and in a short time I felt like one of the group and I quickly came to consider them good friends. Work in the teatro is demanding: physical and vocal exercises from 8 to 9 and rehearsals until noon, including some days dance classes. Then from 2 to 5 in the afternoon more rehearsal. All of the actors have a positive opinion of Spain and in the first weeks there was a lot to share, comparing the two countries in their customs and in words that in Spain mean one thing and in Honduras something else. The truth is that those actors are very lucky: in an extremely poor country like Honduras they have the chance to work in something as exciting and marvelous as the theatre is -- with fixed salaries the whole year long.

It was my good luck that the first week-end we would go to a Garífuna village called Sangrelaya; I would make my debut with the teatro in the Children's Stories which would be presented as part of the celebration of the ordination of a Garífuna Jesuit.

We traveled to Sangrelaya in a yellow school bus, a long and tiring journey. I had the feeling that at any moment the wheels or the undercarriage were going to remain behind, especially in the second phase of the trajectory where the road reverts back to loose rocks and holes which seem ready to swallow the bus and us with it. The dust. The dust in that section enters through the windows and coats us all, making us appear 40 years older than what we are. The passengers were those of us of the teatro and a numerous group of people from Progreso. It seems like they all knew each other, but I had no idea who they were nor what we would all do when we arrived.

The Garífunas are a Black race whose villages dot the Caribbean coast of Honduras. Sangrelaya is a remote village; there is no way to get to it by road. You go as far as the road takes you and then have to make a decision: either you take to the beach on foot or you can go by boat. Well, after seven hours in the bus I opted for the beach. The group of us who were walking (a large group) disappeared into a hole in the vegetation which hid a path that led to the beach. But before you reach the coast, you have to cross a river. This was a problem for some, but for me, caked as I was with dust, it seemed the ideal opportunity.

When I saw that the little Black kid who was guiding us plunged right into the water and crossed with no problem, showing us that the crossing held no dangers, I left all doubt behind; I stripped to my underwear, crossed and left my things on the other shore and then plunged in completely, getting rid of the dust that covered my whole body. I felt like a giant: the water reached no higher than my waist, whereas it covered the chests of many of those who were crossing. Then Wilson and I and the Garífuna kid helped the others cross, those who didn't want to get wet, pushing them across in an old, leaky canoe.

And once that obstacle was overcome, the walk along the beach was ready to go. The sea was calm, and we began walking along the white sand with the sun at our left, slowly lowering itself towards the sea, and a green wall of vegetation, palms and trees to our right. The landscape reached on as far as we could see, and as we advanced I felt that I was walking on a huge flag of three stripes: blue, white and green. The sight of such a beach completely empty is mind-blowing; it would be unthinkable in Spain. The beaches of my country -- and especially so the larger ones -- are full of bars, discos, restaurants, hotels, parking lots and all kinds of facilities for the millions of tourists who arrive every year to bask in the Spanish sun. The emptiness filled me with a deep tranquility, and a profound sense of peace. Occasionally we ran into groups of birds who fled us by taking wing, and a large crab with his eyes popping scurried across our path as we made our way towards the village. Finally, after about an hour, I saw smoke in the sky in the distance, a sure sign that we were close to arriving.

Sangrelaya is situated close to the sea, right on the frontier between the sand and the vegetation, and its inhabitants must live principally from fishing. The small houses are of a single storey and built of wood, the majority painted a turquoise green which contrasts with the darker green of the vegetation which surrounds them. The grass cover mixes with the sand of the paths and for the occasion the people had strung streamers from roof to roof, and from the streamers danced triangles of colored paper, giving the village a festive air. Aside from fish, chicken must be a staple, because the gardens of many houses provide them lodging; and the dog population is abundant, the majority of them rather malnourished looking.

The only buildings of more than one storey are the nuns' residence, two small "hotels" which are normally schoolhouses, and the church. This latter is wooden, painted like most of the habitations in turquoise green; its bell tower is the tallest point in the village, rising above all the other constructions. The interior is of mahogany wood, and the decor blends Garifuna images with classic Christian symbols, creating a curious cultural mix completely distinct from Christian holy places that I am accustomed to seeing throughout Europe. I was particularly struck by the cross on the wall behind the altar: not the normal Christian cross, but the Greek cross. The truth is that the church's interior is one of the most beautiful sacred spaces that I have experienced, a simple space of humble beauty. And I took advantage of the moment of solitude there in the church to sit on one of the benches and meditate a bit; an act which filled me with that same calm and peace I had felt walking on the beach, but without the rigors of the long walk in the hot sun.

Those of us who had traveled from Progreso were assigned the large room which was the upper floor of one of the schools, and I had the good luck to be able to claim a mat and a space to sleep; otherwise I would have had to share a mattress with somebody, and taking stock of how hot it would probably be in the morning that did not seem to me the most agreeable option. (The following morning would confirm my evaluation). Once that was resolved, I went to the beach to watch the sunset, which turned out stunning with the water calm like a blue mirror and the sun an intense red hiding quickly behind the horizon. In Honduras the sunset is quicker than in Spain; the ancient Mayan god said good-night and opened the way for a night which promised diversion and excitement. Diversion because the festive atmosphere the village was heating up as the darkness crept in, and exciting because in that darkness I would make my debut before an audience with my new companions of teatro la fragua, an experience which (although my role had all of two lines) I was very eager to live and which I awaited nervously.

At dinner I got my first taste of casabe, the Garifuna "tortilla", and the truth is I didn't like it much; it ended up with one of the numerous scrawny dogs who were keeping watch over the diners, with a sharp eye to grab anything which the humans let fall. But there was something going on that, in spite of my curiosity, I hadn't noticed.... A Spanish Jesuit from Burgos who introduced himself as Sebastián was sitting next to me. He noticed how I was tossing what I didn't want to one of the dogs and he pointed out to me how some of the little kids from the village were also standing guard, hoping to enjoy the crumbs that fell from our table. This gave me a real start: although it was evident that the people of Sangrelaya were poor, it had never occurred to me that they could be starving. Dogs and children at the same level! That is something new to my experience and it gave me much food for thought; especially underlining the importance of the work which I and la fragua had come here to do, to offer our stories as a way to produce smiles on the faces of these children who join (and it's hard even to write this) with the dogs in scavenging for food.

After dinner, with the full moon illuminating the night that had now arrived completely, a bunch of the children of the village stationed themselves in front of our "hotel" and began drumming and dancing, excited and nervous under the flashbulbs and the gazes of the visitors, who came not only from El Progreso but from El Salvador and other places in Honduras. But there was no sign that the celebrations were in any way organized: Where were we going to do the show?

So I went looking for Jack. I was worried, and beginning to think that we wouldn't do the show at all; it was getting late and there wasn't any sign of organization of anything. But this is Honduras; and further, an isolated village of Honduras. When I finally found Jack there was no sign of worry on his face, so I calmed down, sure that he had everything under control. But in spite of his apparent tranquility he told me he hadn't the least idea of when or where the show was going to be. That plunged me into a depression: I was convinced that after all the preparation there wasn't going to be any show and my debut would have to wait. While I was buried in these thoughts Wilson arrived; he had been sounding out people in the village and they had told him the show would be on the basketball court. The basketball court? My spirits sprang back, but as far as I remembered I hadn't seen anything that bore any resemblance to a basketball court. But it seemed that one did exist and that it was close to our "hotel".

And it turned out that there were two baskets placed in the middle of the sand more or less in the center of the village (don't ask me how they dribble the ball) flanked by a corner store and -- a disco! (a wooden hut from which emerged colored lights and recorded music). The drums and the people, villagers and non-villagers, migrated to this spot, forming a circle defined by the drummers, who were playing rhythms and chanting melodies that seemed to have come directly from the African jungle. Then another worry overcame me: our only lighting (apart from the full moon) was a single bulb on the wall of the house nearest the court. There was no way to modify that, so we would have to situate the audience with their backs to that house so that our faces would be directed toward the bulb. I returned to present the problem to Jack. "Don't worry they'll adjust themselves naturally," he answered. OK, at that point I resigned myself not to worry about any kind of organization; it seemed that everything would just have to come out "naturally".

And that's the way it turned out. More or less. When we were about to begin, with a little urging from the actors the majority of the people who, if we had been in a theatre, would have occupied the backdrop, moved around to the "front"; but the show still ended up in the middle of a circle since as soon as they abandoned those backdrop points, others arrived to fill up the free space. The concept of "back-stage" doesn't seem to have gotten to Sangrelaya yet; in the same way that as far as I know their concept of "circular theatre" hasn't spread far from the village. The show came off well, the stories delighted the audience and kept them attentive for 40 minutes; they laughed at the jokes and joined in the songs and in repetitions of the text, and I made my debut as the wise turtle and managed my two lines, which in spite of all my efforts came out somewhat exotic because of my strange foreign accent. All of us actors ended up covered in sand, and I almost managed to "play" the conch shell to create the sound of a ship. And teatro la fragua accomplished its goal; the children (and adults) of the village laughed and smiled. As my turtle says: Forget yesterday and concentrate on today's beauty. Why this obsession with looking for yesterday when today is much more beautiful?