Living in coronavirus world 204: a brief word from Central America

11/8

...bright, bright sun shiny day.....

Shortly following the official announcement of Biden’s victory, our Central America Task Force gathers for its meeting. The joy here is a bit more restrained. All wondering how the countries these people come from or work in and all care about will fare in a new administration. The major fact impact al the countries is of course the hurricane. In Nicaragua, Puerta Cabezas is all but destroyed. Aid to tjhe regional’s forbidden and the Ortega government diverting the aid like Somoza after the earthquake. In the resistance, La Alianza and the Coalicion seem to have split on economic and class bases. The Alianzacistas feeling they would do better with Trump. Efforts are underway to try and restore the working agreement. Tens of thousands have died of covid while only 1300 are recognized, the government continues it be in denial and testing (around $200) beyond the average person’s capacity. ‘Foreign agency” and “cyber security” acts have clamped down on civil liberty. Election reform is taking place in advance of the 2021 election but not at the executive level. The second harvest has now been lost and a food crisis looms. Increased land demands for beef are eating into the rain forest.

Guatemala is experiencing landslides. Villages are cut off from communication. Government corruption hinders aid. The effort to control covid disintegrating with no access to testing in the villages. The whole situation  will continue forcing people north. And covid makes accompaniment impossible. And the Covid crisis has increased stress for activists.

In Honduras, there is flooding in the San Pedro Sula area.There too crops wiped out. Efforts to build for tourism on the Atlantic Coast are impacting the Garifona Community.

In El Salvador, there has been a showdown between the government and the independent digital journal El Faro over its investigative journalism resulting  in a crack down., Covid has hit hard. After a late summer dip, new cases are now spiking to nearly 600 a day. 

There is of course hope for a more humane approach to the region. We need or start with the tens of thousands of Central Americans stuck in covid infested encampments on the Mexican side of the border unable to exercise their internationally recognized right to an asylum hearing. And every factor we’ve heard about will just keep pushing them north.

11/9

and vote they did....

along my trek

Sunday morning I sleep later than I wanted to.  I go out to buy my Sunday Times for my ritual of coffee and pastry and news but the papers are gone. I begin a determined search, not wanting to give up. And between Harlem at 135th Street and the Upper West Side at 71st, covering nearly six miles back and forth, not a single Times. All gone. The ironic thing is, I was not looking for a souvenir. I want the magazine for the crossword puzzle. 

Family medical crises are complexly complicated by covid making decisions about travel and chlldren and quarantines 

Get your Biden Harris t-shirts here

Last night’s celebrations have left Bar 9 completely out of chicken wings for my Sunday night gig. Even though the cub bans “political music,” I dedicate Johnny Nash’s “I can see clearly now the rain is gone” to yesterday’s victory.

I notice that the one thing the election crisis did was to delay the annual day after Halloween appearance of Christmas decorations. I saw the  first ones going up yesterday.  

It still feels good.

Central America: Random Notes

7/10

Guatemala Highlands

Central America random notes:

. The ubiquitous tuk- tuks, scrambling around the border control area in El Salvador, where are they  ferrying people from and to?

. There are armed guards in every public space in Honduras. And El Salvador. And Guatemala. With automatic weapons.

. Men don’t wear shorts. Women don’t either.

. Camionetas individually painted like works of folk art. Bearing the name of wife. Or girlfriend. Saint or Pentecostal exhortation.

. Tiendas, bodegas, barberias, casas de belleza, ferreterias with names like Rey del Mundo, Corazon de Caridad, Reina del Cielo....


. Futbol Copa de Oro on every tv.

. During the civil wars and deaths quad days I ran 5 miles a day every day. A bit crazy but...Today we are confined to patrolled bounds of our hotels, dorms....todays lawless chaos more dangerous than yesterday’s wars.

. Honduras accepts dollars as well as its own currency. Guatemala only Quetzaltes. El Salvador has just given in and made the US dollar its official  currency. Pocketsful of Sacajaweas and Susan B’s ...so that’s where they all went....

US dollar coins in El Salvador

. US fast food triumphant everywhere...Mc Donald’s. Burger King. Dunkin’ Donuts. Pizza Hut. Honduras’ homegrown Pizza House has a pretty good knock off of Pizza Hut logo. Oh, and donuts are donas.

. Honduran food has the baleada with convoluted story of a woman tortilla seller who got shot, as in, I'll buy from the shot one. And rice and beans, gallos pintos in Nicaragua, painted roosters, are casimientos, or married ones,  in Honduras.

. Morning juices are high fructose concoctions. The real stuff is all exported.

. Leaving Tegucigalpa....miles and miles of bananas....they called them banana republics for a reason....then the miles of sugar cane...,in Guatemala cornfields crawl up hill sides and hold on for dear life...,

. “Auto hotels” are everywhere along the highways . A place for that illicit triste. Or maybe there’s just no privacy and everyone deserves a little romance...

. In the highlands, Guatemalan men and women in traditional dress. Including skirts for men. 

Guatemalan women

Man in traditional dress

. The two monuments we see in Guatemala we see are a warrior chief who resisted the colonizers and the statue migrant. A story without words dances between these statues.

. At an overlook high in the mountains, in a market filled with folk crafts, a New York Yankee hat for sale. 

2nd row up, Yankee hat for sale

. Many of the people I have spoken to were not even alive the last time I was here.

. Stunning how in the midst of poverty one can always see the breathtaking beauty of Gods creation. Despite our efforts to destroy it, it is

in the highlands of Guatemala

still there......

Au Revoir, Victoire

11/7

Open Mic

I walk into the darkened sanctuary and hear a voice. It’s Anna singing Go tell it on the mountain. I generally hate the way the Christmas season now seems to come the day after Halloween filling November. Kind of depresses me. But there’s something about the  simplicity of Anna’s voice and the song in the half-light that cheers me.

Back from meeting with Marc and Elise to plan a benefit for the Interfaith Assembly in December. At West-Park. Julie Gold, who wrote From a Distance,

( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4q9JUMF0oc)  will be with us.  And John Jiler, author of Sleeping with the Mayor, which documents the 200 day occupation of City Hall Park by the homeless, that brough the Assembly to life. (http://www.johnjiler.com/books/).

Just enough tine to catch up with Pat O reviewing the week before going with Elise to meet the Lutheran Bishop of El Salvador. Bringing back lots of memories of my time there in the ‘80’s during the dark days of the Death Squads. Going with John Fife to see the young Catholic students photographing the latest victims before the bodies were carried away by the government so that thee would be a record of the disappeared at the Diocese for families. US Ambassador Dean Hinton. FMLN leader Ruben Zamora. The Maryknoll sisters at the orphanage at Zaragoza making us an American Thanksgiving with pavo real mole and pastel de manzana.. Our surprise commands meeting including a ride in a Cherokee with dark windows, with Roberto D’Aubisson, nicknamed Bobby Blowtorch. The sense of apocalypse. Our visit to the prison known as CAIN. Later I would meet someone I met there in a deportation jail in Noglaes.

Salvador made it into democracy somehow only to lose vast parts of the country to drug gangs and tied to the Los Angeles underground.  The reign of death is hard to defeat.

I leave the dinner early because I have to be back for Victoire’s last night at West-Park. I get there in time for Nick’s banjo set.

Nick Lantigua

And Rabbi Steve on uke again.

Steve Blane

And Pat O’s original about one of our nights at the Gate.

Pat O

And another stellar set by Mandola Joe.

Mandola Joe

And A set of ‘80’s rock by David Smythe and another David S and then Victoire’s farewell set. We’re all moved by her emotional response to her time with us.

Victoire

Then it’s my turn. I invite Vic up to join me on  my Queen of the Factory Town, which she had me write down so that she could learn it. She gives me a harmony and I feel great to have her sing with me. 

harmony

Then Pat O comes up to join me on You Never Even Called Me By My Name, by Steve Goodman for David Alan Coe. I change the lyrics for our crowd and do my own version of the spoken word part in the  middle. Finally, Mandola and Victoire and young Jeremy and Pat O all join me on Long Black Veil with Mandola sharing my mic.  And most stay on stage for RL’s Stay Awhile.

Stay Awhile

That moment, singing Long Black Veil with a full stage, harmonies all around--- it’s as close to happy as I get. The constant  frustration and stress fly away while voices join and I play rhythm to Pat’s lead and Joe’s mandolin.

We will all go out together to celebrate the night. Au Revoir, Victoire....

Thirty -sixth day of Lent: Today is the first day of Passover

4/19

Today is the first day of Passover. I send greetings to Mim, Ted and Asya, Jon and Alice. This celebration of liberation, of freedom from bondage, of escape from mitzrayim, the narrow space informs our vision, helps us to put up with frustrations and move towards a call, a witness that goes beyond any one  of us.

The roofers aren’t coming. Wet weather predicted. But plumbers arrive and start tackling  the drain situation. The work is only partially complete. 

John arrives to update our budget issues. It’s not quite the disaster that seemed to be happening. But close. We just might make it. We’re reviewing the Woodshed contract, getting ready to close the deal with them. 

Rochone comes and we begin to make this an official relationship. Her job will be  to make these concerts happen. While we are working on all this, James comes in, back from his chemo session at the hospital. Amanda and James greet one another warmly. Last summer, they together  created the office we’re now sitting  in. 

We get our computers compatible. Plumbers, roofers, meetings to be scheduled. Amanda and Danielle begin to work on contact lists. Arnaldo walks in through the open doors.

Salvadoran. We start going through mutual connections. I recall my lunch with (then) US Ambassador Dean Hinton. Arnaldo worked for Dean Hinton. I recall my meeting with   Roberto D’Aubisson, believed to be in command of the death squads. His Cherokee with the smoke glass windows.  My visit to the orphanage where the murdered US nuns worked. Where they served us a Thanksgiving dinner en estilo norteamericano. The children scattering in fear as an American  helicopter hovered overhead. I remember going to the body dump. Viewing the photos of los desaparecedos, murdered and mutilated, at the archdiocese office. Guards with automatic weapons in  front of Mc Donald’s and shopping malls. The intense surreal feeling of Salvador in the ’80’s. Arriving there a couple of days after my colleagues because of my trip to Guatemala. The semi-dazed look in the eyes of my friend Doug when he met me saying, I can never be the same after this, Arnaldo is bringing all that back. 

He has been in the home of my good friend and mentor, George. But this visit has to do with his interest in the church. He was part of the group of Columbia volunteers who gave a day of labor last December. He’s still interested. Take down his information.

The plumbers are dealing with the ruins of the drainage system. But its not easy.