Through the luminous blonde sheen of a half-empty bottle of Barrena, Don Max stares at me with his stiletto eyes.
“Cofradia-buena gente, lugar feo.”
Cofradia-good people, ugly place. His obviously well-considered word choices amounted to a miniature epiphany for me. Since arriving about one month prior, I had been struggling for the perfect one-liner to describe my new hometown in Honduras. I guess it would take a lifelong resident to come up with the most appropriate expression of WHERE WE NOW LIVE.
What exactly is Cofradia the place? Cofradia is an unadorned, absolutely unglorious pueblo of rough-hewn dirt streets that turn into sinister streams of mud when there is a heavy rainstorm. These streets are lined with volcanic piles of trash, most of which will never biodegrade. In Cofradia, cramped, drab gray houses hug the streets in disorderly rows and do not feature nearly enough surrounding vegetation to make them look remotely appealing. Ubiquitous pulperias, selling the same combination of imported junk foods and domestic unhealthy processed meal items, are interspersed with specialized shops selling second-rate clothing, plain shoes, copious school supplies, and functional household items, whose attendants look as though they are attending a funeral. For a town of relatively modest size, Cofradia has more than an average share of barber shops and beauty salons, which serve as chattering social outlets as much as places for rapid self-beautification. Some tucked-away comedores are serving honest typical food, prepared with love, sweat, and a lot of vegetable oil. The central park of Cofradia is so utterly unspectacular that the few bare trees and thinly spread concrete benches can be seen practically weeping for more gloss. There are only a few official health clinics in Cofradia, and in the early morning, there are always long lines of miserable-looking adults and sickly children waiting for an appointment that will probably not be diagnostic enough. Legions of dilapidated dogs and disheveled old men in crumpled sombreros roam the unpaved avenues all day long, like zombies searching for a larger purpose in life beyond mere survival, adding a slightly eerie and macabre effect to the whole place. Cofradia does have a fairly impressive soccer stadium, whose grass is regularly mowed the old-fashioned way, by hunchbacked men using dull machetes. Unlike towns of its size anywhere in Mexico, Cofradia does not prioritize loud and chaotic fiestas in which fireworks shoot off in all directions, and stumbling campesinos serve you firewater in tiny little vessels. Perhaps the cruelest aspect of the physical environment of Cofradia is the immaculately paved and unfailingly smooth boulevard that goes from the entrance to town, off the Pan-American Highway, to the central park. Lined with luxuriant sub-tropical trees, this half-mile-long stretch of road gives the first-time visitor the wonderful illusion that order and beauty lie beyond.
What exactly is Cofradia in terms of the people? Cofradia is an unpretentious pueblo of simple, serious, reserved, hardworking, mostly veracious men, women, and children, a town of maquiladora mornings and small farming plot afternoons. Dirt-besotted radiant children kick around makeshift soccer balls as their hatchet-faced parents huddle in quiet corners and discuss the latest tragedy highlighted in La Prensa, becoming slightly more animated only if it happens to have occurred in Cofradia. The movement of people in Cofradia is quiet, unfocused, and laid-back. The normally intense heat here means that nobody feels the sort of lame gringo urgency that causes many Americans to have premature heart attacks and take stress-induced overpriced retreats to pretentious faux-Buddhist meditation centers. One does not pass by another person in Cofradia without at least offering a wave of the hand, or better, yet, a few actual words such as “Hola” or “Adios” (the former if one intends to stop and chat, the latter if one intends to simply pass by). The people of Cofradia, like all Hondurans it seems, are absolutely sincere in their fatalistic mediocrity, and utterly beautiful in their earnest attempt to make do with the bad card that history has drawn for them. Adult Cofradianos are usually sturdy and dignified, proud not of themselves as much as their dreams for their children, who need not be condemned to the same limitations as they have been condemned. Despite the profound poverty in many areas of Cofradia, there is not much visible panhandling, with only the odd random urchin or intoxicated senior stretching a palm out for a few lempiras. Perhaps because it is located on the cusp of the fastest-growing industrial zone of Honduras, Cofradia is a place where hard work is valued, and begging stigmatized. There is also a scarlet letter here on open intoxication; it seems that all the drunks in town have no choice but to congregate in the loosely scattered billiard halls, which are automatically and unequivocally dens of ill-repute which no decent person would enter (females are in fact banned entirely). In stark contrast to the billiard halls, there are many more churches scattered around town, adhering to various Christian denominations with differing interpretations of the Bible and the same inflexible animosity toward Charles Darwin. There is also a single, centrally located Catholic Church whose lofty and unlovely spire hangs over the pueblo like an imperious sentinel. At night, the Christian churches emanate cadenced clapping, joyous voices, and cheesy synthesized Jesus music, just loud enough to ensure that anyone, anywhere in town, will hear what is going on, even if they wear earplugs. It is almost as though the parishioners of these churches are purposely trying to hypnotize the few remaining heretics into dropping everything and coming into their fold immediately. The people of Cofradia do not laugh out loud but rather giggle awkwardly when a joke is told as if a wholehearted chuckle would do mortal damage to the carefully crafted façade of seriousness that they must diligently maintain. Cofradia is a place where joy is muted and fun is normally had behind closed doors as if carefree entertainment should be only a private affair. People here wake early and go to bed even earlier, and by nine at night, the whole place is eerily quiet, nearly every window and door tightly shuttered as if expecting a hurricane to arrive, or a barrage of rioting thieves. Fear is epidemic here like some kind of psychological cholera-unverifiable gossip featuring ghastly corpses infests minds young and old, and just about everyone has a horror story to tell of a relative, or themselves personally, being robbed, raped, or otherwise violated. This sort of virulent fear hardens Cofradianos at the same time that it makes them more sensitive and vulnerable. One could easily sit down here, think about most people’s lives, and have a good, hard cry. But that would be unfair and even offensive to the average Cofradiano, who does possess at least a kernel of aggressive self-empowerment waiting to bubble to the surface. People do not revolt here like in other parts of the oppressed and long-colonized Third World, and for an outsider like me, trying so hard to understand what drives people to be so cowed and silent in the face of blatant injustice, that fact itself can be a revolting thing.
Clearly, Cofradia the place is not meant to be loved, or cherished by either Hondurans or foreigners. It may not even be a place that one could like much. Locals seem to dislike the place as much as anyone, if not more so because, unlike visiting gringo teachers who can stay here for a year and then move on, many of them will never have the chance to leave. Civic pride is virtually unheard of here. Cofradia is a place where one lives and works, where one hopefully finds a way to do more than survive (the number of loosely scattered wealthy people living in barbed wire fortresses here clearly indicates that not everybody is just surviving). It may not be a place where one would choose to live if there was more work elsewhere, but for now, it is home to about 30,000 folks who lack a better option.
Upon further reflection, our volunteer team is here in the unglorious pueblo of Cofradia, and not in a truly attractive place like Gracias or Copan Ruinas, because this town has little to recommend it. About half of the people in the world, who earn less than U.S. $2.00 a day, live in places like this or worse, trapped in a cycle of poverty that Western colonial barbarism, from the 15th century onwards, has created so consistently and callously. Only 20 percent of the people in the world live in the much-vaunted West. Looking at it from a dialectical perspective, the beauty of the small town where my wife and I had been living in Vermont for the past three years is the opposite side of the coin that makes Cofradia so ugly and desperate. Our taken-for-granted Northern opulence and luxuries effectively deny Southern opportunities and, for majorities in some societies, the chance for even basic needs to be met. For our volunteer team to share in the deprivation and rigor of the physical environment of Cofradia, is for us to share in the deprivation and rigor that marks the places in the world where most people live. We will all grow from our exposure to the realities here, to whatever degree that is allowed, and be more competent global citizens as a result.
Clearly, in contrast to Cofradia the place, Cofradia the people is supposed to be loved, admired, and cherished to the fullest. I sincerely feel that way about most of the residents of my adopted hometown. Their attitude towards me, as a volunteer administrator of a team of volunteer teachers here to educate 168 of their children and give them better opportunities for the future, has been genuinely welcoming and warm in the most unconditional manner I have ever experienced, anywhere. Being a gringo volunteer in Cofradia is like being an instant celebrity, without even having to work at it. Infants yell out at you from behind dark windows, saying “Hola gringo.” Old men sitting around and sharing a pot of coffee stop their fervent discussion of the price of corn to greet you and invite you into their conversation. Young women smile at you awkwardly and, with slightly downcast eyes, try really hard to find the right words to say. Packs of children follow you down the road as if you were some kind of mystical prophet, or enlightened extra-terrestrial coming down to Cofradia to shower them with benevolence. In the face of all this easy warmth and popularity with multiple generations, I often wonder why not a single person here has ever told me to go screw myself, or at the very least, to go home to the United States.
In my heart, I don’t need to go home to the United States, because I realize that Cofradia, despite its physical limitations, is my home. Cofradianos have consistently made it so.
