La
Moskitia |
| March 3, 2000-
Honduras |
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Is
it a place, a people, or a pesky insect? I think it's
all three. Visiting the wilderness area on the Caribbean
Coast had piqued my interest because of its' relative
inaccessability. On Roatan I met someone from the
Moskitia who was willing to take me into the tiny
jungle village where her family lived. And so the
adventure began. First, a one-hour flight from La
Ceiba on a Russian 15 seat twin-prop plane to the
village of Ahuas. Then a three-hour ride in a dugout
canoe. (Ok, it did have a motor) Then finally a thirty
minute walk from the rivers edge, down a path to the
village of Wawina. |
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My
guide was Laura who is from a family of 13, most of
them living in the same village and most of them on
their way to having large families of their own. They
live in small wooden houses built on stilts, one flight
up from the ground level. Often there were two separate
one room buildings; one for the kitchen and the other
the communal bedroom. |
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latrine was yet another small raised building. But
it was several hundred yards away and shared by several
families. No electricity, no running water. I was
a long way from the Holiday Inn. Moskitia is one more
thing; a language. It is spoken by everyone in the
village, with spanish spoken as a second language
by a minority. Many of the breadwinners of the families
traveled many hours each week to work someone elses'
farmland only to return to their families for a day
at a time. (Based on the size of their families they
must be coming home for sex, but I still couldn't
figure out where they did it with so many people around
and so little privacy.) |
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I
attended an evangelical church service, tried iguana,
and met most of Laura's extended family. After two
nights I was more than ready to head back to the relative
comforts of the Third World. |
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