TRANQUIL LATINO TRAVELS

In the 1994 edition of the Coll Magazine, Caroline Thom described a visit to Cuba. This year her work with Project Trust has taken her to Central America.

A beaten up taxi took us away from the dimly lit, mosquito ridden Honduran airport to a down town hotel. We woke to the sounds of a car horn, glanced quickly at the clock and panicked. We thought it was 7.15 am, that we had overslept and only had 45 minutes to catch our next flight.

Flinging our drying knickers into spewing suitcases, we raced downstairs and woke up the night clerk and two security guards. I ran up and down empty streets in vain search of a taxi, whilst Debs waved the tickets and phrase book about, explaining to the men the urgency.

I eventually stopped a lone man in a car who told me I was mad to run about such a dangerous place at 3.00 am. At first I thought he was drunk, then I began to notice how dark and deserted the streets were. We consulted the clock again, realised we had misread 2.40 for 7.15 and skulked back up to bed where we lay laughing for an hour.

When we checked in at the airport, clutching our tickets with confirmed reservations, we were told there were no seats for us. No matter, they put us on the flight anyhow, what's a few extra people in a 20 seater plane when you can squash them into the aisles?

At the island airport the taxi driver fought over who was going to take us to the school. We bumped along the roads overtaking women with multi-coloured curlers in their hair, an evangelist waving his bible on the street corner and men propping up carts selling individual cigarettes for a penny.

We saw volunteers in Honduran schools tackle notoriously unruly pupils. In one class Dwain was asked to read aloud, but Henry wanted to and aired his complaints vociferously in his thick Caribbean accent before slamming on his desk and sulking. When asked why the man in the story had had an accident, the reply came "he no lookin' and he drivin' hard and he smokin' drugs an' drinkin'." Meanwhile Eros hummed La Bamba loudly, Henry threw paper about and Halcie stole juice from someone else's flask. None of them sat still for more than a minute. At break time they jostled in the queue to buy the standard fare of tortillas and beans and coke served in a plastic bag with a straw.

It wasn't always easy to find projects in a country which has no street names. One address was 'the house opposite the pulperia (grocery) to the road right of the cinema'. Which cinema? Which road? In the towns we watched a salsa band sweat it out in the central square and moved amongst candy floss sellers, money changers and blind men shaking begging bowls. We stripped ourselves of all jewellery, watches and stuffed money into our bras, hoping we wouldn't have to extract cash in front of startled eyes.

Next stop Guatemala, where we arrived late after I was held up at immigration because my passport was blue and Debs' was red. We were whisked off to a reception for British Embassy staff where, from a balcony, we watched Pacaya volcano erupt, reminding us that at any time the overdue earthquake could come. At the end of the evening we were wished a "bloody god time in Guatemala!" Watching the volunteers' lessons was far more peaceful than in Honduras, but they were adult students who wanted to learn English or had to for their job.

We took buses everywhere which were covered in religious icons and stickers. No standing passengers were allowed, so when the bus passed police road blocks those standing were yelled at to duck down whilst a ball of money was thrown at the police as a bribe. On the way to a new project we got a lift with a man who told us he had pneumonia whilst coughing all over us. The orphanage was reached by boat and we spent the night in a converted chicken shed, eating beans and out of date US army beef stew whilst children clung to our legs. The mealtime conversation was about Juan's prolapsed rectum. We returned grimy to the city sitting next to three young brothers sent alone to the market, the oldest was barely six. The bus passed by villages where, in recent years mass genocides where inflicted on the indigenous population by the military. In such beautiful country it would be easy to forget about the darker side.

We left the Central America regretful that there was no chance to see ancient Mayan ruins, lakes overshadowed by volcanoes and traditional market towns. At the same time we longed for a hot bath, comfy bed and people talking in a language we fully understood. However, we returned with a few more Spanish phrases (but British passports an be red or blue) and we'd learnt how to replace a child's prolapsed rectum.

Caroline Thom