Once, not so long ago that I have forgotten the details, we were with a group of people about to disembark to the island of Roatan. When we returned, one brave soul remarked that she was glad to visit Central America for the first time.
And it was true that we were on an island that was part of Central America. On disembarking the cruise ship, we were met by people singing and having a good time. A musicologist might quibble, but using the Blink principle, we were able to capture the essence of the folk music of this beautiful island.
We walked slowly up a pathway to a series of buildings, few air conditioned, in which the t-shirts that appear to form the bulk of local wear are sold. They are quite colorful and amazingly appear in English slogans, marking almost surely a holdover from the 1870’s colonial period of the island. After sampling some of the coconut rum on offer at a local shoppe (note the regional dialect’s influence on spelling), we walked into the main town.
This island has an amazingly simple lifestyle centered on a folk religion based on emulating flying through the use of lines. The younger folk “zip” around the village from eating place to eating place while the rest of us ride on “magic chairs,” plainly a carry over from early forms of Roman Catholicism blended with local customs.
The food showed some American influence, one could order a hamburger after all, but a taste of the local “jerk chicken” reminded one that this was not Houston anymore. We were in land where high speed internet meant satellite and pirates had once buried treasure. In fact, a worrisome aspect of the island were the number of pirates one saw walking about in public. Is this the painful result of recent administrations letting our naval power shrink? We cannot be sure, but I know this: the shameless buccaneers would pose for pictures with us!
Perhaps the biggest shock to many of us was wood used in the native handcrafts. These were made of mahogany, a dark wood, but the inside of any craft was light like the most inexpensive pine. This remarkable arboreal find could revolutionize furniture in the states. This Honduran mahogany was light like pine, but had the outer color of the heavier wood: remarkable.
Everywhere we go in the Caribbean we see a serious interest in the African gem stone Tanzanite. This investment opportunity is only available to intrepid cross-cultural explorers and pays great cultural dividends as it aids the authentic national cultures of two continents.
As we stood at last on the top deck (Serenity) and looked over the island, one member of our expedition put it best: “When I look over this island, I can see the whole history of the region and also find a hot tub.”
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Like Mark Twain in Innocents Abroad, I have an odd relationship with most American tourism. I know enough to know what I am not learning, experiencing, and seeing. Yet the culture of the cruise ship itself is a weird success story where a toll gate keeper from Oklahoma can escape winter to see the world . . . sort of . . . and a young couple from Romania can meet some Orthodox Americans and be reminded that their grandparents prayers follow them. Maybe they will get married!
This much I know. . . nobody can know a place without decades in it, but mayhap there is some good in visiting. Perhaps. Maybe. Or better: perhaps there is a culture of vacationers and as I converse with these good people, mostly hard working and unpretentious, we can learn to love that sub-culture: the innocent abroad.
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