Captain's Log: Welcome to Honduras

Honduras, the Banana Coast

I think most of us like to think we're positive people: we try to put a good
spin on things and keep the whining to a minimum. Sometimes this might
require that we gloss over the details or soldier on in silence. But what
would happen if we were faced with real adversity, not just a bad hair day
but the kind of soul crushing stuff that threatens your very existence. The
kind of stuff that could kill you. Would it even matter if the glass was half
full or half empty?

Our tour guide for our bus trip to visit a farm in Honduras introduced himself
 as Oscar something, but claimed everyone has called him Smiley since he was
just a little boy growing up in Cuba. He certainly seemed cheerful enough to
be called Smiley. The bus was an old school bus from the States. It still had the
school name on the side. Smiley was pointing out some of the local historical
stuff (Christopher Columbus actually landed in Honduras on his fourth trip to
the new world and there was a fort that dated back to that time), but soon
ran out of things that might be interesting to a bunch of tourists. Did we know
he had come to the United States on a raft from Cuba? "Yes", he said, "I was
one of those!" and proceeded to tell us how he had tried and failed three
times before he made it on the fourth try. He was excited to tell us and
laughed his way through most of it. You would've thought he was doing
standup comedy, except he was talking about all the time he spent in a
Cuban jail from the failed attempts and how close to death he came on his
final successful attempt (the last person to join their four man team did die
just as they were about to be rescued). They were all so dehydrated from
their escape that they spent their first couple of weeks in the States in a hospital.

Not sure how he ended up in Honduras, but he looked like he was having a
great time. Of course, he made his escape from Cuba sound like Pee Wee
Big Adventure so he probably was enjoying himself tooling around Honduras
with a bunch of boat people.

Life is good. - John