The Tour

Trujillo

Sunday morning: we went to Palm Sunday mass to perform our most recent show; the passion of Jesus called "El Asesinato De Jesus" for the Gospel. I didn't have to do the music, so I got to watch from in front of the stage rather than the side for the first time. When I say 'watch', I mean push my way through the groups of sweating people who all want to see the show, but don't know how to control their decoratively designed and folded palms purchased outside the church so that they stay out of the sightlines and necklines, and eyes and nostrils of those around them. 'Watching' also means avoiding the 4ft. tall grandmothers who shove their grandchildren between the crevices of sardined butts and hips so that they can push through after them and use the excuse that they have to follow the grandchild. So basically I stood on tip toes for the important, pretty parts and just listened for the rest.

After the mass we were on our way to Trujillo, a historic but non-touristy beach town where Columbus touched mainland Americas for the first time and the first capital of Honduras where sliver and gold exports once had to be protected by a Spanish fort from thievery of Caribbean pirates. Every body of water we passed whether it be river, stream, pond or swamp had someone swimming in it, trying to cool off from the nearly 100 degree heat, which legend says is normal for Semana Santa (Holy Week), no matter what week in March or April it falls on. Bougainvillea vines decorated the, I hate to say, overly-green landscape and red dirt falling from a deforested landslide painted dimensions into the 2-dimensional hills. We pass farms of palm trees lined perfectly at the diagonal, bridges that Brice keeps naming after those famous variations of 'penis' and hills that roll with rows of corn, pineapples, horses, and houses.

We arrived in Trujillo about 6 pm and were taken to a kind of parish center to eat dinner of scrambled eggs, hard cheese, refried beans and tortillas. Then we went to check out the Fort of Santa Barbara where we thought we might present the show. Edy, the director and a bunch of us thought it was such a beautiful space, but when we got back to talk to the rest of the people, including Joel, Yuma, Tony and some others they all said they didn't want to perform there. Yuma was the most adamant about it. He said, "No, we have to present in the church!" Of course, as usual I thought he was kidding, but he kept going. So we had to have a vote to see who wanted to be in the fort and who wanted to be in the church. When we voted only Heidi and I said the Fort, even after all the people said how cool it would be. We gave the boys a good talking to and asked for another vote. Then it was 3 to 3 because Wilson joined us, but still not all of the guys were voting...there were 14 of us on the trip and only 6 voting! So we decided to call Edy in who was smoking outside, to make the final decision as the director. He came in and said "I am in charge so I say we do it in the church." Heidi and I were angry because we knew the theatre wanted and needed to make a change to keep things fresh, after presenting this show for 20 years, but they wouldn't take up the challenge. Brice, Joel, and Tony got into arguing about who voted for who and why and Chito and Yuma and Heidi and I talked about the same and about why the boys who actually wanted the fort didn't raise their hand for it. We all went out for a walk to cool off and sure enough the beach air dissipated some frustration. The Bay of Trujillo was really lovely at night, with very few waves and a bright silver moon. I actually got Joel, who normally stays away from the water for fear of creepy animals and the inability to swim, to walk down the beach with me. Soon we had to head back to the convent where we were all spending the night, and Rigo pulled me aside to tell me the whole thing about the church or fort was a joke and nearly everyone was in on it! I couldn't believe Yuma got everyone to go along except Chito, Brice, Heidi and I! But none of them knew except me! The others didn't find out until the next morning when we headed to the Fort instead of the church. It was a great joke that they pulled off really well, but it also actually acted as a really good discussion starter and got people arguing about the problems of the theatre. Thank god it was a joke!

The next day we got up, breakfasted on scrambled eggs, hard cheese, refried beans and tortillas (again) and headed to the fort to set up lights and sound in the scorching sun with the salty breeze trying to cool us off. We got to go to the beach that afternoon to swim in the Bay with no waves and practiced summersaults, handstands, and chicken fights. Salted like bacon, we went back to the center to prepare ourselves for, what turned out to be one of the most incredible performances I have ever seen. More because of the location, the audience and the beautiful challenge it presented to our actors than because of how well the performance actually came out.

The Fort was packed with people lining the walls, sitting, standing and wandering. Nearly 1000 people! The wind was strong, blowing the hair and skirts and shirts of our actors. The lights were eerie, lighting the actors and continuing into the nothingness of air and ocean. The sound was full with both music and text reverberating off stone walls built by the Spanish centuries ago. The audience was enamored, especially the children that lined the front of the stage wide-eyed and attentive to every word that was said. And nature was cooperative with the rain waiting until after the performance, the wind our natural air-conditioning and the fireflies our footlights. The audience was amazing, applauding for everything and roaring when it came time for bows.

That night to relax and celebrate, we headed to a secluded Garifuna Bar (the indigenous population on Honduras's Caribbean coast), where they played real reggae and Caribbean hip hop and the dance floor was the beach. Joel and I just sat on the sand swaying to the music and listening to the waves coming in. What a beautiful town and a beautiful way to start the tour.

Bonito Oriental

Early the next morning we headed to Bonito Oriental which is a tiny-nothing town with a few treasures hidden behind dusty roads and crumbling houses. We set up lights and sound at this small building that was a school/community center and then were driven a good distance slightly into the surrounding hills. We turned off the main road and the air cleared of dust and smelled like citrus...like oranges...like someone had sprayed Citrus Lysol on the air molecules to clean them off. As I looked around I realized that God hadn't been busy spring cleaning, but that we were surrounded by orange trees! We pulled up to a cluster of white houses amongst the trees soon to be loaded with fully rip fruit. Each beautiful white house had a porch, with two rooms. Each room had 2 beds with a glimmeringly clean floor, shower and toilet as well as a ceiling fan! All wonderful treats for us.

We had the afternoon free until the evening show, so we headed to a river to cool off from the continuing heat. When we got there we dumped our clothes and all jumped in ready to be refreshed and shivering, but instead we found the water was like bathwater--warm and sticky like the baby had just had an accident during the nightly bath-- and full of nibbling fishes! We tried to go the shade and the falls to find a place with less people and cooler temperatures, but didn't have any luck. So after only about 20 minutes, we slurped out to go back to the houses to wash off the muck and guck and have a rest.

For dinner that night we were split up into two groups to go to 2 different houses because each family had donated a dinner to a certain amount of people. We got to a house where 3 women sat outside chatting and when we entered the ceiling dropped to make a dark living room where we all sat on comfy couches--Yuma, Edy, Heidi, Tony, Brice and I --chatting about movies and fun for almost an hour while the food was apparently being prepared. We got nervous when it hit 6 pm and the show was supposedly at 7 and we still hadn't eaten. But a couple minutes later, we were lead into the kitchen where the most beautifully arrayed but also very typical Honduran meal awaited us. Each place setting had its plate turned upside down with a crystal glass and a folded napkin inside it. The plate full of hot tortillas spiraled around the plate to form a yummy wheel of soft, chewy goodness sat next to the plate of 6 equally-sized oval clumps of beans in a star pattern, which sat next to the 6 fried eggs layered in a criss-cross with a dollop of sweet red salsa to colorfully paint the design of each egg. As we dished out each plate, we found the flavor was as beautiful as the design, making normally plain frijoles tickle the tongue with garlic and cumin and boring fried eggs caress the palate with a combination of salty and sweet. Freshly squeezed juice and the mandatory and always welcomed coca-cola accompanied the wonderful meal and sugar cane candy with the texture of fudge and the flavor of butterscotch topped off the delicious treat of a meal we were served instead of the messy plates clumped with dry scrambled eggs, sour cheese, and oily beans.

Full to the brim with grins on our faces we headed back to the school in the back of the pickup. On our way I watched a girl, no more than 5 leaning against the wall of a house, and a little boy come up to her from out of nowhere and kiss her smack on the lips. Then, as if in slow motion, the boy turned his head, saw us watching and ran in the opposite direction from which he had come, and the girl dragged the back of her hand and arm from elbow to fingertips across her lips and grimace at us as we passed.

We got back and had to wait nearly 2 hours for the performance to start, as the people just kept filing in, which really sucks for the actors, but it ended up being a really wonderful performance with a great audience. The kids in the front, as always were awesome, laughing and giggling at all the right places. There was this tall, dark man who placed his chair in the front of all the normal rows amongst the kids and every time anything Jesus-y or We-are-followers-of-Christ was said (which was often considering the play is Jesus' passion) the man would raise his hands and applaud like we'd just won the world cup. The actors ate it up and ended up packing in all the energy they could. Thus, by the time Chito was dying on the cross a woman in the front row was crying. One of those performances that make you remembers why you go to all the trouble to do theatre in the most remote places.

Tocoa

The next morning after a breakfast among the orange trees, we headed out to Tocoa, a lovely little town, much more developed than Bonito Oriental. We actually got to stay in a hotel called San Patricio where they had the coolest rooftop pool! People were getting a little sick of each other by this time, so after setting up the show in the community cultural center I decided to use the time to take a nice stroll around town by myself. I found a great ice cream bar with chocolate ice cream and dark chocolate coating as well as bunches of stores with used closing from the US. I waked into a few and found some cool shirts for myself as well as a cool Spiderman shirt for Joel...don't worry, Spiderman is for every aged boy down here, not just up to the age of 6. When I got back everyone was in the pool acting totally ridiculous and being dangerously sexy at the same time, water fighting and acting out stupid movie scenes and splashing each other and modeling sexy bikinis and posing with wet muscular bodies...ah what could be better than 10 dark skinned, chocolate eyed, long haired men with perfect bodies soaking wet and shining in the Caribbean sun...let me tell you, nothing...nothing is better. I just sat and took in the amazing view...completely forgetting all about the mountains and blue skies around us.

The show didn't turn out the greatest as it was a late show at 9 pm, the room was too huge and echoy and for the 2 hours we were there to prepare for the show, the electricity for the computer with all the music wouldn't work. But somehow, at 9pm, after trying different types of electricity chords and ideas, the computer just clicked on, and the show went as normal, though without any of the normal electricity and energy we normally have. We went out to this weird bar/convenient store afterwards and everyone got a little too drunk and got too little sleepy to be in a good mood the next morning. So needless to say, this show wasn’t my favorite part of the trip.

Sonaguerra

Sonaguerra means "war zone" because it was where the capital of Honduras was moved to for a while after Trujillo during the pirate wars to keep the important people safe. Now, however, it is a pretty much nothing place with a big Catholic school and community facility. As we started to set up, the boys decided that we would head home right after the show rather than spend the night there, which totally bummed me out, because it was Good Friday the next day and all the guys had families to go home to, but mine was at home celebrating with all our traditions without me, and I would be alone when we got back to Progreso. But I had no choice, so I bucked up and tried to have a good last day.

After setting up and before the performance, we went to a river almost 30 minutes away that we were sure would be empty and not warm like the other river. But as we drove up we encountered mountains of bikes like I have only seen in China and people piled under trees and tents and tables with food and beer and music. Leave it to Latinos to have a party to celebrate that Jesus would die the next day. Actually the real reason is that Holy Thursday and Good Friday are National Holidays in Honduras and everyone has the day off, so those that aren't religious find any kind of way to relax. So we passed all the people and tromped down a set of cement steps and across a shallow part of the river and around a small bend where Yuma and Esteban found a perfectly empty pool with a small waterfall flowing into it. We all stripped down to the bathing suits and headed in, soon realizing it wasn't like the other river at all...it was FREEZING...nearly Rocky Mountain cold! But we all still got in, enjoying the cool off and acting like idiots sticking our heads into the falls and shouting and modeling and tripping into the deeper parts of the pool. Heidi and Julissa and I were the only ones in the whole river with swim suits rather than shorts and t-shirts, so sure enough, on the rock ledges above the pool a group of about 40 men gathered to stare, whistle, ogle, and shout at us. Thank god we had out hot, strong men with us to protect us. We could only stand the cold for about an hour, when we went back to take naps before the show.

The late night car ride home turned out not to be so bad. Joel and I got two of the best seats in the van that is falling apart and spent the ride trading shoulders to sleep on. I told Joel about what the Lansings do after we leave the cabin: We always ask "What was your favorite thing?" and you have to pick a couple best things that you did. So I told Joel and then asked what his favorite part was, and without missing a beat he said "traveling with you." Awe how cute!

Ahem...cough cough...excuse that little romantic diary moment in my update...

So after 4 hours we arrived back in Progreso where the smell of luminarias and fire crackers from Holy Week celebrations filled the air. Even though the trip had to end early, it was an amazing experience with the guys, the country and the theatre.

After a week back in the theatre we had one more stop to make with this show, in Las Vegas.

Las Vegas

That's Las Vegas, Victoria, Honduras, not Las Vegas, Nevada. What a trip. We started at 8 in the morning at the theatre, packing up and heading out. The drive was lovely as it was sort of grey and cooler than normal, especially as we headed into the mountains. But an hour and a half into the ride...thud, thunk, trunf, flip, flop, flap... a flat tire. GRRR! We all piled out of the van as Walter and Rigo changed the front right tire. Joel was standing towards the back of the van when he heard a hissing. He looked down and realized the back tire was also loosing air! So we had to drive to the next small town where we hoped there would be a tire shop, but there wasn't so we pulled over, took off the back tire and Chito and Walter hitched a ride to the next town 25 miles up the hill to get it fixed. During the next two hours I chatted with the boys about every topic imaginable in the droopy sad van. Finally Chito and Walter got back and we headed out, only to find out that Edy and Wilson in the other car were still another hour and a half behind us as they had car problems too. We arrived around 4 pm...8 hours after we left for our supposedly 3 hour trip.

We searched around the town to find the priest's house, where we were warmly welcomed, but where there was no food ready--we hadn't eaten lunch as we were supposed to have it served in Las Vegas, and no one wanted to pay for their own food on the road. So we dropped our bags and had to go right over to church to set up. Well, thankfully the church was lovely, set up on a hill looking out on a valley and another grand mountain. We did our setup as quickly as possible and headed back for huge bowls of rice and beans and chicken and tortillas, pop and coffee.

When we arrived at the church after dinner at 7 we found that the church had been full since 6 and people were still gathering. As we started, the whole crowd quieted down, but with the show, energy buzzed through the crowd and they laughed and cried at all the right places. Of course it was the only night I didn't have my camera, and would have killed for this one shot during the show: because we were performing in a church there are windows along each wall, including the side of the altar-turned-stage. The windows don't have glass in them, and Hondurans have no qualms about watching or staring at anything, so the windows on both sides of the stage fill with people, as it is obviously the best seat in the house, though any gringo would bee too embarrassed to actually watch from there. Well the perfect arched-church window across from me was full of big macho guys all obviously there alone, so eager to watch the show, laughing hysterically at the jokes and solemn during the drama. To have a photo of these honest boys piled in the window with the actors in the foreground would have been amazing as it proves to me why we do this work, but I guess this written picture will have to do.

We headed back to the priest’s house, where it was now loaded with all the goodies...and even some stuff from the states since the priest is from the US: KEEBLER club crackers, cookies, coffee, pop, JIFFY peanut butter, homemade popsicles, chips, juice and even cigarettes for some of the boys. We all plopped down after this long, hard, and totally rewarding day to a bunch of junk food and Spanish soccer games.

And thank god the drive back the next morning only took us the normal 3 hours, ending our trip with a calm, perfect show.