The Northwest Voice

By: Jacob Thompson

  Saw the article. Looks great. Thanks a bunch for your interest in our trip.

Here’s a little bit of my new year’s experience I thought I’d share with you:

We arrived for New Year’s Eve in a small Garifuna Village on the coast of Honduras. In front of a house, a wide planked shanty with loose corrugated steel roofing, flapping in the warm caribbean breeze stood a group of people. Two shirtless teenagers straddled large hand drums — their hair in gerry curls with beads at the end — and beat on the goatskin with their flat palms creating a deep resonate bass that seemed to shake the very bones of the locals. Three of the village elders sat comfortably in chairs, reclining with the comfort of their local firewater. One calls me over.

“Tu lempiras,” he says to me.

I hand it over and his hands grab mine in appreciation, the leathery skin felt separate from the man, his warmth distant, veiled by a body that has inevitably fished in the coastal waters his entire life.

He says to me, “Thank you. I am going to New York City, I will be gone for a very long time. I will miss this place very much. I want to never forget here. I want to be sent off with all the goodness that Honduras has for me.”

He still held firmly onto my hands grinning.

Three male dancers wore a motley assortment of women’s clothes, colorfully patterned with the shapes of doilies and scraps of old fishing nets were worn like dreads. Cardboard masks with crudely drawn faces exposed only their mouth, large lips, and incongruously white teeth, that would smile brightly before they entered the circle of onlookers cheering them on. In perfect unison with the drums, they would bounce, shake their bodies, tap their feet and jump high into the air. It was a dance for themselves and it was a dance with the music, each playing off each other. It was also a dance for the people, to ensure their health and a happy new year.

When they finished up and I was walking off, the man called me back over. His deep Caribbean accent fused with Spanish in a bouncy musical way.

“Thank you my friend,” he said. “I am glad you were here to see the dancing, to see how we celebrate the passing of a year. Please, never forget this place.”

Hope you have an unforgettable new year.