Rattan; Ruatan; Gujam; Isle de Leyn

By Jorge Agurcia Fasquelle
Having lived there for a couple of summers, while on breaks from college, I became acquainted with a few of the many wonderful things that make life in the Island of Roatán, Honduras, a waking dream of magical dimensions. Although the days were filled with sunlit beauty and much underwater excitement, I will never forget the nights.

The distant sound of dominoes being slapped down onto a table in synchrony with the tumbling of a bass guitar leading a reggae riff was my customary lullaby. Also, a faint trace of coconut oil -- my laundress probably used it to soften her skin -- was always present in the linen, mixing sweetly with the scent of hibiscus carried into the room by the briny night air. These impressions, the ones that would almost always complete my days’ events in Roatán, will be with me forever.

Sleep would generally find me lying in bed, resting silently content and locked in my customary eye duel with an enormous and translucent island gecko in the rafters. One otherwise fine evening, my roommate slammed the door so hard that the poor gecko lost its grip. It landed with an unconventional smack, right on my chest. To say that these animals are notably clammy and cold is an unreserved understatement. I still wonder which one of us (the lizard or myself) enjoyed that particular experience the least, as it did move off me with unmistakable alacrity.

Visitors to Roatán are greeted by abundant beauty, first above and then below the water.

Topside, one's eye delights in tones of neon blue and turquoise green; the beguiling hues of a vast Caribbean Sea that gently laps beaches of peach-colored sand which seem to stretch all the way to a setting sun in the distance.

Below, a forest of sea sponges spreads along the length of a reddish wall of coral, itself teeming with life. As you follow a school of tropical fish through a crack that guides you towards "big blue”, your mind wanders with the tick-ticking sounds emitted by the feeding Parrot Fish intermingled with the hypnotic cadence of compressed air and bubbles passing through your regulator. All the while, you are floating freely like an astronaut in space... not a care in the world.

But actually, what struck me most while there were those comments I heard islanders making to account for some of the most unusual happenings around their home. For instance, there’s the time a lady in Oak Ridge lost her parrot only to find it, squawking away in a neighbor’s tree, voicing with eloquence the offer of an “Easter ass’n,” (a beating) for her owner. Also, there’s the time a fellow got caught by his wife with another girl. Upon being confronted, he proceeded to announce himself as somebody else, strenuously denying he knew anything of the man she was married to, saying, “I done tole you, I ain’t myself todee.”

Taken together, they make a strong case for keeping all birds duly confined.

Finally, there’s my all time favorite. Since the Bay Islands are pretty much in the way of most tropical depressions passing through the Western Caribbean, many islanders have come to terms with storms and their effects, making light of their sudden unpredictability: “Mon, you know... bod ting’s a horrikeen got no rudder, mon!” (11/29/11)

Note: The author is a free-lance writer. He was a permanent contributor to Honduras This Week, under the by-line "The Leeward Course." Editor of the INCAE student magazine, "Vínculo," retired banker, taught business ethics at university, Knight of the Order of Malta, and was awarded the Commander's Cross of the Order Pro Merito Melitense in 2001 for his volunteer work; he lives in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.