Valentín and Dionisia Velásquez

My mother was small and fine-boned, but her hands were rough and the veins in her legs bulged out like ropes from all the time she spent standing. She had a soft soothing voice, yet when she got angry it grew piercing. She always encouraged me and my brother to do well; to be men.

By Guillermo Yuscarán
Such a campesino was Valentín Velásquez, who was forty by the time he married Dionisia Maldonado and sired his first son by her, José Antonio. But she was not his first wife, no was "Toño" his first child. An earlier marriage to Olegaria Martínez (who died in her early thirties) had produced two children, a boy (Florenico) and a girl (Adela), both of whom lived with their father and his "second family" by the river.

"I was never close to Florencio or Adela," Toño Velásquez said. "They were teenagers when I was born, and by the time I was seven or eight, they had left home. Adela became a school teacher. Florencio went to Tegucigalpa and worked as a telegraph operator. Once they were gone, I never saw them again, though they wrote to my father."

At five feet seven inches, one hundred and thirty pounds, Valentín Velásquez was dark skinned and slender, generally sporting a black mustache and wearing a white straw hat pulled low over his eyes. "He was always popular," Toño recalled. "The villagers came to him for advice; they trusted his judgment. He was not afraid to speak his mind; he was, you might say, a leader."

Descended from a long line of Velásquez farmers (of southern Spanish origin), Valentín was raised with strong religious convictions and a love of music which he imparted to his children. Both his father and grandfather had farmed the land, and he grew up toiling beside them in the milpas beyond the village. Later, he worked for the municipality as both secretary and accountant -- jobs which paid him little but which satisfied his sense of civic responsibility. Never, however, did he cease to work his own land, and when his sons were old enough, they joined him in these labors.

Valentín was also a musician, leader of an eight-piece band that performed frequently in Caridad, not only a private parties, but on all official fiesta days when the plaza central became a focal point for village celebrations. Though he played a number of instruments, including the guitar, accordian, and the violin, his favorite was the trumpet which, at one point, he sought to teach Toño. "But I didn't have the wind nor the ear to be a good musician," Toño said. "I played the violin for a short time and managed to make some agreeable sounds, but I never stuck with it... I still remember the evenings when my father's band would come to our house to practice music or to play cards. When they put their instruments down, my brothers and I would pick them up and play them. Our house was always full of music... I can still picture my father on fiesta days, standing in the plaza on the stage, playing his trumpet with the sweat running down his cheeks."

Like her husband, Dionisia Maldonado de Velásquez, traced her ancestry to the founders of Caridad, her own people being descendents of Spanish criollos from the north. In striking contrast to her dark-skinned ( trigueño) husband, however, Dionisia was extremely fair, a trait inherited by Toño. Indeed, she had none of the Indian characteristics of her older brothers, Gerardo, Jerónimo, and Antonio who, like their father, Pascuel (a man of Mayan extraction), were dark.

"My mother," Toño said, "was small and fine-boned, but her hands were rough and the veins in her legs bulged out like ropes from all the time she spent standing. She had a soft soothing voice, yet when she got angry it grew piercing. She always encouraged me and my brother to do well; to be men. I suppose, at first, she tended to protect me; she was fearful that I'd catch cold or get sick again; but that didn't last long. In time, I was treated no differently than my brothers. If anything, she expected more of me because I was older. My only problem was speaking, being understood. But she always understood. The most vivid memory of my mother is seeing her standing before a broken piece of mirror hung above the fogón (adobe oven) in our kitchen, brushing her hair; the same brush she used to spank us with.

"I can still visualize her in that kitchen -- cleaning, cooking, making tortillas. Behind her, on the walls, her pots, spatulas, soup spoons, and tin cups hung from nails. Overhead, on thin bamboo crossbeams, were the bunches of ripening plátanos she had tied there. Beside the fogón, to the right of our eating table, was a window which looked out onto the street, and beneath that window was the pila where my mother washed dishes. And I remember her feet! Yes, her feet -- so wide and brown, blending with the clay of the floor. My father was always promising to put a cement floor in the kitchen, but he never did. I liked that dirt floor. We all did. I liked he warmth of the fogón and the smells of soup pots where my mother made mondongo on Sundays while my brothers and I played marbles in the corner where the floor was flat." (12/29/11) (painting by José Antonio Velásquez courtesy Internet)

Note: The author is a North American writer and artist in Honduras, living part of the time in the town of Tela and the other in Santa Lucia. He is originally from California. His books include "Beyond Honduras: Tales of Tela, Trujillo, and Other Places", "Blue Pariah: Inside Honduras", "Canto al Mar: Canto to the Sea", "Conociendo a la Gente Garifuna", "El Dia de la Cruz", "Gringos in Honduras: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly", "Juan Felix Sanchez: Journey to the Andes", "Northcoast Honduras: Tropical Karma, and Other Stories", "Points of Light: Honduran Short Stories", and "Velasquez, the Man and His Art". His latest book is "Dream Journey". Purchase inquiries can be e-mailed to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .