We asked a young man to show us around behind the scenery of tourism. He showed us a unique world where people live their extraordinary everyday lives. Welcome to Coxen Hole!
We meet outside of 24-year-old Joseph Woods’ house, which he has built next to his mother’s home on his grandfather’s land three years ago. Two little boys are playing and run around shouting “Papa” as they cling to his leg. Joseph, or Junior as he is called by most, works as a bartender at the restaurant “The Cove”, in Community of Palmetto Bay approximately mid island on the north shore of Roatan. It’s Monday and Juniors day of work so he has agreed to show us around his neighboring, areas and parts of his hometown which he appreciates but that most tourists do not venture into.
“Show me your Coxen Hole!” I asked him a few weeks earlier where I was sitting in a corner of the restaurant writing on one of my book manuscripts.
Junior put the Honduran beer bottle “Imperial” down in front of me. The young man who grew up and has spent all his life on the island in a small town Coxen Hole, named after the pirate John Coxen (Coxon), looked at me, slightly insecure.
“Instead of me suggesting what I would like to see, please show me what is important to you, what you would like me to see and experience” I elaborated. He nodded.
“Yes, Mister Roger, I can do that!”So here we stand, excited to see his “Coxen Hole”. Their houses are located by a small pond made from a natural spring. It is his family’s source of fresh water which, is said to have been there from the time the Mayan Indians used to lived on the island. A skinny looking little local duck swims around in the murky water.
Our cheery guide is wearing shiny clothes, a cap that says “Captain”, and a disposable mask insecurely fastened behind the ears. There is still a hint of uncertainty in his eyes. He migh think: “Will we be happy with what he has to show?”
“The day is yours, lead on through your Coxen Hole, my friend” I reassure him.
We wave to his sons as we set off on foot. Angela Junior and I. As we walk, Junior and Angela are talking about the plants we see as we pass them and how the locals might use them, as I begin to absorb the surroundings like a visual artist absorbing landscape. The difference being that I paint with words. I am completely engulfed by this world of small shops called “pulperias”, wooden houses in pastel colors built so close that they create small narrow passages with uneven paths where people can walk, the children are playing, dogs barking, bluetooth speakers pumping out music, and people relaxing in hammocks in the shade, smile and wave as we pass by.
Joseph walks us up a hill to a big white iron gate with “Methodist Bilingual Educational Center” across it. As with most other schools, here in Honduras it is closed due to the pandemic. We enter into the school yard.
On the second floor of one of the school buildings we meet a female librarian. The surrounding walls are covered with books needed for the children from first to twelfth grade. Her mask flutters from her breath as she clearly shows her despair that the bilingual school is closed. She hopes that it will be reopen at the start of next school year, in February 2022.
Joseph and I go outside while Angela continues to talk about the educational system on the island with the librarian.”Did you go to this school, Junior?” He shakes his head and says that here was where he usually played ball with the students and friends after school, but he went to school at the church he belongs to, which is owned by the congregation “Church of God” down in the town centre. You can’t enter the church if you are not covered, men must have long sleeves and full length trousers, and women must have longe skirts and long sleeved tops. And as we are wearing shorts and T-shirts and where as Angela is wearing a dress with straps and not sleeves. Going to see his church is not feasible. Not this time.
The Methodist school we are at is both exciting and nice, but what catches my attention is at the end of the small sports field in the schoolyard, there is a solid tombstone under a frangipani tree covered with white flowers.
“They say that there is a little girl who is buried here and that she haunts here at night. She died a long time ago, long before I was born “
He goes on to say that the tree has stood there for as long as he can remember and that the story is ancient.
On the way down to the “Mount Hoole Methodist Cemetery” which is right across the road from the deserted cruise ship docks due to the pandemic, we meet a barking dog with a rasta dreadlocks on his hindquarters, who quietly accepted us after Angela has had a long talk with it.
Relatives of the deceased buy the coffins from the funeral home and then build the tombs with cement themselves. The poorest with only a mixture of cement and mud. Then names and some loving words are handwritten in the cement before it dries. Some families tombs are built in levels, with the oldest tomb dug slightly int the soil, then with unto two more onto of it. No one tends the cemetery and some graves are clearly deteriorated from age. A distorted masonry cross has cracked, so the rebar is visible. Elsewhere, there is a top level tomb still open at the end, just awaiting its “tenant.”
After walking around between the graves, I feel a sudden sharp pain in my feet and realise that I have hundreds of prickly seeds sitting to my socks and sneakers. Possibly a sign that I should have stay away from this places?
While Angela patiently picks away the all the seeds one by one, a little boy comes and across to us and proudly shows off today’s catch, which is nothing less than a barracuda.
“Aren’t they dangerous?” I exclaim.
“They can attack you if you are wearing something shiny, such as jewellery while swimming, because it can be perceived as bait,” Joseph replies. “But they are not really dangerous for humans.”
Well, I remember having heard stories of people being attacked by them.
But the boy smiles. The Barracuda is dinner for his family today. This is how many people live here, one day at a time, literally on a day to day basis and even more so in these times of COVID, where most of the tourism brutally glares with its absence. Many families are without income, and often depend on what the sea has to offer as to have food on the table.
Our next stop is the “Jungle Top Adventure”. Junior tells us this was where he had his first job. And that young William the grandson of the owner, who is going to be our guid, was born while working here. The place has several “zip-lines” where you can enjoy the view form above the jungle canopies, feeling the thrill of speeding through the air from platform to platform and walking over suspension bridges from treetop to treetop clipping in with harnesses on double lines.
They also have various animals and birds in cages that we can greet and feed. Angela and I are honestly not very happy that animals are kept in cages for peoples amusement. In general there is nothing in the cages to activate, or stimulate them.
We pay $ 15 per person to owner Randy Rivers and walk up to the cages.
William knocks on one of them and wakes a sleeping Kinkajou, also known as a Honey bear. The nocturnal animal comes tumbling out of his wooden house, after this we are greeted by parrots, feed a toucan, get hugged by some sloths and had a bunch of spider monkeys jumping around us climbing on our heads and shoulders. We said it was not necessary to wake this poor little “night owl,” but our young guide insisted, and was sure we must love to see this poor little tired and grumpy little sweetie, torn out of his sweet dreams for our amusement.
What we were really looking forward to see was the butterfly park. We have had an incredible experience elsewhere the year before and enjoyed the diversity inside a huge netting cubicle. Unfortunately, there was only a couple of butterflies left all from the same specie, the same one as we have in our garden. Which our guid did not know the name of. The man who normally worked with the butterflies, and who was the one who had the necessary knowledge had quit during the time the island had been in lockdown.
We bid farewell to William and thank him for the guided tour give him a nice little tip that he quickly puts in his pocket. We continuing down towards the town centre, Coxen Hole has a population of just over 5,000. The count is never accurate as the Bay Islands are part of Honduras and no one really knows who comes and goes from Mainland Honduras to the islands.
Junior seems to greet everyone he passes. He is undoubtedly well known in the local community and seems to be well liked by the people we meet. We stop at a newly established open air bar with a small beach where customers can relax, called “The Walk Of The Leaders”. Here we meet an expat who originally comes from Switzerland, he has already left his mark on the place by hanging the characteristic Swiss flag with the white cross, in several places. His dog starts to ask for attention, a miniature schnauzer. The man sits down and with a beer bottle in one hand and a cigarette in the other, he tells us in broken English that he has lived here on the island for the last 15 years.
Junior has something he wants to show us.
“I enjoy where I am working now, but I want to develop and grow. Do you want to look at my new project?”
We nod. Junior takes us to a small pub sandwiched between a hairdresser and a residential house, with the back end facing the sea, which is clearly under growing reconstruction and renovation. The entrance way consists of a parrot perched at the top of a tree stump and bamboo sticks along the edges with a large iguana climbing down it, all cast in cement. The place will eventually become the bar “Spot”. His brother Frederick and Junior will run it together when the renovation is complete. The place is not far from the cruise ship quay so the chance that they will have some of the passengers as customers is more than likely. As there are always those who only want to relax and stay close to the ship while they are at the quay. All of course when the cruise ships start sailing again after COVID. He is especially proud of the parrot that adorns the entrance.
We thank Junior for the tour of his kingdom. We have gained new insight into a world tourists rarely see. We have met people who are content to live behind the scenes, behind the tourist machine which at the moment is barely a memory of what it was, but which will probably pick up eventually as the world opens up again from all the travel restrictions. We have been searching for the soul of the city and I definitely think we have seen a small part of it. It is definitely diverse. The islanders are exiting ,diverse and fragmented, like the colours in a kaleidoscope . Their predecessors brought to this hemisphere as slaves from Africa long ago, or Indians from the mainland, mixed with the Spanish conquistadors. Perhaps the most important thing is that every one of them we have had the pleasure to meet are lovely!
On the way home, my thoughts go to the little girl in the grave under the flowering tree. What happened to her? She is lain to rest under a beautiful tombstone separate from all the other graves, and in stark to the others graves down at the graveyard. What is the story behind her as a ghost? Well, trying to trace her short life story may be a project for a later day. Meanwhile, her ghost floats around the corners of the house in the gloom and darkness of the night at a school high above Coxen Hole….
(This article is from June 2022)