Coming home Honduran community buries victims, grieves together

Her low, soft sobs are barely audible in the room at first, but her grief is palpable. “She’s a relative of one of the deceased,” another mourner explains. A young man begins to read Scripture to the crowd as three simple, galvanized-steel coffins covered with bouquets of flowers stand together at the front of the room.

The small chapel in Santa Lucia, Honduras, is a simple concrete structure devoid of decoration except for several homemade fringe hangings on the rafters, made from what appear to be green-checkered, paper tablecloths. A generator hums outside, powering the three light bulbs that illuminate the room. Inside, the mourners sit on wooden benches and plastic chairs, others stand in the back, and still more are gathered outside around the window openings.

Slowly but steadily, the young woman’s sobs grow stronger; she begins to moan. The crowd is quiet and serious-looking, but a few concerned faces turn to watch her as she cries out to God in her pain and anguish. Quickly her grief consumes her, and she slumps to the floor from the bench where she is sitting. A flurry of activity ensues as those seated near her rush to her aid and try to comfort her. The young man reading Scripture stops talking.

Nelin Alvarado lost not just her brother, Jose Santos Alvarado, to the tragic accident in Maine that took the lives of 14 men when a van carrying the foreign forest workers to a job site plunged off John’s Bridge in the Allagash; she also lost her husband, Alexis Ermelindo Alcantara. Seven of those who died were from the community of Santa Lucia or nearby towns in Honduras. The other victims, too, were friends and neighbors, and their losses were felt as strongly. The young widow is left to care for four young children by herself, the youngest less than a year old. Their future welfare is uncertain.

This same scene of grief and loss played out several more times during the first 17 hours of our visit to Santa Lucia. The pain is tangible here, but even more overwhelming is the sense of community. For the people of this small rural Honduran village located on the border with El Salvador, the world has stopped. Everyone has forgotten any other obligations or appointments they may have had and have come together in an extraordinary show of support for their friends and relatives. Strangers from neighboring communities also have come to grieve, to console, to pray.

The bodies of the deceased arrived Friday afternoon at the airport in the capital city of Tegucigalpa. The Honduran government arranged for transportation to bring the surviving family members to the airport, so they could accompany the remains of their loved ones on the long, three-hour journey home. In addition to the family members, a number of distinguished guests, including Honduran President Ricardo Maduro, Tegucigalpa Mayor Miguel Pastor, the military, the national police and members of Congress, participated in a ceremony held at the airport to honor and pay respects to these, their Honduran sons.

The families and their deceased loved ones left the capital in a convoy of pickup trucks. Hearses and the usual stately vehicles of funerals would be useless where they were going because of the terrain. Another ceremony was held in the central plaza of Aramecina, the municipal government seat for the area. Supporters from all over attended, including Aramecina Mayor Ruth Bery Cotreras Cruz and a governor. From there, each family began the sad journey back to their homes.

As we drove toward Santa Lucia on Saturday, I was struck by how very remote the area is. Roads were unpaved and rocky. To say they were full of potholes would be misleading. To my jarred bones, they felt more like craters and crevices. The road was filled with ridges from where the rains had washed away the dirt, like little rivers through a canyon. In a few places, the road was gone completely, and we cautiously drove through the stream covering our path.

It had been raining all day, and more rain was expected. We arrived at a bridge that was nothing more than an extension of the road over the water. The swollen river was almost flush with the bridge and there were no guard rails. I held my breath as we crossed slowly and tried not to look at the remains of a stronger bridge, washed away during the storms and floods of Hurricane Mitch just a few years before.

The terrain, too, was challenging, with steep inclines and windy curves the entire way. Nonetheless, the scenery was lush and green, the mountains full of pine trees. Photographer Stephen Katz remarked on how eerily similar it was to the area in Maine where the accident occurred. To most of us, that part of northern Maine would seem desolate; to the men who died, it might have looked like home.

We neared our destination, but made some unwanted wrong turns. It seemed that Santa Lucia (St. Lucy) is a common name for villages in this region. And with no map and few road signs available, we naturally followed the helpful directions the locals gave, neither party realizing that we were talking about different villages.

When we arrived at last just after dark, vigils for the deceased were in progress. These were held all night Friday, throughout the next day, and continued through the night on Saturday. The friends and relatives gathered at the first house we came to observed us curiously. They knew everyone from these parts, and we were strangers to their circle.

The stares were piercing, and although not unwelcoming, they approached to ask why we had come. Others had been there already, some just to verify the facts of this tragic occurrence, but others apparently with ulterior motives that have left them cautious, encouraging them to seek lawsuits at a time when they just need to grieve. We explained that we have come to share in their grief and to learn their stories so that others may come to know these men as they do. We were invited to come inside.

At each home, the coffin is on display in the center of the living room, usually with a photograph on top among the flowers. Mourners, mostly women, sit around the casket, some praying, some talking softly to each other, but most just sitting quietly. Occasionally, someone begins to sing a hymn, and the voices in the room join the slow, sad ballad. The mother or wife or sister cries and is consoled by friends. Outside the men, wearing cowboy hats, stand together and talk solemnly, shaking weathered hands with each new arrival.

Sunday morning everyone is up early, preparing for the burial to be held in Aramecina. Relatives busy themselves in the kitchen to offer warm milk or simple sandwiches to the supporters slowly streaming into the house. We are at the home of Dionisio Funez Diaz, the 54-year-old victim who leaves behind a wife and six children. During a quiet moment, I speak with Dionisio’s sister, Priscilla. She raised her brother and their four siblings after their mother died when they were still quite young. She feels his loss as strongly as a mother would.

Dionisio was “a hard worker, very dedicated to his family,” she tells me in Spanish. “He was handsome, humble, faithful … an excellent man.” The pride in her voice is unmistakable and tears slowly fill her eyes. Dionisio had left on May 17 to work in the United States, as he had been doing for the last four years. He would call and write regularly, but the separation from his family was difficult.

Another sister, Eva, who lives in New Jersey, mentions how she told him once to leave the hard, strenuous work in Maine and find better-paying work near her. “He would not,” she recalls in Spanish, “because he did not want to lose his visa and work illegally.” Instead, she encouraged him to return home to be with his family, but he told her he could not. He needed to earn a little more money to be able to complete construction on the house.

Priscilla points to an unfinished portion of the humble structure around us. The house is made of concrete with clay tiles on the roof. Simple wooden benches and tables furnish the rooms, and a bare light bulb hangs from the ceiling. “He built this home on his own, and he wanted to complete it from the money he earned in the states.”

Later that morning, we join the procession to the burial at the cemetery in Aramecina. The caravan of pickup trucks moves slowly as we travel back over the rough and rocky roads. We cross the low bridge once more and slowly make our way through the streets of the town. The procession stops, and everyone climbs down from the trucks.

As I watch the multitude of mourners ahead of us, I am unexpectedly moved to tears. The loss of these men, whom I’ve never met and whose families I am just beginning to know, has touched me deeply. Never again will I be able to observe a migrant or foreign worker back in the United States and simply dismiss his or her presence as I might have done in the past. For behind each one is a story, a family, a community.

We walk the remaining few blocks to the cemetery. Family members carry the coffins at the front and everyone else follows, singing again the mournful songs of the vigils. The throng passes through the gates and makes its way past graves marked with wooden crosses and rocks piled on top and falling off around them. The crowd gathers around an open grave, and the casket is opened one last time. Everyone presses in for a last look at the deceased.

The women begin to cry out. They question God’s plan in one breath and praise His name with the next. Prayers asking for strength and forgiveness pour forth. At last the lid is replaced, and men lower the casket into the earth with ropes. The sound of the dirt being shoveled onto galvanized steel resounds like a bell tolling through the cemetery. The low, soft sobs fill my ears.

Michelle M. Falck is a free-lance writer who is a native of Ecuador. She works as an interpreter in Washington, D.C.

Accident relief fund

A relief fund for the families of the 14 men who died Sept. 12 in a van accident along the Allagash Wilderness Waterway, as well as for survivor Edilberto Morales-Luis, has been established. Contributions to the Migrant Relief Fund may be sent to Peoples Heritage Bank, P.O. Box 607, Caribou 04736.