Part 1 of a 4-part series

The accident that killed 14 foreign workers Sept. 12 in the Allagash Wilderness Waterway also destroyed their impoverished Santa Lucian families’ economic lifelines. The deaths of seven of the men in this tiny community near the border with El Salvador, close to the municipal seat of Aramecina, was especially devastating.

By most standards in the United States, the men did not earn a great deal of money. They worked hard planting and clearing the pine forests. But they went willingly, knowing that the steady income and hard currency would go far to help their families back home.

The region provides few, if any, employment opportunities. Most men find it necessary to work elsewhere, usually in the capital city of Tegucigalpa or in the northern region of the country, where tourism has helped to boost the local economy. But even those jobs provide little hope of improving their situations, since salaries paid in lempiras, the national currency, are low everywhere.

It was easy to understand why the men who died went through the tremendous burden of leaving behind their homes and families to work for nine months in the woods of Maine. But for the men still living in Santa Lucia, the chance is now gone for them to make that trip one day.

The men who went first obtained their jobs by word of mouth. The company would send letters of invitation based on the recommendations of someone already working there. The deaths of these seven men effectively broke the link.

Honduras, with a population of 6.5 million inhabitants, is one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere. Average per capita annual income is less than $600, and 53 percent of the population lives below the poverty line.

Nearly 55 percent of Hondurans are between the ages of 15 and 64 and considered members of the labor force. According to 2001 estimates, however, 28 percent of them are unemployed.

A recent U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) report noted that “more and more Hondurans are migrating to the [United States] for economic reasons. It is estimated that more than 600,000 Honduran immigrants live in the [United States], most of whom are illegal.”

Many donor agencies already are working to improve conditions in Honduras. USAID, for example, spent nearly $33.2 million in 2002 and has requested $40.3 million in funding for 2003.

“Poverty makes one leave,” says Sofia Gomez of Santa Lucia. Her husband left more than three years ago to work in the United States, but he went illegally. She believes he may have fallen under the spell of a richer life in America and has forgotten about her and their children.

It’s been years since his last communication. In the meantime, she must care for her 80-year-old mother, four children and two grandchildren by herself. One of her daughters, Dixia, 21, was left mentally retarded following a bout with polio as a child. Sofia has no access to social services to help care for her. Instead, the young woman spends the majority of her day locked in a bedroom. Her loud moans and shrills are constant.

Yet Sofia carries on. She is up by 4 a.m. to make the rosquillas (a type of pastry) that she carries into Aramecina to sell. There are days she can hitch a ride from a passer-by. Other days – most days – it can take an hour and a half. In addition, she owns a cow she milks and several chickens. She manages.

Sofia has a common perspective on the business of traveling overseas to work, and on the recent tragic events. “They go hoping to overcome [their poverty], and they find death. What would help everyone more,” she observes, “is if the local economy improved so no one would have to leave.”

She notes the practice of working in the United States has created subtle social class distinctions in the community. “Before, we still were all poor, but we were equally poor.” Now, with this additional income they have earned, some have been able to make improvements to their homes or acquire items the others do not have. But there is no bitterness or resentment in her voice. In fact, she seems almost content, if not resigned, to her lot in life.

Patrick Renkin, a local Peace Corps volunteer, agrees with Sofia. According to Renkin, “Honduras has the greatest concentration of [Peace Corps] volunteers per capita of any other country.”

Originally, his mission was to help build a higher, sturdier bridge over a river flowing through a neighboring village. Heavy rains often washed over the bridge, completely isolating the villagers.

But as Renkin and other volunteers worked with Hondurans, they realized an equally productive approach toward aiding the people in their communities was to help them understand why they need to stay in their villages and build them stronger from within.

“You can see why husbands and fathers are lured from places like this.” He stretched out his arms, gesturing to the huts around him. “Especially when they hear and sometimes see what life is like in the United States. The money is intoxicating,” he said.

Renkin is from rural West Virginia, and he has been tempted to leave his modest home and move to Washington, D.C., or Philadelphia for work and a better life. He chose, however, to come to Honduras.

“I don’t want to discourage these people from pursuing the dream of prosperity,” he said. “I want them to understand that they can realize prosperity here if they only build from within. It’s the old, ‘teach them to fish instead of giving them a fish rule of thumb.'”

When news of the deaths reached his community, a numbness enveloped everybody. Many young men had been vying for jobs in the United States. “All of a sudden I became a prophet. People finally realized what I was teaching,” Renkin said.

He and his new wife, Christina, a Honduran nurse, made the trek to Santa Lucia. She is a distant relative to several of the families. Christina was particularly concerned for her cousin Nelin Alvarado. Two days after the funerals of her husband, Alexis Alcantara, and her brother, Jose Santos Alvarado, Nelin is still holed up in her home just off the road to El Cantil, a tiny enclave of Santa Lucia. The house is dark.

Family members surround the grieving woman. Her wails are still as loud and wrenching as they were days earlier at the all-night vigil. Today is the day Alexis was to come home.

Nelin said her husband was coming home early because he was excited about seeing their newborn baby. It was their fourth child.

The day after the accident, before she was even notified, Nelin noticed a dramatic change with the baby. “He would not nurse. It was like he knew,” she said.

Each body was shipped back to Honduras with a suitcase and a Rubbermaid bin filled with personal effects. Nelin refused to open them. To do so would have been the final admission that Alexis was not coming home. At times, though, Nelin’s sorrow is replaced with anger, the kind of anger that is fueled by unanswered questions and fear of an uncertain future.

Life in El Cantil is hard. It is even harder for a single mother of four with no prospect of any income.

Nelin was told that Alexis carried with him all the cash he was earning. She wonders if it may still be in the van. Nelin’s sister pleads with her to open the suitcase. Perhaps the money is in there. With much coaxing Nelin relents, and family members fetch the luggage.

It is a grueling process. Each article of clothing, letters, every photograph elicits more tears, more weeping. They find $20, $50, a couple of hundred dollars in cash, but certainly not all the money Alexis earned.

His Bible, his work boots are still covered with flakes of mud. There also are the gifts – shoes and lacy blouses Alexis bought for his love; presents Alexis was always so excited to give to her.

And then there were the baby shoes, white and light blue, ready for the active feet of a toddler. Nelin grabs them and places them to her forehead. Her lips quiver as if she is whispering to someone, asking for the ability to go on and the strength to raise a baby who will take his first steps in a fatherless world.

Michelle M. Falck is a bilingual freelance writer. She works as the Director of Project Management at the Institute for Public-Private Partnerships – an international training and consulting firm – in Washington, D.C.

Stephen M. Katz is assistant photography editor for the Bangor Daily News.