la ceiba

ceiba is named after a giant ceiba tree that used to sit by the pier. all the ships pulled in there and merchants transacted their business in its shade.

about 185,000 people live here, making it the third largest city in honduras.

because of it's carribean coastal location near the bay islands, ceiba has good honduran travel infrastructure. offices of airlines, an airport proper, a large dock. it houses standard fruit.

i lived here with a middle class, upper middle class family, the villars. they host many visiting students. they have cable tv. their neighbors have mango trees - muchos mangos.

there are a few glue-sniffers here, young young folks they call them "resistoleros," cuz the shoe-glue they huff-up is called resistol. i got my sandals resoled with the stuff - it's the bomb. i also stood next to one resistolero in the rain under a phone booth shelter for over half an hour - i was talking to amy, he was asking me for money, threatening to hang up the phone or push buttons, and huffing on a disposable orange juice container that smelled like white out; the second hand fumes were wild.

avien, probably a gluesniffer

there's cheap fruit smoothies (7 lempiras for fresh oranges carrots bananas in a blender).

there's a lot of old us schoolbuses here, from the midwest oftentimes, painted with wings of flame, and souped up a bit to rev faster - no mufflers, and spewing raw diesel into the air.

that helped urge me to la moskitia.

here, i work on the computer of amparo ortiz, thanks to her and her spanish school, pico bonito. she's a good teacher, and her son aaron and i talk about the gospel, amongst other things.

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