(This post was written in June 2024)
I returned to Mayén as a misionera for Holy Week, having no idea what they meant by asking me, a confused Protestant, to be a “missionary” to the most devout Catholic people I have ever met. As always, we crammed into the bed of a pickup truck for the steep drive up the mountain. We arrived just in time for Wednesday evening mass. The church was a tiny building of concrete blocks, plain and bare on the inside. It was equipped with stacks of plastic chairs and ancient hymnals that had long since lost their covers. As we swept out the church and set the chairs in rows, I saw the thick legs of a spider move in a shadowy corner of the room. I shrank away in horror – from its size and the thickness of the legs, I guessed it was a tarantula, but I didn’t investigate to find out. The villagers laughed at the look on my face, but they reassured me that the spiders would not normally bother me indoors.
I stayed with Fredy, one of Xiomara’s uncles, and his wife Santos. They had set aside a space for me separated from the rest of the house by a curtain and the back of a wooden dresser. Their house was one of the biggest in Mayén, with the outside walls painted a vibrant purple. (People love to paint their houses bright colors here.) The kitchen was a separate small building beside the house, smoke issuing from a pipe thrust through a hole in the clay foundation. The dining table was set on a covered patio where we gathered to eat tamales after mass. A larger-than-life mural of Jesus on the wall presided over the meal, blessing the company with uplifted palms and watching us from under comically long eyelashes.
“Your Jesus looks like a bit of a flirt,” remarked Padre Javier through a mouthful of tamale.
We drove to a second mass further down the mountain, in Montañita*,* before returning to Mayén for the night. I slept poorly – I’ll admit the tarantula was on my mind, and since Fredy and Santos’s house wasn’t exactly sealed tight against the outside world, I imagined that all kinds of creeping things could find their way in. My biggest problems turned out to be the ants, which everyone calls zampopos, larger than any I’d ever seen, and the ticks that somehow found their way under my clothes while I slept. I woke up again to the sound of rain pelting the tin roof, and occasional drops of water on my face.
The next morning was chilly, and after a bucket shower with water Santos warmed for me on the stove, I was ready to find out more about my missionary duties. Our first task was to make house visits. For the next several hours we trekked through the forest to visit families, introducing ourselves and sitting down to read a Bible passage and offer to pray for any illness or difficulty the family was going through. Most people welcomed us gladly, some offered us food, some stared darkly at us as we rushed through our prayers and left hastily. They all looked curiously at me, and I wondered how rare it might be to have a foreign visitor. One woman served us atole, a warm drink prepared from corn, and chilate, a dish of bread cooked in honey, chokingly sweet. Later, we prepared for the Maundy Thursday liturgy. Father Javier could not visit that day, so there would be no mass, but in his absence Jesús and I were tasked with the symbolic washing of feet. The villagers chose six men for Jesús to wash, and six women for me. I had never even seen a priest wash anyone’s feet, and I was taken by surprise to hear that this was one of my responsibilities as a misionera. Jesús went on and on about how Pope Francis would be washing the feet of the prisoners in Roman jails – “Some of them have tattoos all over their bodies, even on their feet. And the Pope will kiss their feet – tattoos and all!”
I won’t easily forget the memories of those women’s feet – taking them each in my hands, some young with smooth skin and painted toenails, some with mottled skin and broken nails, their surface scored with deep hollows and ridges like a mountain landscape. Some of the women looked blankly away, perhaps a little embarrassed, as I was, by such a profound and archaic gesture of service, others laughed and reached out to hug me as I stood up. Later, Jesús and I prepared the church for the following day’s mass, removing the flowerpots, draping the walls and wrapping the crucifix in red cloth, leaving the altar bare. Freddy’s youngest daughter, Kenia, went with us to the church. A quiet, bright-eyed eight-year-old, Kenia had refused to leave our side since we came, accompanying us on all our house visits. We finished our preparations and called for her to come back to the house. She had been lingering around the altar, and before she took my hand to leave the church, I saw her reach down to touch the painted face of Jesus peeping from behind the red cloth. “Pobrecito,” she whispered.
On Good Friday, we woke up early and prepared for the Via Crucis, The Stations of the Cross. One of Fredy’s fellow deacons, representing Jesus, wore a white robe and carried a small wooden cross in his hand. Three little girls with shawls tied around their heads represented the “daughters of Jerusalem” who accompanied him. We began a slow descent along the same winding road we had ascended to Mayén in the pickup truck, halting to pray each station, all the women singing shrilly as we walked. Back in Mayén, Father Javier returned to lead us in a long, solemn service and adoration of the cross. We sat out front and talked to him afterwards, before returning to Santos’ dinner table – even the most solemn day of the year couldn’t prevent the good families from offering us coffee and food at every opportunity. Father Javier gave in, laughing, “You’re really making me break my fast today . . .”
That night, we lit a bonfire in front of the church and took turns lighting our tiny candles from the firebrands, and processed into the church. Jesús took his guitar to the front and soon his clear, golden tenor voice filled the tiny space and the glow of candles shone on expectant face as we listened to the song of the whole story of salvation, from Genesis to the resurrection. Finally we burst out into the triumphant Alleluya, which had not been heard since before Ash Wednesday. After the service people lingered a long time, talking in small groups, coming forward to hug me and Jesús – “We can’t believe you’re leaving tomorrow – so soon!”
Everyone slept late on Easter morning, and morning mass got a late start. At last we gathered for a brief service, and took photos on the stoop of the church until Jesús and I left for Naranjito (a town whose name means little orange) where all the misioneros were gathering for a farewell lunch. We stopped to pick up more volunteers as we drove through other towns, till on the steepest part of the road, our truck began to stutter and slide backward. My stomach turned for a moment until it stopped hard, and the driver got out to examine it. It was completely broken down, so we got our luggage and began to walk toward the next town. The sun was hot on our backs, but we were laughing. Jesús started up an enthusiastic recitation of the Rosary, and we all joined in as we trudged through the dust. Another truck was sent from Naranjito to pick us up, and we finally arrived late in the afternoon. The air was moist and cold, and I realized that we were inside the clouds I had glimpsed from the dry river valley below. Father Javier welcomed us jovially and ushered us into a hall where a hot lunch was waiting. We were high in the mountains, close to the Guatemalan border, and the sea was just to the North. We could have seen it if the clouds had dispersed.
After lunch and many photos – Hondurans love any excuse to take photos – we returned to Cofradia. When I greeted my roommate, I was shocked at how strange English sounded on my tongue after a week of nothing but Spanish. I didn’t know how to explain the experience of that week. For weeks I tried to formulate words to describe the joy and simplicity I had found in Mayén, but I also didn’t want to fall into the trap of romanticizing its poverty. Xiomara had told me dark parts of the town’s history – disputes over land, sexual violence – and I had noted that its population was made up of mostly children and the elderly. The nearest hospital was an hour away and almost no one owned a car. Many of them still lived mostly off the land, and both hurricanes and droughts had the potential to wreck their harvest.
Yet I knew that the people of Mayén had something precious, a connection to their land and to each other that was being lost in Cofradía. It was a pattern I often saw in Honduras, a desperation to break away from the past, while dwindling rural communities like Mayén were the only places where people spoke positively of traditional lifestyle. Father Javier would speak of social programs to improve the lives of the rural communities, but for most people, staying in a rural community meant living a life of poverty and misery. The young people were leaving, either for the city or for the migratory road to the US.
