Under the Rainbow

When you’re encircled by shimmering rainbows and pummeled by foaming spray, it’s immediately obvious why Catarata de Pulhapanzak has been dubbed the most beautiful waterfall in Honduras. And if your balance is up to it, you can become much more than just a shutter-clicking spectator.

Deceptively calm when you first come across it, the Río Lindo slides lazily past; locals laughing, splashing, floating in rubber rings and occasionally washing their socks. If you can stand the irritating reggaetton that thuds out of the café-bar overlooking the river, this is a good place to stretch out and watch the world as the sun dries your clothes. For if you’re going to get interactive with Nature at Pulhapanzak, expect a thorough drenching.

For those all-important photo opportunities, a dusty track leads you round to face the 43-metre-high wall of frothing white water from a safe distance, a faint mist rising from below. A more neatly-concreted path takes you past a hydro-electric plant and straight into the slippery rocks at the base of the falls.

Footholds are fairly good but many of the boulders are coated with a layer of mud and slime, so watch yourself. Over the first obstacle is a natural pool, about seven feet deep – for those who don’t want to wait for the hissing spray to soak you to the skin, jumping into the middle will soon speed things up. Without a guide it took a couple of intrepid locals flinging themselves several metres off a rocky overhang to encourage us to do the same.

Catch your breath and let your thumping heart slow in a secluded cave, while rainbows run brightly-coloured rings around the rocks in front of you. Then it’s straight into a wall of thunderous spray that forces your eyes shut and invigorates your senses (although hearing can be a challenge afterwards.) Overlooking a second, shallower pool is a cliff ledge behind the falls: Shield your eyes and look up from here to see water pouring over a craggy outcrop in all directions, a natural power-shower. Watching from a distance can never do it justice.

Catarata de Pulhapanzak costs L25 entry for adults and is an easy fifteen-minute walk from the village of San Buenaventura, north of Lake Yojoa. Returning moist but happy, we stayed at the D&D brewery, tucked away off the road between Peña Blanca and El Mochito.

Run by ale-enthusiast Robert Dale from Oregon, it’s the only micro-brewery in Honduras and many relaxing hours can be spent sipping a jug of fine ale by the side of his swimming pool. Expect to pay around L200 for a double room, or you can sling a hammock up for L40 each if you fancy sleeping under the stars.

But beware: Peña Blanca folk will not respond to anything along the lines of dónde está la cervezeria que se llama D&D. In fact, we found ourselves led on all sorts of crazy adventures, from bottle depositories to random pulperias.

Maybe I just can’t speak Spanish for toffee, but after several hours trekking up and down the (wrong) road, we were lucky enough to find a taxi driver with an eye for a good ale who dropped us at the door. Robert’s used to it. His advice: Just ask for el gringo que hace cerveza. Works every time.

This article was published in Honduras This Week, Saturday April 16th 2005

In the Hands of the Coyotes

 

“He has decided to come to America. And as a young, poor Honduran, he will come illegally. And I am going to help him.”

So reads the mission statement of S. Gonzalez, an American citizen who chose to help his brother – born in Honduras, and a stranger to the opportunities that he had enjoyed from birth – to jump the United States border earlier this year.

To offer a glimpse into the experiences, thoughts and emotions of an illegal immigrant and his family, he shared his story with Honduras This Week.

Illegal immigration to the States from Central America is an issue of growing concern: US Office of Immigration statistics show that, after Mexico, Honduras provides the country with the greatest number of ‘deportable aliens’ – around 17,000 in 2003; almost 5000 more than El Salvador and a sizeable 41% of the Central American total.

Setting out his reasons for swelling these statistics further, Gonzalez points out that he had a better quality of life than his brother only because of a “simple 8×10 piece of paper, my birth certificate.” Compared with the States, he argues, in Honduras “rights to assemble and free speech can be fragile at times.” And although his brother finished high school in his native country, “the public education he received was poor.”

On graduation, his family gave his brother the choice between continuing as he was, and leaving his home behind to seek a new life in America. Like so many thousands of others each year, he chose the latter.

“A nation has a right to make laws. The United States has the right to decide who may enter its land and who may not,” Gonzalez admits. “It is not unreasonable for a country to restrict immigration … We are under no moral, legal or contractual obligation to open our borders to all who wish to enter.”

But whilst maintaining that border patrols must do all they can to protect the country from terrorists and criminals, he draws attention to the many immigrants whose families are living in wretched poverty.

“I was given privileges of citizenship, an education and a social safety net that will all but ensure a prosperous life. I did nothing to earn or deserve this. I cannot stand in the way of others who merely wish to obtain the same freedoms and prosperity that I have by the grace of God.”

It’s certainly an attitude that costs the United States government. Back in 2000, Joe Banda – an INS Special Agent at the US Embassy in Tegucigalpa – told Latin American Press that it costs approximately $3000 to capture and deport one illegal Honduran migrant. By this estimate, the annual expenditure to deport 17,000 of them runs into millions of dollars for Honduras alone.

Banda was discussing Operation Disrupt, a five-year programme that saw US immigration officials intercepting potential migrants before they even reached the border.

During the eighth phase, known as Operation Forerunner, US authorities captured notorious Honduran coyote Jose Leon Castillo after he was re-routed to Los Angeles from Guatemala, instead of heading straight to Honduras.

The operation – run across Central America – came under fire for largely targeting the migrants themselves rather than the people smugglers who act as a catalyst. Commonly referred to as ‘coyotes’ or ‘polleros’, they are for many an unavoidable part of the process. But the thousands of dollars that change hands have never been any guarantee of safety, and the massive risks involved are well-known across the world.

A recent report in the Wall Street Journal stated that 36 people died in transit in Yuma County, Arizona last year alone. And given that a friend of their father’s had already drowned attempting to cross the Rio Grande, Gonzalez and his brother were only too aware of the potential dangers.

The first coyote they encountered passed on by word-of-mouth from a friend also planning to migrate, quoted $6000. When the first attempt to smuggle their friend, Pancho, failed, the pair sought another quote: $2000 down-payment for a total cost of $4000.

After this trip was delayed for several weeks they began to lose faith, but when a call from Pancho confirmed that he had made it to the States, they made the necessary arrangements to leave on 14th January with the original ‘pollero’. The trip would take two weeks.

“The coyote came to the house early in the morning. My brother took three changes of clothes and a toothbrush. He cried as he said goodbye to his mother. His mother told him to stop crying, that he had to be a man now.” That night Gonzalez received a call from Guatemala: The trip would be made by car. “Although they were packed in like sardines and only consumed tortillas, frijoles and water, he said that he hadn’t done any suffering yet,” he recalls.

Fears that the fee would be jacked up at every opportunity proved unfounded, despite frequent calls from the coyote’s personal cellular phone to the States and Honduras to update the family on progress. Another friend had been force to borrow thousands of dollars and work two full-time jobs for a year to pay off the swelling fees after her son was smuggled across the border, including a sizeable telephone bill, but these costs never materialized for Gonzalez.

A call from the coyote announced that they were about to cross the border and demanded the rest of the money, but after several days of silence – with the coyote’s number now ‘out of service’ – there was still no word. “At that time I did not ponder as I do now what it must be like for the families of those who don’t make it,” says Gonzalez. “I can only imagine the financial consequences of the death of a primary breadwinner. I cannot, however, imagine their grief.”

Eventually his brother made contact from a bus station in Laredo, Texas, having been abandoned by the coyote. “He didn’t have much time to talk. His phone card was running out. I didn’t have time to tell him to get as far away from the bus station as possible. The ‘pinche migra’ would surely pick him up there.” Indeed, according to the Office of Immigration, in 2003 over 70,000 ‘deportable aliens’ were intercepted by the border patrol in Laredo alone.

It didn’t take long. Less than an hour after he had tackled the Rio Grande in an inflatable raft, Gonzalez’s brother, who was carrying a Honduran passport and ID card, found himself in a holding cell with a cement floor, living on water and bologna sandwiches while the border patrol attempted to contact a fictitious Aunt.

After two days without sleep he was released with a record of his illegal entrance, apprehension and release and a summons to appear in a court in New York, where the Aunt supposedly lived. Once a set of false documents – ‘chuecos’ – have been produced, Gonzalez claims that he’ll be able to work at “almost any business that’s hiring.”

“I’ve heard stories about illegal immigrants crawling under barbed wire, hiding in ravines with biting ants, driving from mud puddles and walking all day in 100 degree heat,” he says.

“The journey took a little over two weeks. [My brother] says that he suffered, but a couple of days in a holding cell with bologna sandwiches and an uncomfortable bed is a vacation compared to the experiences of many illegal immigrants. He got off easy.”

This article was published in Honduras This Week, Saturday April 16th 2005

Oiling the Wheels of Change

 

With Honduras still shouldering the highest gasoline prices in Central America, it could be time to consider a more ecologically and economically friendly alternative: Palm oil.

The price of diesel in Honduras continues to rise. The national average for March was $2.60, up fifteen percent from last year’s average. Recent protest strikes are just one example of the public dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs.

Of course, with no facilities for processing crude oil internally, all of Honduras’ gasoline is imported – around ten million barrels per year – with prices largely dependent on other countries’ export rates as well as the tax levied by the Honduran government.

But there is an alternative. Once converted through a simple process known as transesterification, the oil of the African palm – one of Honduras’ major existing natural resources – can make an efficient biofuel to run diesel engines without the need for any modifications. In fact Rudolph Diesel demonstrated over a century ago that the engine he had invented could run perfectly well on peanut oil.

Research in Malaysia in 2003 concluded that while it can be comparatively difficult to start a standard diesel engine on palm biodiesel owing to its high viscosity, once up and running there are no problems.

Crude palm oil, of which around 250 million kilos will be produced in Honduras this year, is thick and dark red. When it is refined the biodiesel produced is pale yellow, has no odor, smells like frying potatoes when it burns and creates very little smoke. And even more importantly for a country crippled by the price of its gasoline, it could prove up to ten percent cheaper than its non-renewable counterpart.

It’s also considerably better for the environment. “Burning diesel produces large amounts of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide,” says Omar Riera, a chemical engineer at Dinant Corporation owned by Miguel Facusse and located in Tegucigalpa. ”Biodiesel may not be 100 percent emission free, but there’s a reduction of up to 90 percent.”

With access to a supply of palm oil, methanol, and sodium or potassium hydroxide as a catalyst, basic transesterification is theoretically simple enough to be done at home.

A given quantity of crude palm oil will produce almost exactly the same quantity of biofuel, and the equivalent amount of methanol necessary for the reaction – roughly ten percent of the total – comes out as glycerin, a common ingredient in a wide variety of medicines and cosmetic products. “This is one of the most efficient of all chemical processes, and it can work with palm oil; coconut oil; vegetable oil, whatever,” adds Riera.

Malaysia and neighboring Indonesia currently produce 80 percent of the world’s palm oil between them, with two million hectares of agricultural land dedicated to the African oil palm in each country. In Europe, biofuel is produced primarily from the more prevalent oilseed rape and sunflower crops.

Resources in Latin America may seem modest when compared with their Asian counterparts. Honduras can boast the largest plantations in Central America with 70,000 hectares. In Brazil, where around 100,000 hectares are given to cultivating African Palm, it is already used to generate electricity in stationary diesel engines – another potentially influential factor in Honduras.

So despite having a population some thirty times that of Honduras, Brazil has little more palm oil at its disposal – but they are exploiting its potential. Per capita Honduras is at a massive advantage, with a valuable resource on our doorstep to fight the gasoline crisis internally rather than continuing to rely on foreign imports.

The Honduran oil palm industry has a somewhat checkered past. Back in 1923, United Fruit (UFCO) controversially laid waste to huge tracts of local agricultural land in order to set up vast plantations. By 1990 almost 20 million kilos of oil were produced annually, most of which was retained and used internally.

In 1999, after Hurricane Mitch had battered the banana industry, some 30 million kilos were exported as palm oil took over as one of the country’s major resources. In 2005, according to Dinant Corporation, approximately 250 million kilos of palm oil will be produced in Honduras.

It has been argued by the World Rainforest Movement that African palm plantations are ruinous for the environment as well as for local communities. A study by Ricardo Carrere in The Bitter Fruit of Oil Palm proposes that “the problem is not the tree itself, but the plantation model under which it is grown.”

In many cases, he claims, agricultural land is replaced by endless rows of identical palms for the profit of a select few multinationals while rainforests are cut back, leading to soil erosion and the destruction of local wildlife habitat.

But with the industry already established much of the damage has already been done, and it could be time to consider using the resulting natural asset to support the national economy, as well as preserving another aspect of the environment.

According to Omar Riera, research into the possibilities is already under way. “We already have some experience in making methyl ester [biofuel] from the African Palm raw material through transesterification.”

“We have the resource here, and actually is refined and then we use it in the home for cooking and so on. But if we could produce biodiesel in Central America, it could work out up to ten percent cheaper for the end user.”

In El Salvador, Riera points out, some vehicles already run on biodiesel: The practical solution, he argues, is to stop thinking nationally and start thinking continentally.

“For a single country like Honduras to set up our own refineries would not necessarily be beneficial. But for Central America to have shared facilities, bypassing the transport costs and high export rates, would be an incredible advantage.”

Argentina has governmental incentives in place to encourage biodiesel production, and have made it exempt from tax. “As yet we’ve heard nothing from the Honduran government, but hope they will follow. I’d like to see a target of ten percent biofuel use by 2006.”

Honduras currently imports just over 1.1 million tons of diesel fuel every year. Dinant Corporation statistics show that were all the palm oil from the 70,000 hectares in Honduras used to produce biodiesel, it would satisfy just over twenty percent of this national demand.

To replace diesel fuel entirely, by Riera’s calculations, would require over 300,000 hectares of African Palm. This would give Honduras by far the largest crop in the whole of Latin America, and also exceed commercial plantations in several countries in the tree’s native Africa. Riera maintains that it could be feasible if the demand was there, but of course the environmental impact of such a massive expansion could be dramatic.

Even if a small proportion of palm oil biofuel were mixed with the existing diesel supply harmful emissions would reduce significantly, but if Central America were to develop its own refining facilities the savings on transport costs alone would be considerable. It’s a proactive solution that many other countries around the world are beginning to consider; Honduras need not be left behind.

This article was published in Honduras This Week, Saturday April 23rd 2005