Shout out to the New Yorker! Thoughts from a bus ride.
I'm on the bus on my way to La Esperanza when we pull over to the side of the road, nearest town of any size 1.5 hours away. A girl gets off the bus and walks off the side of the road to a small concrete house wearing heels and jeans with sequined pockets.
Still on the bus and I see some Honduran graffiti. Carved into the clay face of the hill along the roadside someone has etched out two donkeys getting frisky. On the back of one of the donkeys they carved a Nike swoosh. What?
Getting close to La Esperanza now. We are navigating our way around a small landslide that has covered part of the roadway. I look out my window and see three kids breaking rock. Kids. Breaking. Rock. One carries a torso sized rock to the other who hits it with a hammer until it breaks into smaller pieces. A third kid then moves the chunks to a new pile. Why are kids doing inmates' work? Why do they need to move the rock to the hammer kid? They could save 30% on labor.
Geez, long bus ride. Political ads and company ads painted on to the hillsides along the road. I guess they are taking advantage of the free advertising space just like Nike.
Last murmur, promise. The small Toyota pickup in front of me has four cops sitting in the back bed with three... prisoners? Yep, they are handcuffed and headed to jail. The little yellow truck is official since it says, "Propiedad de Honduras" on the side. One of them waves as we pass.
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