Slash throat.

She grabs her buddy’s alternate air source and tugs. It doesn’t budge. She jerks down again. Nothing. It’s snagged on her buddy’s strap.

Her eyes widen with panic.

My left hand twists her valve open. I can feel the air pulsing down the tubes to her convulsing lungs. “Okay?” I signal. She breaths deeply, rapidly. I lock my arms on hers and look in her wide eyes. “Breathe… breathe…” The bubbles slow. She’s shaking, but I’m not letting her go anywhere. Not until she’s ready.

“Okay,” she signals.

“Okay. Do it again,” I sign.

Our second attempt at the Air Depletion and Alternate Air Source skill from the PADI Open Water Diver course goes without a hitch. As we surface, she’s obviously a bit agitated. “I didn’t like that out of air thing.”

“It’s not fun, is it?”

“No.”

“Good thing is, you should never have to use it. If you get in the habit of checking your air every few minutes and tell your buddy when you get to half-tank and low-on-air, there’s no reason you should ever run out of air. But it’s good to practice this skill so that in the unlikely event that is did happen you would be prepared. It’s like having Triple-A when you’re driving on a long road trip.”

Then I splash seawater at her with my hand.

“Hey, why are you doing that?”

“Your mask is on your forehead.”

“So?”

“It’s a sign of panic. Remember? That’s a beer fine.”

She sighs sarcastically.

“That’s two for me at Beer O’Clock? C’mon, let’s go down and practice that skill one more time, and then we’ll go try and find the octopus living under the log.”

I watched reruns of the Jetsons as a kid and was entirely convinced that the 21st century was going to be nothing less than kickasstastic. Flying cars. Jetpacks. Soulless robot slaves. Hell yeah, Class of 2000, we’re the Leaders of the 21st century!

So where’s my jetpack now?

My grandpa used to cut out newspaper clips of the lunar landings and space shuttle launches and laminate them. He gave them to me as gifts. I first spied the rings of Saturn through some dude’s telescope at a camp ground in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains. I went to community college lectures on black holes and the formation of the solar system with my undoubtedly bored father. My childhood dream was to be an astronaut. NASA promised us a man on Mars by 2010. I flapped around the elementary school playground pretending to be that man.

I watch as a telecommunications satellite—merely a white dot against the moonless sky—flies in a straight path across Scorpio and the pearly smear of the Milky Way. Ripe seagrapes rustle in the branches of the nearby trees as a gentle Caribbean breeze sweeps off the dark water of Half Moon Bay. I am reclining on a dock 5m/15ft above sea level, staring at the unfathomable vastness that lies beyond the atmosphere of our water-covered sphere, and genuinely loving my life.

I will never set foot on the red planet. I doubt I will ever be wealthy enough to afford a flight in space. I find airplanes a bit unnerving. My childhood fantasy of being an astronaut is dead.

But every day, I strap into my personal subaquatic “jetpack” and cruise weightless through the unfathomable vastness of inner space. I have ventured—three times!—to 1500ft under the sea and come face-to-face with alien life. I have been fortunate enough to spend a majority of the last five years of my life exploring the caves, canyons, walls and shallows of Roatan’s amazing coral reef.

It’s my adulthood reality, and I love it every day.

A drop of water appears on my laptop screen. Then another.

I barely have time to shut my Mac before the heavens open up. West End High Street dissolves in to a muddy smear. Half Moon Bay shimmers like a pot of gold as the amber light of the setting sun glimmers and sparkles upon the rippling surface. Children wrestle in the golden waters of the shallows, their laughter piercing the air as lightning crackles across the sky.

We retreat into the dive shop. The rainstorm whites out the bay. Oh well, crack the beers. There’s nowhere to go and nowhere we’d rather be.

Goldfinger is running the V-Planner to plan a Trimix dive on the Josie J shipwreck. 245ft for 15 minutes—long enough to secure the plaque he welded in honor of Marc Wesler (1971-2009) to the shipwreck. He prints off a sheet of paper and laminates it. “Dive plan and contingency plans,” he explains as he mounts them to his slate. “This dive shouldn’t be too hard to pull off, but,, you know, no taking chances.”

(Marc Wesler, 30 March 1971 - 13 June 2009)

“No kidding. Unlike other shops.”

“What? Are they diving the J again?”

“Yeah man. I was diving the other day off Black Rock and as we leveled off at 110ft over the Josie J, I saw something white below me. Two freakin’ divers swimming around the wreck. Single tanks. No surface support. “

“Idiots.”

“Yeah, I was pissed off. They were doing it right in front of my customers too, ya know? What the hell am I supposed to tell them when we get back on the boat?”

“That they’re idiots.”

“Well that was pretty much what I did. I just hate seeing this crap going on again. These kids are going to get themselves killed and it’ll make the whole island look bad.”

“Yeah I know. I want to post a sign on the wreck that says ‘If you can read this and only have one tank then FUCK OFF!’”

“But then I saw a manta ray.”

“No way.”

“Look, pictures.” I open my laptop. “About seven feet wide, gliding right at me as we ascended up from the wreck. Insane. I lost 20 bar as I screamed and pointed. The whole group saw it.”

“I hope it comes around when I’m putting this sign down there.”

“I know dude. There’s been crazy stuff around here this week! Sharks, eagle rays, tons of turtles. I saw an octopus sitting right out in the open today. And I found that encrusted computer keyboard at 130ft on El Aquario. It’s great—except we’re just missing the customers.”

“No shit. This paycheck is gonna suck, eh?”

“Say goodbye to the high season.”

We tacitly acknowledge our collective disappointment. My eyes drift to a weathered political cartoon on the wall. In faded black and white, four commie macaws screech in unison: “Restore the Dictator in Honduras!” The computer monitor portrays the burning façade of the El Heraldo building in Tegucigalpa. Poorly translated English reveals that supporters of ousted Honduran President Mel Zelaya have hurled Molotov cocktails into the newspaper company’s headquarters. Just another day in post-coup Honduras.

“Got any back-up plans?” I ask.

“Just these.” Goldfinger slaps the dive slate around his wrist and flips through the contingency plans. He drags deep on his cigarette. “Guess I can go weld for a while in Canada. I just don’t want to leave. You?”

“No idea. I wasn’t planning on leaving. Not yet. Not this way.”

My adulthood reality is coming to an end.

The one-two punch of the global economic recession and Honduran constitutional crisis has KOed the tourism industry on Roatan. In light of the world economic downturn over the last year, West End businesses were faring well. The dive industry was down about 20-25% on 2008’s numbers, but there was still an ample supply of incoming customers. Recession or not, it was shaping up to be another mind-blowing summer of diving and fun.

Meanwhile, on the mainland, the Honduran government couldn’t figure whether to impeach or overthrow their elected President. On 28 June 2009, they decided to do a spectacularly sloppy job of both. Early that morning, the Honduran military arrested President Mel Zelaya in his underwear on the doorstep of his Presidential estate, stuffed him in a plane, and sent him into exile in Costa Rica. The Congress authorized his purported resignation papers and instated his successor, Roberto Micheletti.

Sounds like a coup d’etat right? Well, sorta.

The military acted under the orders of the Supreme Court and with the support of the Congress (in which Zelaya’s own Red Party held majority). Roberto Micheletti, the Speaker of Parliament, Red Party member, and next in line in presidential succession, took over the interim government. The military immediately transferred power to the Congress—still controlled by Zelaya’s Red Party—and life continued peacefully for a few days.

Word of the supposed coup d’etat spread across the AP wires. While the interim government worked to maintain peace in the wake of the transition, the American news networks erroneously labeled footage of pro-Micheletti peace marches as pro-Zelaya protests, recycled old news clips of Hurricane Mitch battering the Honduran coastline, fabricated statistics of popular support for the ousted President, and did their absolute finest to scare the piss out of any American (who, until he turned on CNN, didn’t know Honduras from Atlantis) away from ever setting foot in my tropical paradise. Needless to say, diving vacation reservations disappeared overnight.

It’s a “coup” that could only happen in Honduras.

In the wake of widespread international condemnation—including suspension from the OAS (Organization of American States), termination of funds from the World Bank, and calls by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Cuban Presdient Fidel Castro to reinstate (by force if necessary) Zelaya immediately—the interim government remained steadfast in denying Zelaya reentry to Honduras. The Supreme Court outlined its case against Zelaya: that his proposed referendum for extending presidential terms beyond four years was a violation of the Honduran constitution; that he defied a unanimous vote by Congress forbidding the vote by leading his followers to forcefully retake the voting ballots from a Honduran air force base; and that he was constitutionally obligated to step down immediately. The interim government was resolute: If Mel Zelaya attempted to enter the country, he would face immediate arrest. The Archbishop Cardinal of Honduras pleaded with Zelaya not to return, warning that his presence could cause a bloodbath.

Well, no cowboy worth his ten-gallon hat can turn down a dare like that, y’reckon?

Mel’s first game of chicken took place in the skies above Tegucigalpa on 5 June 2009. As a metallic bird bearing the mustached ex-President circled the airport, trucks and soldiers filled the landstrip to block his return. Pro-Zelaya protestors clashed with the military and the first bloodshed of the coup was drawn as a bullet pierced 19-year-old Isy Obed Murillo Mencía’s skull. I got drunk as hell on rum as I suddenly found myself an unexpected prisoner in a beautiful beachside condo when the cops screamed down the West End High Street declaring an immediate curfew.

I woke up the next day to cotton-candy clouds illuminated in the morning light overhead, the subtle jackhammer of a hangover in my head, and the country I have called home for nearly five years in turmoil. My stomach was tangled in knots from a night of anxious sleep tempered only by mass quantities of alcohol. I staggered out into a world of uncertainty.

The following day, as Costa Rican President Oscar Arias volunteered to mediate the crisis between Zelaya and the current Honduran administration, I volunteered to return to bed and sleep away the previous night. I awoke shivering in a bed soaked with my own sweat. What the hell? I changed the bedsheets and returned to sleep. Forty-five minutes later and it’s the same scenario. Okay, this ain’t right. I retreat to the comfort of my hammock. Thirty-minutes pass and I’m doubled over in cold chills. The beeping thermometer in my mouth confirms my fears: 102F. This ain’t right at all.

It lasts a week. The doctor’s say it’s a bacterial infection. Feels like the last time I had dengue to me. Every exhausting day is followed by an even more hellish night. I awaken from fever-induced nightmares to find my mattress thorough saturated—both sides—with my sweat as I lay trembling in the fetal position.

Dawn breaks to the sound of roosters and diesel generators. My electrical fan sits motionless as the room temperature rapidly rises. RECO (Roatan Electrical Company) is an angry god who must be appeased by throwing virgins into the volcano every so often or he will banish us to the darkness. Unfortunately we have neither volcanos nor virgins on Roatan, so RECO spills his wrath out at the most ungodly of hours. Too tired to read and too weak to think. I swelter in my hammock, lost in fuzzy memories of the past, accompanied by the island soundtrack of children playing baseball in the street.

In high school I worked as a lifeguard for four insanely boring summers. When the teeny-bopper brats I was supervising broke pool rules, we would put them in “time-out” and make them watch their peers splash in the water as they sat on the pool edge. (This was opposed to my preferred method of punishment: waterboarding. It’s not officially torture, and it’s equally effective on spoiled children as it is on terrorists.) Inevitably, one of the little bastards in timeout would sneak a leg, foot, or even a toe in the forbidden water, stare me directly in the eyes, and tacitly dare me to blow my whistle. It was a silly game of chicken.

Zelaya played his second second silly game of chicken on 24 July 2009 when he decided to stick his big toe across the Honduran border for thirty minutes. Like a whiney eleven-year-old stuck in time-out, Zelaya glared at soldiers of his own supposed army from the demilitarized zone between Honduras and Nicaragua and dared them to resist his triumphant return. He then returned to the safety of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega’s arms, sucking on his thumb with one hand whilst flipping the bird with his other towards his ousters.

The weeks wane on. When I finally find the strength, I venture into West End to buy some fruit from the produce trucks. The effects of the coup are apparent: the Dionysian fever-pitch lifestyle that typifies our summers in Roatan is replaced with the somber flu of uncertainty; the beaches are vacant; the dive boats are empty; the restaurants, deserted. As Mel Zelaya courts the OAS and Hilary Clinton with his version of the coup, a barrage of international travel advisories slapped against Honduras slowly asphyxiates the Bay Islands.

The downward spiral is accelerating. Mel Zelaya is urging his supporters to boycott and disrupt the upcoming presidential election in November, insisting that, due to the coup, he will remain the Honduran president even after his elected term has expired in January. Civil unrest mounts on the mainland: there have been sporadic outbursts of violence, a handful of strikes, and a few more deaths.

The true tragedy of the coup lies in the starving stomachs of the country’s largely impoverished population. Internationally isolated from much-needed foreign aid and investment, the people of Honduras face a long hard road to economic and political recovery—and this road will be strewn with the corpses of several thousand Hondurans, whether from violence or starvation, before the final destination is reached. The constitutional crisis will undeniably define the future of Honduras as a sovereign nation/ Unfortunately, the Honduras government(s) has done an amazing job of screwing it up thus far.

Meanwhile, the Caribbean paradise of Roatan continues life as usual: peaceful, beautiful, relaxed, quiet– but despondently deserted. West End is a ghost town (though arguably the most beautiful ghost town on the planet). The bars are half-full with the same familiar faces every night—familiar, but more weathered, and there are fewer as time passes. The rainy season looms and a mass exodus of expatriates is underway. “I’m leaving tomorrow” is suddenly not a lie of Roatan.

It’s the best laid plans of mice and men. Mel Zelaya just shot Lenny in the back of the head.

“You gotta want it! What do you want?”

“Jack! Jack! Jack! Jack!” I shout.

Dr. Jekyll stares me down from across the table. “Forget about it. Not gonna happen.”

“Jack! Jack!”

“Here we go.”

“Jack!”

Goldfinger turns the river card. Five of hearts. My heart falls.

“Two pairs queens-nines beats your jack-nines. Show me the money!” Dr. Jekyll cackles.

I reluctantly push the rest of my chips across the table. “Son of a…”

“Hey, good game,” Dr. Jekyll says as he shakes my hand. “For a loser. Now get me a beer.”

I only get two strides towards the beer cooler before my Open Water student intercepts me bearing two cold Salva Vidas in her hands. “I think I owe you these.”

“Ha! Thanks, I had forgotten, but I’ll take ‘em.” I hand one beer over to Dr. Jekyll and take a hearty swig on mine. “How’d you like the diving today?”

“I loved it! That turtle was so friendly! And what was that weird flat fish? White, kinda the size of a pancake…”

“Peacock flounder. Really cool fish. Masters of camouflage. They can change their colors and patterns to match almost anything.”

“No way.”

“Seriously. I saw them in Greece on these black and red sand beaches, and their colors perfectly matched whatever surface they were on. Wild stuff.”

“So what are we doing tomorrow?” she asks, finishing her beer.

“Another video, a few more skills in the bay, and then our second Open Water dive. We get to practice the alternate air source ascent one more time.”

She rolls her eyes. “Do we have to do it?”

“Yes, it’s an important skill.”

“I hate that one. I don’t like depending on other people.”

“Down there other people are the only thing you have in an emergency. Most of the time you don’t have to depend on them—it’s just all about the fish. But should something go wrong… well… then your buddy is your lifeline.”

“But what if the hose gets caught like it did today?”

I pause to take a swig of my beer and think. I had never encountered that problem before in my previous 200 Open Water classes, and quite frankly I am still bothered that it occurred. Good thing I had my hand on her tank valve the entire time—a safety practice passed down from my IDC five years ago but never needed until six hours ago—or else it would have been much worse. Then I notice her scanning my eyes as if reading my entire inner monologue, remind myself that women have telepathy, and spin an answer as best I can. “Then you do a CESA.”

“What’s that?”

“The Controllled Emergency Swimming Ascent. Remember doing it today?”

“Which one was that?”

“Where you swam a long way going, ‘Ahhhhhhhhhhhh…’”

“Oh yeah.”

“It’s like a back-up plan for your back-up plan. We’ll practice a real one tomorrow at the start of our dive.”

“Cool. So, what are you up to tonight?”

“Not drinking.”

“Next you’ll say I love you.”

“At this rate, probably,” I reply, finishing my beer.

“Look!” She points towards the bay.

The beach is bathed in a Martian glow. We walk onto the dock to watch the last crimson sliver of sun vanish behind the rugged outline of retreating thunderheads. To the south, bolt lighting streaks down across massive thunderheads accumulated over the Honduran mainland. Land crabs, their alien eyes independently pivoting in all directions, scurry horizontally across the rain-pocked beach. Like Neil Armstrong taking his famous small step, I leave a line of footprints on the sand as I stroll to the water’s edge. Under a pink sky, Half Moon Bay looks like an oily smear of otherworldly liquid. Is this the shore of Titan’s liquid methane seas?

Or is this just my adulthood reality fading away with the sun?

As opposed to the time-honored tradition in America of getting absolutely blitzkrieged on booze whilst enduring the endless onslaught of CNN poll results on Election Day, Honduras prohibits all alcohol sales over election weekends. Given the volatile mix of machetes and machismo that permeates Honduran culture, the separation of Booze and State is probably a good idea. Between the irate Mainlanders barricading the rain-soaked streets and the Gringos drowning their frustrations while “trapped” in the bars, the continued sale of alcohol during the RECO protests earlier this month fueled island tensions to a stupid level. The game of politics is already mankind at our lowest; better to leave alcohol out of it altogether, methinks.

Democracy, in theory, is the best form of government man has devised thus far. When supported by a large, relatively stable and fairly educated middle class, the electoral process provides for adequate representation and a peaceful transfer of power between parties (hanging chads excluded). This, however, is Roatan. The Gringos, who control most of the foreign investment responsible for the island’s expanding infrastructure, are disenfranchised from voting due to their alien status. The Bay Islanders, who represent the original voice of the island, are now a voting minority against the massive wave of Honduran Mainlanders filling the colonials and constructions sites around the island. As such, local politicians, comprised mostly of Bay Islanders, find themselves both pandering to and profiting from a populace that has lived on the island for less than two years. Representation, as you can imagine, is a bit of a muddy issue.

It’s a sea of Rojo versus Azul. Light posts, cars, pulperia fronts, house walls, t-shirts, small children– if it can be slapped with a political sticker, it’s got one. Sure, the parties have names. So do the politicians. It doesn’t really matter if the majority of your voting populace is illiterate. Just hand out a few freebies– maybe toss a village some fertilizer or construction material– tell them which color to choose, and put a ballot in their hand.

In the last mayoral elections, winner Dale Jackson celebrated his victory from jail. Why? He parked a bulldozer in the middle of the airport runway to prevent his opponent from supposedly flying voters in from mainland Honduras. Of course, the airplane allegedly carrying his voters had already landed. It’s no secret nor surprise; just politics as usual in Central America.

(In defense, North American politics is not much different– just with a shinier coat of deception).

As shotgun-weilding police officers leaned idly against the school walls watching the chaotic torrent of voters bustle back and forth, I felt a bit of peace knowing that, through the proper application of sobriety and firearms, peace, if not democracy, would prevail this evening. Tomorrow, debauchery will resume as usual. Until then, I am quite content to watch the sun gracefully descend into the Caribbean sea and sip on the rum-tinted concoction in a half-liter Coca-Cola bottle I purchased from a nearby convenience-store-turned-speakeasy. Ain’t island life great?

November 4, 2008. After one month of depressingly endless rain and wind sinking Roatan to the mud-coated economic low that typifies the island rainy season, things are finally starting to look up. An eclectic international group of expatriates is intensely huddled around a television watching the results of the United States election trickle in. The excitement is palpable: inside, American international policy is finally about to make a profound transition that will hopefully mend the shattered relations between the United States and the rest of the world, while outside the wind is relenting and weather is finally making a turn for the better. When Barack Obama is announced as the President-Elect, the miniature United Nations in our room lets out a cheer. Change is coming. Sunny days are ahead.

November 5, 2008. The sun breaks through the clouds. The sea is calm enough to venture out for two dives along the West End. Full of high spirits, we set out to explore the recently-rearranged wreck of El Aguila and the beautiful storm-scrubbed wall at Spooky Channel. Partway through our second dive, however, we feel the surge begin to violently undulate. Another front is moving in; things are getting gnarly. We stagger back aboard the boat and race to beat out the incoming storm.

Unbeknownst to us, a massive storm has already begun to unleash its fury on shore. Not a drop falls from the sky; no more mud fills the streets. This is a storm of racial tension, a lightning blast of street barricades and machetes, a thunder clap of protests followed by three days of darkness. This storm has been on the radar for some time, but up to this point Roatan has ignored the ominous dark clouds of turmoil looming on its socioeconomic horizon.

RECO (Roatan Electrical Company– the island’s sole electrical provider with a notoriously spotty history of blackouts and bribes) had unexpectedly increased its rates by 82% the previous month, leaving a majority of the sticker-shocked island struggling to scrape together means with which to pay our surprisingly enormous bills amidst the hottest month and lowest economic time of the year. When the bills were distributed (accompanied by a pithy letter feebly apologizing for the financial sodomy), protesters took to the streets for a day to demand that RECO give them a break. The growing thunderhead was momentarily abated when rates were promised to be reduced by the following month, but when RECO threatened to pull the plug on the many poorer families who had failed to pay their bills, the clouds of this perfect storm reached the breaking point.

We pull into West End to find ourselves held prisoner in our own town. Barricades have been laid across the only intersection leading into the beach village, where stick-wielding Hondurans are effectively preventing all traffic flow. The coconut telegraph is alive: rumors fly of similar barricades being erected around the island, of Gringos being violently accosted when trying to run through, of Municipal police officers being assaulted when trying to control the crowds. As we stare across the choppy bay, one rumor reveals itself to be true: the Carnival cruise ship is heading out to sea, ferrying her 3000 American tourists with half a million dollars of tourist income away to safer ports.

Amidst this chaos of tourists trying to make their way back to their resorts, parents struggling to collect their children from schools, and workers fighting to figure out how to get home, the unthinkable happens: RECO pulls the plug on the entire island. Against the din of the countless generators firing up, the storm howls with a cacophonous roar of pure panic. The island’s collective insanity, which has been broiling for the past month against the endless rain and economic downturn, spills over the cauldron of anger, racism, and blame.

The gas stations are the first to be hit. With limited fuel available to power the generators, the pumps quickly run dry as people fill their fuel reserves to the limit. The grocery stores are next as countless refrigerated items are tossed out (much to the joy of the street dogs) and non-perishable supplies begin to wane. Motivated by fear and powered by rum, our angry population begins to fear how long we will have to endure these conditions. Like always, rumors fly: the power will be back on in one day; two days; one week; two weeks.

Meanwhile, we are literally cut off from the rest of the world. As the phone providers run out of juice with which to power their services, our internet and phone lines drop dead. We now have no way of knowing what is happening either on or off our little angry rock in the Caribbean. The ferry stops running and access to the airport is impossible. Never before has the Honduran mainland seemed so far away. We are truly trapped on an wild island surrounded by dangerous locals.

Where are the police? The road blocks continue without the municipal muscle stepping in. Where are the island leaders? Some are hiding in their homes, while others are personally agitating the protests. Where is the solution? Rumors fly of the Cobras (Honduran special ops) and the Honduran President arriving on the island to address the situation, but without communication or transportation we are compelled to ride out the storm in the darkness of ignorance.

November 7, 2008. I am driving back from Anthony’s Key Resort when I notice a promising sign: street lights. As we pass home after home, the beautiful soft glow of electrical lights stream from within. A whoop of excitement rises in my chest, only to be swallowed again as I pull my scooter up my driveway into absolute darkness. I unleash a stream of expletives, consisting mostly of creative combinations involving “fuck” and “RECO”.

I am lying perpendicular across my bed in absolute darkness, contemplating the myriad means of making Molotov cocktails along with various techniques for lobbing them into mobs, when I hear a sound I will never forget. Beep. The gentle sound of my air conditioning unit receiving power. I run through the house, flicking on all the lights, my joy erupting as each flick further illuminates the house. I run the water in the shower, then dive straight in as I feel the warmth of the water heater stream from the faucet, my three days of grime running down the drain.

This storm had been building for some time. Roatan faces the unique sociological challenge of successfully merging at least three distinct cultures– Bay Islander, Honduran Mainlander, and Foreign Expatriate– into one functioning society. So far, we’re doing a pretty awful job. The Bay Islanders have rapidly fractured from a fairly unified fishing culture into a small class of Bourgeoisie businessman-politicians rapidly profiting from the influx of tourism and an expanding Proletariat base marginalized by their own leaders. The Foreign Expatriates have transplanted the wealth from their respective home countries into a previously impoverished but economically stable island, furthering the economic rift by financially empowering the Bay Islander Bourgeoisie through shady real estate deals whilst simultaneously triggering an unstemmed influx of Honduran Mainlanders to construct their developments at exploitative rates. The Honduran Mainlanders have migrated in droves to seek out a land of milk, honey, and employment– only to be disillusioned when the construction contract dries up, their family is marginalized into one of the countless shanty towns around the island, and then the overinflated RECO bill arrives.

The events that unfolded over the last month are an embarrassment to our island, and deservedly so. We are a beautiful island– one of the last true gems of the Caribbean– with so much to offer the outside world in terms of natural beauty and with so much potential for intelligently-planned growth and development on the inside. But we are an island without a voice, an island without unity, an island that is, at present, more content to let the socioeconomic rift widen, the marginalization persist, the government remain aloof, the racism escalate, and the infrastructure devolve than tackle the politically sticky issue of how all three groups are going to coexist both now and in the future. The reward for our current behavior? Three cruise ships canceled, millions of dollars lost, the island slapped travel warning from the US Embassy, negative press around the world, and a tarnished international reputation. Way to go.

Like all winds that blow through the Caribbean, this most recent storm has thankfully passed. The island is back to her normal ways: we have electricity, we have telecommunications, and (most importantly) we have awesome scuba diving. That said, I hope that the next storm to strike this island is of the barometric– not socioeconomic– variety.

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