Incessant complaining, peculiar moves and sheer delusion

By Ben Anson

HAVANA TIMES – I reached the end of the afternoon a few days ago, as evening crept upon us sun-blazed citizens of San Pedro Sula, whereupon I suddenly realised the following.

“Christ, all that people have done today is complain to me about their country”.

I exclaimed it out loud, as if addressing a group.

It was me and the bedroom wall though.

I honestly don’t know what’s going on at the moment. Why people see me and think that I actively seek their political/general opinions hasn’t been established yet. During the last few days, on entering the taxi which comes to pick one up from one’s current abode at precisely 6.30 am; a decidedly unenchanting hour to be ‘up and at it’ – I add, the driver of the said taxi immediately embarks on anti-government speeches. At 6.30 am no less…

“They robbed all the money sent to combat Coronavirus”.

“They stole all the vaccines”.

“They’re killing old people”.

“They’re trying to eliminate the weak and infirm”.

“The president keeps us all poor”.

“Poor”, says the old fellow running a taxi fleet. I don’t know, maybe my take on being ‘poor’ is too severe. Maybe I’m too narrow-minded on the usage of the word ‘poor’. Maybe for Ben Anson being ‘poor’ is something like barefoot, malnourished Haitian children eating mud biscuits and not owning several vehicles which you deploy as private taxis. Maybe I’m terribly off point with my thinking.

Please note the sarcasm.

I wondered about this again whilst hearing how Honduras had “nothing to offer and was done with” from a middle-aged father of two.

“It’s become miserable here, there are no opportunities”, said the architect lounging upon his wide sofa – eyes fixed upon a 65 inch plasma television in front of him.

A former priest I know, who makes ironic and amusing declarations such as “white people are heartless murderers” and “the people who come to this shopping mall are so ugly”, sat complaining in his office the other day – as he always does. They say the greatest trick the Devil ever played was to fool people that he didn’t exist.

Many a demon has played a priest…

There is something corrupt, unwhole and quite nasty about the way in which he speaks.

“Ah I’m so sick of this place, of this country, things are getting so bad here – you’re gonna see Ben – you’re gonna see. There’s going to be civil war, rape and murder soon”, he declared, sat back on his spinning, desk-chair, within a chilled, air-conditioned office, dressed in blueish-grey suede shoes, Levy jeans and a Ralph Lauren polo shirt/jacket combination. The old priest sipped on his white mochachino whilst running Honduras into the ground.

The things you hear from the mouths of some of these Hondurans.

I love them but I don’t love their delusions nor this absolutely incessant need to complain.

“Woe is me, I’m Honduran” should be written as their new national anthem.

The Caravan movements which are comprised of mostly Honduran migrants who literally walk on foot in hundreds to the Mexican/US border all the way from San Pedro Sula across the territories of Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico – have further gained this country a bad rep. What needs understanding by non-experts is that those who join these caravans are either the most severe of the most severe cases of poverty-dwelling individuals who come from the worst corners of Honduras, or, they are young people who could potentially get by here yet they are more captured by the incentives of the “bling, bling culture” associated with the United States.

For instance…

I have met nurses who make high salaries in Honduras with government benefits stemming from from well-educated, professional, family backgrounds, who’ve migrated to the US/Mexican border and given (quote) “the gringos the line of bullshit that I was being harassed by gangbangers so they’d let me in as an asylum seeker”.

One such girl who told me a story like that, was from a town called Olanchito where there aren’t even any gangs. Gangs don’t operate in the countryside where people eat iguanas…

Hondurans – in some parts of the country more than others, seem obsessed with the States more than anyone else appears to be.

Ay si, the minimum wage is now at fifteen dollars in the US. Now that’s a good country, I need to get to New York,” they’ll say.

“Right, just what do you plan on doing with fifteen dollars in New York then?”

A female friend of mine recently went to the US, illegally. She subsequently owes thousands of dollars to coyotes (human traffickers). The girl lived in a Caribbean beach community (Garifuna land) in a fully air-conditioned house with her sports car parked outside. Living the life you’d think. Well no, apparently not. She informed me that her goal is to make enough money in whatever it may be in order to eventually buy a car and rent a place of her own.

I wished her luck via Whatsapp instead of asking what the motherfuck is wrong with the woman. What are you gonna say? Who migrates illegally to another country (greatly risking one’s well being) to live far worse than you did back home just to get hold of the same material shit you already had?

Well, evidently Hondurans do.

Are these individuals well? ¿Todo bien en casa?

Then you’ve got the countless others who seem to come at me on purpose, as if they seek to irritate me with their ignorance and delusion.

“They say there’s loads of work in Spain, Ben”.

“Do they yeah? Well I doubt that”, I respond, as someone who has lived in Spain and possesses Spanish residency papers, whose brother and uncle both currently live in Spain as well.

“Yes, it’s not like Honduras, they have loads in jobs in tourism”.

I tend to pull a bemused face. As mentioned, I have Spanish residency rights, thus, if there was any remotely decent work in Spain – I’d probably have stayed. A great many are unemployed especially after the pandemic.

“Well I highly doubt that there’s all this work within Spanish tourism as you say, you see, my brother lives in Marbella and he has seen even the best 5 star hotels fold under Covid. Also, borders in Europe open and shut on a regular basis and most places and establishments such as public beaches are still not open to the public… so it simply isn’t probable what you’re saying”.

“No, no, Ben, there is work. An Australian guy told me.

“Oh, an Australian told you… right”.

“Yes, and they pay two thousand euros a month”.

“Of course they do, you’d know more than me”.

I’ve also started doing this thing where I just look at people whilst they talk, make faces as if one is actively listening and absorbing their chat yet whilst thinking in the back of my mind: “fuck this person’s conversation”.

I recommend the exercise. It can be quite amusing and beats getting into arguments over ultimately banal issues.

The overall point that I wish to make is it would be nice if nothing more, to simply reach the end of a day without having to hear complaints and nonsense. I could almost swear that everyone I know is eating three times a day – and well, for that matter. They’ve all a place to stay, something to sleep on and places of work.

There are many Cubans and Venezuelans living in Honduras. They are perfectly happy in their new homes. How many air-conditioned shopping malls with food courts, cinemas, gyms and more shops than you could shake a stick sprawled over three or four floors exist in Havana? Would I be right in saying not a single one? I don’t know, correct me – hit the comments section. Here in San Pedro Sula there are over five…

Not to mention all the fancy restaurants, clubs, bars, hotels, sports facilities etc.

One of the people I work with said to me the other day “we hate Salvadorans here. They come to our country, criticise us and they’re all about money”.

Yet my Salvadoran barber told me the other week: “the difference between us and the Hondurans is, we just crack on with it. People here talk and cry too much. We accept reality, work, make our money and go home”.

People love to complain.

Perhaps the English pretend they’re living in a sit-com.

Americans in an arthouse-flick.

Yet Latinos… in a telenovela.

Focus on the positives and you shall encounter positives.

Focus on the negatives and you shall encounter negatives.

A simple choice, what’s it gonna be?

Read more from Ben Anson’s diary here.

Ben Anson

“The moment that I disembark (from a plane), I notice that everything in my body and in my mind readjusts itself for me", so remarked Gabriel Garcia Marquez - when speaking of his relationship with the Caribbean. He felt the strongest physical and mental connection with this part of the world and deemed it as far as ‘grave’ and immensely ‘dangerous’ for him to leave its zone. Only here, did ‘Gabo’ feel ‘right’ in himself. Honduras, does for me - precisely what the Caribbean did for Marquez. A resplendent yet troubled nation, that I have been decidedly unable to part with ever since 2014. I thus seek to capture its essence through the written word.

9 thoughts on “Incessant complaining, peculiar moves and sheer delusion

  • Dear Rosamelba, what a wonderfully intelligent point you have made. I doubt that you shall be hearing from the ‘woke’ Diane and if you do, expect gibberish.

    Gerry, thank you very much for your praise. I am glad that you enjoyed the article and agreed with its point. People love to complain!

    As for Brad and Diane, get a room. Not to get up to anything ‘saucy’ that is, no… you could both keep each other company whilst spouting your brainwashed, Google-search-engine, corrupt and entirely biased, outrageously hipocritical, US-media-influenced balony together.

    How terribly sad, if not pathetic it is, how so many people like you two actively seek to maintain Honduras in a totally negative light. Your highlighting of the case of Tony Hernandez was something I saw coming a hundred miles away – tedious, at best. I assume that you both hail from North America, you know, the grand destination for all those drugs being smuggled from Latin America, given that the demand amongst your people is so horrifically high and your governmental agencies/presidents are so corrupt and full of **** themselves that they make it POSSIBLE for individuals like Tony Hernandez to manage such illicit operations. That is, until it all comes “out on top” and a scape goat must be used. Enter, Antonio Hernandez.

    I suppose you are going to tell me that I am inventing things now.

    Roberto Saviano, Napalese journalist, whose work on the Camorra mafia made him famous, explained in many interviews how the USA and its economy is completely riddled with black money and during the 2008 recession the banks where in fact sustained by drugs trafficking revenue. Billions. I attach the following link as just one example. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akjcC-bvFV0

    Now then Brad, which is the Narco state then? Watch the video and you tell me.

    Honduras can be picked on, for it is too small and ravaged by higher, foreign powers to effectively defend itself. Then along come, quite frankly, the wierdoes like you, who won’t even hear for two minutes how there are also quite wonderful things in this glorious country of noble people. You’d far sooner regurgitate the same old, tedious dialogue of “Honduras, murder capital of the world”, narco-state bull…

    A single city in this country was named as the murder capital way back in 2010 – over a whole decade ago! Honduras has not been the murder capital every single year on a consistent basis since then. TRAVEL… EXPERIENCE… GROW UP.

    Diane, I was not lashing out. Pointing out the obvious is separate. It is awfully apparent that you are out in left field. As is Brad. You repeat what you are told and analyse zilch. You don’t listen to those actually experiencing whatever the topic may be. We can only take your word for “being well-educated’ and also, you state that you have travelled Central America extensively, which is most likely your half-ass way of evading the fact you haven’t been to HN but perhaps neighboring countries…

    Anyway, I could run circles around the pair of you endlessly.
    For now, I’ll be hitting the streets of San Pedro Sula as I actually live here.
    You two can go back to your Google searches on Honduras.

  • It seems that no matter which country you may live in there are always those that, despite all the positive things there are to be grateful for, have nothing better to do than whine and complain.
    Focus on the positive and you shall see the positive.
    Very wise words….just wish more people would do that.
    Excellent article

  • As Brad points out, Honduras is basically a narco-state with high levels of corruption. I have traveled extensively in Central America–where lack of trust in government and law enforcement is a endemic. I’m
    also well-educated. For Ben to lash out and call a commentator he does not know “stupid” is rude and
    unacceptable.

  • Diane the problem with wokeness is that it sees knowledge as a behavior of supremacy. Your argument crumbles with just one example: Saudi Arabia. Event though Saudi has an abysmal Human Rights record, it has a net Migration into it – that is very little people leaving it and more coming in. Your feelings do not equate to truth – hard data does. Take a look…https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SM.POP.NETM?locations=SA.

  • Thank you Nick for your supporting of my articles, much appreciated as always.
    Indeed, people love to complain!
    Therefore some of us are forced to combat it with our sense of humor haha.
    Hope all’s well.

  • As usual Ben puts forward a totally hilarious and slightly dark article.
    And I’m going to have to say it. It puts some of those Cuban articles into perspective.
    The fact is.
    Everywhere in the world.
    People complain.
    But thankfully people still got a sense of humour.
    Good words Ben.

  • The major problem with people like you Diane, is you read and don’t absorb, you judge and don’t listen, you opinionate and know little.
    I am quite sure that you have never even been to HN. Do correct me if I’m wrong though.
    I have lived here many years and seek to dismiss this solely negative image Honduras holds thanks to the Dianes of the World you believe Google searches.
    To state that you “naively” fell in love with Latin America – is your problem, you’re naive then. Stupid too probably… If I am able to have conversations with educated Hondurans who agree with everything I say, then it is of frightfully little use or desire, your mere opinion of an article obviously beyond your intellectual/spiritual grasp.
    And no, I don’t want to go over my own article and browse for punctuation, pop yourself to the opticians, grab up some spectacles and then you’ll find the bugger is riddled with it.

  • You seem to equate the good life with material standards of living. Gee, despite such relative comforts, I wonder what could be lacking in Honduras that might drive its citizens to emigrate? Could it be its poor human rights record, the absence of ‘habeas corpus’ or the pervasive government corruption? Like you, I once naively fell in love with a Latin American paradise. As time passed, however, reality set in and I realized that beyond its charm and novelty lay a simmering layer of injustice, repression and cruelty.

    (You might also want to pay a bit more attention to punctuation–or lack thereof!)

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