I sat outside the Crazy Bean cafe facing the main street and Half Moon Bay, or as my dad later put it: the gringo cafe. My dad texted that they were in West End, and when I looked up from my phone, Dad and Ashley, my step mom, hollered at me from the rolled down window of a taxi.
“And just like that, there you are!”
I hopped in, we made a U-turn, and drove down the main stretch in search of the Airbnb we’d be staying in the remainder of our stay in Roatan.
“Now isn’t this paradise,” said Dad. “Look at that water!” We stopped at an enclave across from the taco stand I sunbathed at the day prior, and walked across a small gravel parking space. Our Airbnb was one of several small houses staggered along a narrow walkway. Our host, Pierre, came to greet us, then lead us up the alley and into our two bedroom apartment. He told us about how electricity worked in Honduras, that it was mostly solar power, and we needed to be cautious in turning off the lights and AC before we left; to drop used toilet paper in a waste bin, and not into the toilet because Central America has small pipes, and septic tanks. I learned this lesson the hard way during a study abroad in Costa Rica when I was seventeen. I naively flushed toilet paper in my host family’s house and backed up their sewage—oops.
The tap water in Honduras was undrinkable, just as it is back in Wilmington with its GenX leakage from a Chemours plant that dumped their Teflon chemicals in the Cape Fear river. There was a line of five-gallon water jugs on our front porch. In the jugs, I could see floaties. This water I later learned was gathered from a well on the island, and not purified. Pierre mentioned that he wasn’t the owner of the Airbnb, but that the part-Honduran owners live in the US. It made me question how outsourced property was in Roatan. There are real estate offices on the main stretch offering properties for over a million dollars. Shelley, my host at the Runaway Pineapple, was from the US. It seemed the Bay Islands were bought up by anyone that wanted them, so long as they could pay the price. The locals don’t have that kind of money. When Pierre finally left, Dad said, “Thank god, I was waiting for him to go away.” Then he mocked his french accent.
Dad lay across the couch, broke out a tube of CBD cream, and started rubbing it on his feet. They were swollen and purple-veined.
“Plantar Fasciates,” said Dad. “You get a long, hard look, Camille, because this will be your future.” He says this often when it comes to his ailments; I see it as his way of deflecting. Instead of taking it personally, I name off all the methods he could use to take care of himself— R.I.C.E., for example. I choose to believe we can heal ourselves.
After his feet were thickly lathered, we walked back to my hostel to retrieve my luggage. And Dad, graciously, carried my suitcase all the way back to the house, swollen feet and all. He let me know that my brother surprised him, and he’ll be landing in Roatan tomorrow. I was ecstatic about this, as it’d been over a year since I’d seen my brother. Our family trip took on a new lustre with the knowledge I would be having some sibling time. I’d mentally prepared to spend the whole of the trip in my parent’s wake.
One of the first conversations I had with Ashley was about the cruise ships. She had watched the documentary Amy Bradley is Missing. About a family on a vacation cruise: they stopped at a port for three hours and the daughter never returned. It’s assumed she is/was sex-trafficked.
“They said she was scrappy,” said Amy. “And could make her way around just fine.” I realized she was personalizing this missing girl as analogous to myself. The worst part was that, as they searched for her, the family recovered a picture they believed was their daughter. Evidence that she’s alive. While I’ve always been cautious, the story drilled a kernel of fear in me that I didn’t sign up for. The whole of our trip together, sex trafficking was a pot simmering on the stovetop of my brain. If I had a daughter, I’d prefer her to be dead than alive, likely drugged, and unsafe.
It was near dark when we walked from West End to West Bay, a three-mile path along the shoreline. We couldn’t see where we stepped without flashlights. I’m not a fast walker by any means, but felt I had to walk as if we were walking down the aisle at a wedding reception as Dad dragged his feet, complaining the whole journey about how badly he wanted a Monkey Lala, that he was just an old man (he’s forty-eight), and that us women were fixing to kill him making him walk so much, that he just wanted to sit down and eat already. Shelly did warn us about walking the path so late at night when we went to retrieve my luggage. That it was rocky, and difficult to navigate in the dark. We’d taken a wrong turn when we reached a culvert and wandered onto private property until a man yelled at us that there was a bridge.
On the horizon were the glimmers of cruise ships, and blinking of water taxis. A karaoke party boat mosied by us, someone was bludgeoning a song by Blink-182. I would abhor sitting on a Karaoke boat while people drunkenly stumbled over the words to Moondance or What’s Up by 4 Non-blondes. It was loud enough from the beach. That would be one of my layers of hell.
When we reached West Bay—the beaches combed and cleared of debri—there was another Argentinian Grill. When I ate there the night before, I was salivating at the menu, but trying to tamp down my spending. Now I had a second chance to feast. Ashley works at a wine dispensary in Roseburg, Oregon, and has the intel on the latest trending wines. “I’ve been waiting to try this one,” she said. “a spanish grape.” I enjoy the company of people with such unique interests, especially if I can also enjoy the benefits of these interests.
We ordered a salad called Yaba Ding Ding, which I got such a kick out of saying. Yaba ding ding yaba ding ding. A word used in the Bay Islands to refer to pre-colombian artefacts. The salad was chopped cucumbers, tomatoes, red onions, and cous cous—an ancient grain—tossed in a lemon vinaigrette. When our waitress repeated yaba ding ding back to us, she said it so naturally that it lost its oomph. We ate a whole grilled fish, the yaba ding ding, and a grilled white fish in a passionfruit marinade. I had sandflea bites all over my ass, and that, paired with my sweaty skirt, and the wooden chairs at the Argentinian Grill made it difficult to enjoy the ambiance and food, but I rallied.
When we arrived back at the Airbnb, hailing a taxi for Dad’s sake, Danny had texted me. He invited me to The Booty Bar, a short walk from where my family was staying. The bar was pirate themed, there was a neon sign with a skeleton’s head and cross-bones, and it was built on the water. Over the edge I could see the dark water lapping at wooden columns. Danny had his brother along with him, and another gentleman who asked me to guess his ethnicity.
“German,” I said flat out.
“German! What gives off that I’m German?”
“Danish, then?”
“Closer.”
“Swedish.”
“Yes!”
I said nice to meet you in Swedish, and the boys hollered. But when Anton replied back in Swedish, I just blinked at him. I Reminded myself how silly it was to spend over nine months in Sweden and only know a few basic phrases. Danny pulled me aside and told me how he was trying to set me up with Anton, the Swede, because he thought we were perfect for each other. But Danny’s drunken mannerisms toward me said otherwise. He kept grabbing me by the waist and pulling me in close so his lips brushed my cheek, and whispered in my ear to dance with him. I continued pushing him away, maintaining a flimsy a barricade up so he wasn’t leaching my personal space. My eyes were set on the mysterious Anton who said very little, but supplied all our drinks. For me, one G&T, and three shots of tequila that I flung over my shoulder.
“This girl,” Danny started, pointing at me as he spoke to his brother and Anton, “When she first met me, I had no idea what she was talking about. Took me a minute to realize she was speaking to me in Spanish. I don’t know why you’d just assume I was Spanish.”
I tried to defend myself, “well we were in the Roatan airport, I don’t think I was making such a huge leap—”
“She just assumed I would understand her.”
Anton jumped to my aid. “Honestly, if we were in the Swedish airport, and you started speaking to me in Swedish, I wouldn’t think much of it. Especially given that I’m a Swede that speaks Swedish, and we’re in Sweden. And here, Danny, you are brown and you speak Spanish.” Danny wouldn’t let it go. He wanted to be in the right so bad, but was beating a dead horse in his attempts to pin me as presumptuous. He was clearly wasted—there was a sheen over his eyes, and kept repeating himself, hoping that at some point it would stick. She just assumed I spoke Spanish. Danny lost most of the respect I had for him, and the more he brought up his pointless point, the more annoying he became to me.
When he wasn’t hounding me about our first meeting, he kept telling me what a perfect couple Anton and I would make. And I wondered if this was because we were both white. Regardless, I did favor Anton far more. When the boys mentioned trail-blazing to a different bar, I decided it was time for bed. The corral walked me back to the entry of he Airbnb, a small grove of trees at the beginning of the walkway, and Anton said he’d walk me to the door. Before we split off, Danny made a comment in Spanish and I waved him away.
“What did he say?”
“It’s really not important,” I said.
“Well, I want to know.” I wavered. I’d been out of the dating game for a while now, forgot the dancing around that happens with a man when he leaves you at the door of your house.
“He said that you should kiss me.”
“Well, is that something you want?”
“Yes.”
There was PVC pipe with holes punched in sticking out of the ground, bleeding soft yellow light onto the lopsided walkway. Versatile, budget friendly, and romantic lighting. Anton and I made out against the trunk of a Ceiba tree, until I noticed a trail of large ants climbing up the trunk with their haul of snipped leaves and crumbs. We felt them bite, and sprung apart from each other to whack at our bare legs, and fluff the clothes on our backs.
Camille Bliss 
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