MERCY TULLIS-BUKHARI
Esta gringa flew to Honduras when she was 5 years old on
the lie that she was going to meet Mickey Mouse because
esta gringa could not stop crying while boarding this
monstrous-size thing that was supposed to stay afloat
high in the air. We flew from Kennedy Airport into clouds,
then over pineapple plantations and banana fields, cows
roaming and campesinos working, sand and beaches con
hondos strong as the ancestors pleading from esta grown
gringa to go back. When we landed, esta gringa asked where
is Mickey Mouse? Because, of course, Mickey Mouse should
be waiting for esta gringa on the tarmac. Mi mama ignored the
question. She pushed me pass the initial slap of hot humid air,
took me down the aircraft stairs, walked me across the tarmac
into the building of the airport. We searched for our suitcases
in a room where suitcases were thrown at random places on
the floor. We were like roaches scattering when the light goes
on, looking for our bags, Mi mama, slipping a ten dollar bill
to the woman who manually checked the suitcases we found,
patted the top of the tightly packed items of clothes and soaps
and shoes and more clothes and unknown ducktaped packages
from Tia Melba y Tia Lorna y Tia Carmen (all of whom were
not really mis tias), for abuelita, fulano y fulano y fulano. We
had to return to the airport the following week for one missing
suitcase. Esta gringa, played futbolito barefooted in the sand
that was her soil. Within the confused gaze of the neighbors,
esta gringa swam in the sand granules, and poured buckets of
the sand on her head. Esta gringa washed the sand off her body
in the big sink behind the house, the same sink mi mama used
to handwash our clothes. Esta gringa chased chickens around
the house, danced punta, ate la comida of split coconuts, and
heard her mami yell to curious passerbys con urgullo, “¡Ella
es Gringa! ¡Ciudana Americana!” Esta grown Gringa looks back
when Gringa status mattered. Esta gringa watched a Garifuna
man walk to a canoe with a net, come back to shore with fish
in his net. She watched a Garifuna woman take a fish from that
net, scrape the scales of that fish, split it open, salt it and fried
the fish en aceite de coco. Mi mama squeezed lime on the fried
fish and tajadas. Esta gringa, ate fried fish con tajadas for lunch.
Gracias a dios, Columbus said, that Honduras saved his lost ass
from the depths of the storm, y esta gringa was saved from a contrived
fantasy world of fake-believe dreams and its minstrel mouse.
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