Breadcrumb #554

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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