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Final Blog

Adam Penaflor 

2B

4/10/23

“Reflections on a Year of Reading Honduras Literature”

Titles Read:

The Long Honduran Night

The Lost City of The Monkey God

Honduras Enchantment of the World

In the beginning, Honduras wasn’t my first choice. I wanted to choose the Philippines. Having family from both Honduras and the Philippines I wanted to take a deeper dive into my culture. I have been to Honduras multiple times, even going this past summer leading up to my senior year. I can speak the language, and I have eaten the food many times so I believe that I am more connected to the Honduran culture. But when it comes to the Philippines, I never spoke the language or spent time with my family because I had never been to the Philippines. So I wanted to know the history of the country that the other part of my family was from. But with the Philippines being taken I was forced to read about my second choice, Honduras. At first, I felt like reading about Honduras was going to be pointless because I believed I had excellent knowledge of this country. But after reading 20 weeks of Honduran Literature, I have learned how the country's government is corrupt and the reason many of my family moved to America. I also learned about the country's origins and why the land is very unique with many ancient ruins that are still undiscovered today.

From Preston’s The Lost City of the Monkey God to Frank’s The Long Honduran Night, I’ve learned that through trials and tribulations, you should never give up. In The Lost City of Monkey God, we follow Douglas Preston, Steve Elkins, and their crew on a journey to find the Ciudad Blanca. This quest has been unsuccessful for years, many crews before them have failed or been exposed. Before the quest, everyone told them it was a myth and they shouldn’t perform it but they didn’t listen. The journey was tough and treacherous, at a certain point they wanted to give up but they didn’t and they found la Ciudad Blanca and other Lost Cities, they did the unthinkable. In The Long Honduran Night, the country was always controlled and exploited by the government and by America. But the country was tired of being treated like nothing and the resistance, the military overthrew the government. In both novels, it showed how determined the people of Honduras are and they would do anything to get what they want, never giving up.

Throughout the 20 weeks of Independent Reading, I have learned that I wasn’t very good at time management and keeping track of my reading. At first, the task seemed simple to read 10 pages a day and pick a quote. But as the school year went on I’ve had many things come up like practice, work, etc that sometimes I would forget to read or find a quote often falling behind. I learned ways to use my downtime, especially during school to read, whether it was in intervention or at the end of a class I found time to read and made sure I wouldn’t forget. I would put my book on my laptop to serve as a daily reminder to read. I also learned that I don’t really like reading when I am forced to read, especially when it doesn’t interest me. If the book is too long or is something that I don’t really enjoy reading I would often not be engaged while reading and it would seem like a chore to me. But I can say that reading about Honduran literature has helped me learn many things that I didn’t know before about the country and culture.

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Week 19 Blog

Adam Penaflor

Pages Read: 1-50

Word Count: 460

Summary (102)

The nation of Honduras has struggled for years, they have a bad economy and has always been seen as an inferior country compared to the countries near it, especially the United States. America has exploited Houndras for many years, controlling their government and having many bases in Houndras. Honduras had enough and the government became corrupt, the police and military took orders from themselves. The government started to kidnap government officials, mainly foreign officials that are in Honduras. They harmed and captured innocent citizens and raided people's homes. This forced many of the citizens to flee the country or leave the area.

Critical Analysis (205)

The government in Honduras began so corrupt, the military officials and police no longer protected and served they began to protect themselves. Just like the saying “every man for themself” they began to follow and if you didn’t join their movement then you would face the consequences. It is either you join the resistance or get harmed by them. The author says,” The raids weren't over, though. At a house by the entrance, I could see ten policemen "inspecting" a silver pickup truck. I got as close as I could-the campesinos' very real concern was that drugs or arms would be planted. Three weeks earlier, President Porfirio Lobo, with zero evidence, had charged that there was an arms cache containing a thousand AK-47s and M-16s in the Lower Aguán, where subversives, he claimed, were being trained to attack the government." (The Long Honduran Night Page 48) Just like Pablo Escobar or El Chapo Houndras, the government took orders from the drug lords for money and power. Imagine calling 9-1-1 to report a drug dealer but the dealer is actually a military officer. For an average citizen life in Honduras is hard, you can trust no one, not even the people who were made to protect. 

Personal Response (153)

After reading the first 50 pages for my final Independent Reading it made me realize the life I maybe could’ve had. My mom lived in Honduras all her life with my brothers and sister a couple of months before I was born my mom fled the country to America for a better life. I understand why, Honduras is a country that is hard to succeed in, America may not be perfect but it has given many opportunities to my mom. If my mom stayed in Honduras she would have been just a housewife to a farmer but in America, she was able to raise a family, own a house, and open up her own business. I am grateful for my mom for all the things she has been through and I am going to appreciate her more because she sacrificed a lot and took a risk for my family and never gave up.

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"...when the media erupted in an uproar about the arrival of fifty-seven thousand undocumented, unaccompanied minors at the US border, and instant experts sought to explain why parents would do something so seemingly irresponsible as sending their children on a dangerous trip to a foreign country by bus and train and car in the company of strangers, I thought about those campesino parents in the Aguán Valley and their kids. Those parents had known exactly how brutal the alternatives were at home. Just like the parents who sent their kids north, they were trying to imagine, and build, a future for their loved ones."

Dana Frank

(The Long Honduran Night Page 41)

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"The raids weren't over, though. At a house by the entrance, I could see ten policemen "inspecting" a silver pickup truck. I got as close as I could-the campesinos' very real concern was that drugs or arms would be planted. Three weeks earlier, President Porfirio Lobo, with zero evidence, had charged that there was an arms cache containing a thousand AK-47s and M-16s in the Lower Aguán, where subversives, he claimed, were being trained to attack the government."

Dana Frank

(The Long Honduran Night Page 48)

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“By the late spring, I had settled into a more or less permanent state of panic, worrying about whether my friends or their kids would be killed or tortured, worrying about the whole country. I channeled my anxieties into obsessive work around Honduras. New doors opened in the media, especially at The Nation.”

Dana Frank

(The Long Honduran Night Page 37)

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"But I also heard stories of families that had been completely torn apart. A line in the sand split the country, golpistas on one side, Resistance on the other, driving right through the middle of families- husbands and wives, parents and children-and producing brutal heartache. I heard, too, that thousands had lost their jobs because they'd participated in the Resistance, like a young man I heard of who had gotten official permission for a personal day off from his job in a factory, so he'd be able to go to a demonstration when a television station ran a close-up of him in the central plaza of San Pedro carrying a can collecting money for the Resistance, he was fired."

Dana Frank

(The Long Honduran Night Page 25)

0 notes

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"On September 21, President Zelaya, in a complete surprise, popped up inside the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa, joined by three hundred supporters. The military and police immediately surrounded the embassy, launched tear gas inside, cut off most supplies, and began psychological harassment that lasted for months-blasting loud music, horns, and the sounds of animals screaming, for example. Micheletti declared another state of siege in the rest of country. A new wave of repression swept through."

Dana Frank

(The Long Honduran Night Page 11)

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Week 18 Blog

Adam Penaflor

Pages Read: 270-310

Word Count: 470

Summary (130)

Leishmaniasis is a parasitic disease that is found in hotter and tropical areas, that can date back to ancient times. The crew discovered Leishmaniasis has been affecting civilization from the people who lived in the Lost City to ancient Egypt, so Leishmaniasis has been killing many people and now the crew has been diagnosed with it. Luckily they were rushed to the hospital and were prescribed with a treatment. While in the hospital the crew made headlines for their finds in a positive or negative light, some people were praising them while others were quick to call it fake again. Once out of the hospital, the crew had countless interviews because they did it they discovered the legends of the Mosquita, Cidudad Blanca, the “Lost City of the Monkey God”.

Critical Analysis (211)

After leaving the hospital the crew was interviewed by many people from the government to Vice but nothing was like the Honduras interview. The author says, "While the artifacts were being packed for their trip out, I interviewed Hernández, who spoke with enthusiasm about the discovery and what it would mean for Honduras. As a child he had heard legends of Ciudad Blanca and had been moved by the news in 2012, when he was president of the Honduran Congress, that our shot-in-the-dark lidar survey of Mosquitia had turned up not one but two lost cities. "This is an archaeological and historic event," he said. "This culture is fascinating, but we've got a lot to learn, and it's going to take some time." He added, proudly, "We are happy to share this knowledge with the world."(The Lost City of The Monkey God Page 286) The government flew them out because they accomplished something that no one can do. Hernández heard the legends as a kid and thought it was fake but the crew found it and now he is the president of the Honduran Congress. It is a surreal moment, something that was unthinkable happened the reason why Hernández flew them to give praise and see how they did it.

Personal Response (129)

After finishing the story I am satisfied with this read, in the beginning of the year I started the first 50 to 100 pages of this book and I returned it back to the Shute Library, it was kind of boring because they were talking about the history and preparing for the expedition. But as I read it again and fully completed this story I am glad I did, it is crazy to think that I was once in Honduras at Catacamas. Which was the closet city to the Mosquitia, I was like from Malden to Everett close to the Lost City. I am very interested in expeditions, I have been watching a lot of documentaries and Vice on discovering things. Would I recommend this book to anyone? For sure!

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"On August 14, the police grabbed Irma Melissa villanueva, 125, from a demonstration in Choloma, outside San Pedro Sula, where she'd been marching alongside friends of mine, and took her away to a remote location, where four policemen gang-raped her for hours. "Now, bitch, now you're gonna see what happens to you for being where you shouldn't be," they told her. Three days later, with incredible bravery, her mother and husband at her side, she testified over."

Dana Frank

(The Long Honduran Night Page 6)

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"Archaeology contains many cautionary tales for us to ponder in the twenty-first century, not just about disease but also about human success and failure. It teaches us lessons in environmental degradation, income inequality, war, violence, class division, exploitation, social upheaval, and religious fanaticism. But archaeology also teaches us how cultures have thrived and endured, overcoming the challenges of the environment and the darker side of human nature. It shows us how people adapted, lived their lives, and found fulfillment and meaning under fantastically diverse conditions. It tracks both the failures and the successes."

Douglas Preston

(The Lost City of The Monkey God Page 301)

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"Once in a while, an animal pathogen will change in such a way that it suddenly infects a person. When people in the Near East first domesticated cattle from a type of wild ox called an aurochs, a mutation in the cowpox virus allowed it to jump into humans and smallpox was born. Rinderpest in cattle migrated to people and became measles. Tuberculosis probably originated in cattle, influenza in birds and pigs, whooping cough in pigs or dogs, and malaria in chickens and ducks. The same process goes on today: Ebola probably jumped to humans from bats, while HIV crashed into our species from monkeys and chimpanzees."

Douglas Preston

(The Lost City of The Monkey God Page 291)

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"While the artifacts were being packed for their trip out, I interviewed Hernández, who spoke with enthusiasm about the discovery and what it would mean for Honduras. As a child he had heard legends of Ciudad Blanca and had been moved by the news in 2012, when he was president of the Honduran Congress, that our shot-in-the-dark lidar survey of Mosquitia had turned up not one but two lost cities. "This is an archaeological and historic event," he said. "This culture is fascinating, but we've got a lot to learn, and it's going to take some time." He added, proudly, "We are happy to share this knowledge with the world."

Douglas Preston

(The Lost City of The Monkey God Page 286)

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"The former head of the IHAH, Dario Euraque, told the website Vice.com that the archaeologists were taking credit for a discovery that was "not theirs" and that they had offended indigenous groups by engaging in "racist dialogue?" He said shat the publicity had left the ruins open to looting and that he was very sad to see Honduras turned "into a reality show. ' Some archaeologists and others accused President Hernandez of exploiting the find to distract public attention from corruption, human rights abuses, and the murder of environmental activists."

Douglas Preston

(The Lost City of The Monkey God Page 274)

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Week 17 Blog

Adam Penaflor

Pages Read: 220-270

Word Count: 461

Summary (102)

After discovering as much as they can Preston, Elkins, and their crew finished their expedition and returned back to the United States. As they returned back they began releasing everything they had discovered from both Lost Cities. With the ruins and their findings, the crew discovered that these lost cities in the Mosquito were abandoned because of a Spanish outbreak, a fatal disease called leishmaniasis. As they were learning about the outbreak the crew began to experience similar symptoms as the  people in the Lost Cities. The crew was put into the hospital where they can try to cure themselves of leishmaniasis.

Critical Analysis (173)

After the expedition, the crew was hit with harsh symptoms and they began feeling too weak to work. So they returned back to the United States to get treated and find a cure. The author says,”Brothers in the leish: Despite the fact nobody from the group has been diagnosed with anything, I'm going to perhaps jump the gun and address one elephant in the room directly. There may be cause to explore the possibility of leishmaniasis in my case, and as I understand the situation, possibly others from the group.

He said he had decided to return to the States for a firm diagnosis and treatment...Steve Elkins remained exasperatingly healthy, but Bill Benen-son had discovered two jungle ticks on himself when he returned to California." (The Lost City of The Monkey God Page 237) The symptoms the crew is experiencing are direct relation to the expedition, the disease is either new or the doctors have never seen it because they couldn’t diagnose the crew. Is this it for the legendary crew?

Personal Response (186)

After reading these pages it made me think about the ancient city and I believe it is lost  for a reason. In all the past expeditions many of the explorers failed or lied about their findings but the crew we follow throughout the story were able to find it but now are in the hospital experiencing a disease they obtained from the Lost City. The Lost City of the Monkey God is a curse and whoever finds it will be hit with the curse, the same way the crew got hit with something that the doctors said is incurable. Maybe the monkey part is the ruler of this lost city and only monkeys are able to be in this area, if you are an outsider then you will face harsh consequences. Just like Covid originated from a bat and then got transmitted to humans maybe the monkeys are the ones who are carrying the leishmaniasis and that's how it was able to be transferred to the crew. As the book is coming to end we are going to learn if the crew is going to survive.

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"If only we had the smallest fraction of the money that is devoted to malaria," he declared to me in anguish, "we could do so much to stop this disease!'' In our first meeting, Nash sat me down and explained why he thought our team had become infected, how leishmaniasis works, what its life cycle is, and what I had to expect from treatment."

Douglas Preston

(The Lost City of The Monkey God Page 261)

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"So what now?" I asked. "How are you going to get cured? He shook his head. "F$ck if I know." He said the doctors were going to wait and see if the two doses had knocked out the leish, which was possible but unlikely. It was a slow-acting disease and there was no need to rush into another potentially toxic treatment. In the meantime, the NIH would try to get the newer drug, miltefosine, for him.

Douglas Preston

(The Lost City of The Monkey God Page 258)

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"When the Spanish conquistadors arrived in South America in the sixteenth century, they were horrified at the facial deformities they saw among native people in the lowlands of the Andes, especially among the coca growers. the Spanish thought they were looking at a form of leprosy and called the disease lepra blanca, "white leprosy." Over the years, mucosal leish has acquired many nicknames in Latin America: tapir nose, hoarse voice, spongy wound, big canker."

Douglas Preston

(The Lost City of The Monkey God Page 244)