“But there are some days when I don’t eat. Because there are some days when I don’t do any shines. People don’t get their shoes shined when it’s raining. The day is ruined. So I walk around, see, with my mouth open catching flies because there’s nothing to eat. I feel empty. I get a bad pain in my belly like something hot down there.” ~Lito Chirinos in “Lito, the Shoeshine Boy” by David Mangurian
It was January, 1994. I was just stepping out of a farm supply store on Avenida La República in La Ceiba, Honduras when a dirty, bare-footed boy, about 11 or 12 years old, walked past with a policeman following close behind. I decided to follow. They were headed in the direction of the Caribbean coast. The street we were on had a railroad track running down the middle which led straight out onto the main pier of the port city.
This was where the Standard Fruit Company (Dole) loaded its pineapples and bananas onto cargo ships for the U.S. and Europe. They walked passed the large customs building and stepped onto the pier. As the boy hesitated, the officer pointed to the far end of the pier and nudged him forward. They continued, carefully avoiding the missing boards in the pier revealing the dark water below. As they reached the far end, the officer had the boy sit on the edge and stare at the water. I wasn’t close enough to hear the conversation, but the boy was visibly upset. Then the officer pointed to a board sticking out from the post a few feet below and forced him to climb down. I thought for sure he was going to make him jump in the water. But soon he told him to climb back up and they walked back toward the shore again. At the other end near the shore several other officers had gathered. The 2 stopped. The boy sat at their feet and one of the other officers handed him an orange. Then the original officer kicked the boy in the back and told him to get up and leave.
I never saw him again. But he was just one of many kids who lived on the streets at that time. The police often saw them as a menace and wanted them off the streets. Usually, it was a case of a rural family not being able to feed their child, so they thought they would be better off fending for themselves in the city. The kids would sell newspapers, or shine shoes, or carry luggage for travelers. Sometimes they would find someone to pay them to guard their car at night. Sometimes they would have to beg or even steal. Many would sniff shoe glue to dull the pain of hunger and the thought of being abandoned. Rules and authority would become a distant memory of these kids’ past. Life was just survival, making it to the next day, only to start all over again. At night they could be found sleeping in the gazebo in the park, on the front porch of the Catholic church, under the wooden vendor stands at the market, in the doorway of a store; anywhere that provided a little shelter.
This brings to mind the lyrics of a song written by the late Rich Mullens:
I believe there is a place
Where people live in perfect peace
Where there is food on every plate
Where work is rewarded and rest is sweet
Where the color of your skin
Won’t get you in or keep you out
Where justice reigns and truth finally wins
Its hard fought war against fear and doubtI believe there’ll come a time
Lord, I pray it’s not too far off
There’ll be no poverty or crime
There’ll be no greed and we will learn how to love
And children will be safe in their homes
And there’ll be no violence out on the streets
The old will not be left alone
And the strong will learn how to care for the weak
Rural Honduras 