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Benjamin Bonilla hopes for the day the government will sell them land. |
By RUSTY DENNEN
Benjamin Bonilla is the unofficial mayor of Siete de Abril. He lives in the squatter village's largest house, which by American standards is little more than a tin-roofed shack.
Bonilla, 50, his wife, Suyapa, 34, their four children, another woman who had nowhere else to stay and her baby all live in two rooms separated by sheets.
A worn sofa and love seat sit in the center. A pantry on the side holds items he sells to other villagers. An outhouse, with a bucket of water for washing, sits a few feet from the house.
Sheets of tin and scraps of wood don't keep out the humid night air or ever-present mosquitos, which carry malaria. The windows have no screens, and scorpions also live here.
But Bonilla is one of the lucky few with a concrete slab under his abode.
"What is important to me and my children is to do something about poverty in my neighborhood," he says through a translator.
The Bonillas moved to Siete de Abril four years ago when when they no longer could afford the rent on an apartment in El Progreso.
Bonilla and about a half dozen village leaders want to buy their land, but no one is sure when--or if--the government will sell.
"My first concern is to be the legal owner so I can have a [permanent] place to call home. Not a shack. A place to live with dignity," he says.
He and the others are afraid to spend what little they earn on concrete blocks and wood for sturdier homes. If they are kicked out, they lose what little they have. No one pays rent.
Bonilla and his family are one step up from homelessness. He sells ice cream in the city from a blue cooler strapped to the back of a worn motorcycle. Another source of income is his Pulperia Genesis, a rudimentary store named after one of his daughters. It's behind a window latticed with wood so no one can climb in at night to steal.
Neighbors trek there daily to buy palm oil for frying, candy, Pepsis, cigarettes and eggs that he buys in the city and resells.
He dreams that, one day, electricity will come to Siete de Abril. But that would cost 100,000 lempiras--about $5,000. Many here earn about 100 lempiras a week--about $5.
At dusk, Bonilla attaches a wire from a light bulb to a car battery in the living room. It is his 50th birthday and the visiting Americans have brought a cake from the bakery in town.
He cranks up a rented boom box and those gathered for the celebration begin to dance. But later that night, the bulb dims. A decision must be made.
The music--and the party--end.
To reach RUSTY DENNEN:
Email: rdennen@freelancestar.com
