The Dust of 1971

I was born in 1971, in the heart of Tegucigalpa, Honduras where the streets were made of dust, and dreams were often swept away with the wind. Our neighborhood was poor, but full of life. Women sold tortillas on the corners, men patched roofs with whatever scrap they could find, and children like me ran barefoot, not because we wanted to, but because we had no other choice.

My father disappeared before I could remember his face. My mother, left with more burdens than coins, raised us on grit and grace. I became a child of the streets not by choice, but by necessity. Before I could read, I knew how to sell. I shouted over bus engines and bartered with men three times my age, just to bring home a few limp bills and enough beans to survive the night.

School was never guaranteed. But I fought for it. I studied by candlelight when we had candles. When we didn’t, I studied in silence, tracing letters into my palm, dreaming of becoming more than my neighborhood expected me to be.

Surviving in our neighborhood wasn’t just about poverty it was about persistence. Every day was a battle, but we fought it together. I was just a boy, but I already understood what it meant to carry weight. Not just in my arms, helping my mother haul sacks of vegetables to the market but in my heart, watching her try to smile through exhaustion.

Many nights, we were in the streets long after the city’s noise had quieted, selling tomatoes, onions, or whatever we could find. I remember the weight of the wooden crate biting into my fingers, the flicker of kerosene lamps outside small shops, and the way my mother whispered to me, "We must keep going, mijo. Just a little more."

Then we’d walk back home six children, one mother, and a house made of tired wood and hope. The floor was dirt, and sometimes the cold crept up from the ground into our bones. But oh, there were beautiful moments too. The smell of burning firewood as we neared the house, the sound of laughter as my sisters helped my mother flip tortillas on a blackened comal. Tortillas, beans, and a little cheese it wasn’t much, but it was ours. We ate together, talked, and for a short while, forgot how hard the day had been.

The worst nights were when the rains came. Our roof, patched with plastic and rusted tin, couldn’t keep the water out. I remember waking up to my mother moving pots and pans around, catching the drips that tapped down in every corner. Our blankets got wet, and so did our dreams. But somehow, even in that one-room shelter soaked by the storm, we had each other.

I was the youngest of the six, the baby of the family and maybe because of that, I was the most protected. My mother and sisters watched over me closely, perhaps because I was the only one who never knew our father. The others had memories, even if they were painful. I had nothing but silence where a father’s voice should have been.

My mother tried to shield me from the hardest blows of life, but there was only so much she could do. We all worked, and I often missed school to help her sell in the streets. Not because I was forced but because I liked it. Out there, I felt alive. I liked talking to people, feeling useful, helping my mother make enough for one more day. But somewhere in the back of my young mind, I knew: if I was ever going to live a different life, school was the way out. It wasn’t easy balancing both worlds. Sometimes I fell asleep in class, other times I didn’t go at all. But I never stopped believing that learning could be my ladder out of poverty.

And I believed in God. Not because anyone told me to but because I had to. When you grow up with so little, you learn to pray not just for miracles, but for strength. My mother had a strong faith, and every year, no matter how poor we were, she found a way to keep one promise: we would travel to Esquipulas, Guatemala. She said it was for a promise she made long ago maybe for me, maybe for the family, maybe for something she never told us. But that pilgrimage became a holy tradition. We’d rise before dawn and travel for hours, sometimes on crowded buses, sometimes walking long stretches of road.

I remember standing in the great basilica, staring at the Black Christ of Esquipulas. People cried, prayed, lit candles. I didn’t always understand the words, but I understood the feeling. Hope. Surrender. Faith that one day, life would change.

But even a mother’s love and a child’s hope can get lost in the noise of the streets.

As I got older, the streets began to change. They weren’t just places to sell and survive they became battlegrounds. I started noticing the way some boys walked in packs, how they talked with hard voices and carved respect out of fear. I didn’t want to be like them, not at first. But something inside me maybe the ache of my father’s absence, maybe the shame I felt when no one came for me at school meetings began to harden.

I was tired of being bullied for being fatherless. Tired of feeling like I didn’t belong. Tired of feeling small in a world that didn’t care.

So I did what so many lost boys do I joined a gang. Not to hurt people, but to protect myself. I wanted to feel strong, even if it meant hiding who I really was. But rebellion has a price. My mother’s eyes lost some of their shine. My sisters grew quiet around me. My brothers looked away. And for the first time, I saw tears fall from my mother’s face because of me not because of poverty, but because of who I was becoming.

Then, one day, tragedy struck. A friend someone I laughed with, ran with, survived with was gone. Taken by the very life we thought would save us. That moment broke something in me. It made me stop, sit with the pain, and ask myself where I was headed. Was this what I wanted? Was this the man I dreamed of being?

The answer came quietly, but powerfully. No.

So I went back to school. Back to books. Back to hope. And for the first time, I walked into church not because I was told to, but because I needed to. I joined a youth group. I found others who had been broken too but who believed in building something better, together. Slowly, piece by piece, I started to rebuild the boy I had almost lost.

The years passed, and though the road was never easy, I kept moving forward one step at a time. From the streets to the school benches, from rebellion to redemption, I held on to one thing: the belief that life could be different.

Time came for my graduation, and I stood tall proud, humbled, and holding a degree from the largest public university in Honduras. A Contador Público a public accountant. It may not seem like much to some, but for a boy who once sold vegetables at midnight, who lived under a roof that leaked, it was a dream fulfilled.

I thought I had completed my path but God wasn’t done with me yet.

One day at our youth group, a man came to speak with us. He wasn’t flashy or loud. He had come to ask for volunteers to help kids children living in the same streets I once walked. He wanted to teach them soccer, give them something to believe in. I wasn’t much of a sports person, but I felt something stir in me. I wanted to help.

I began spending time with those children. Listening. Laughing. Guiding. It was strange at first me, once so lost, now helping others find their way. Through that work, I attended conferences and met people who had dedicated their lives to helping others. And then I heard the name: UNICEF.

It sounded like a dream, like something far away from the dusty streets of Tegucigalpa. But I asked. I asked for a job.

They didn’t say yes. Not right away. They told me there was a selection process. Many students bright, talented, determined would compete for just a few spots. I felt the weight of fear press against my chest. But I also felt something else faith. I had come this far. Why not further?

And then, the call came. I was offered a position. A real job. A mission.

They sent me to the mountains of Honduras, to Ocotepeque, to work with the indigenous communities. It wasn’t just a job it was a purpose. I would bring education, guidance, and hope to the places where even roads dared not go. The same kind of hope I had needed once, so long ago.