Good Friday

Day-20- Wed-12/4/17- It is 10:16 in the morning and it has raining off and on since two in the morning and from our point of view it is a positive sign. A sign like this can be interpreted in so many ways. After two hundred and twenty years of exile the Garifuna Nation around the Globe is saying that we are present.

Here we are today caught in the middle of a global crisis never seen before the sixties between Cuba, the United States and Russia. Today, Nicaragua, the United States and Russia are involved in negotiations that can affect the lives of the Garifuna Nation in Central America. The Northern Triangle negotiation in Central America is slowly taking a different shape which can change the rules to the game.

In this case, we would like the world at large to know that our brothers and sisters in Nicaragua were also on board the same ships that arrived in Central America two hundred and twenty years [220] ago today.

During the next seventy hours the world will be watching the death and the resurrection, the end and the beginning of a new era for the Garifuna Nation in Central America.

Day-22-Fri. 14/4/17-It is 5:37 in the morning and was thinking   about  message one the messages we started sharing with our readers in August  1997, more or less five years after the event that unfolded in front of our eyes at the University of Loyola in the state of California.

Here is a message that we shared with our readers not long ago that goes like this “Duality is a concept that has caught my attention for quite some time now. The fact that it takes two to tangle is a universal concept. I would like to add a little twist to what the scriptures said many years ago. There is a time and a place for everything. My experience in Tela, Honduras on the 4th -8th November 2013 has brought my understanding of who I am as a Garifuna to another level; I am referring to the power of our Spirituality as a Nation.”

Over three years has gone by, but once again destiny combined with time has brought us to this moment for us to take a second look at the flowing message. “I was given the opportunity to say something at the inauguration and closing of an event that will take its rightful place in our history as a Garifuna Nation. I was able to share a few words with the participants. I would like to be honest by saying that I am not a fan of the microphone; however I am willing to say that it has a powerful influence. I was able to listen and observe a diverse group of brothers and sisters that came from the different communities in Central America.

I was able to say on the microphone that “words” can compromise an individual or a group based on what the person or group is saying. I was in Honduras to speak as the President of ONEGUA, but in this case I would like to take it to another level, I would like to take the opportunity to write my open speech. I am choosing the time and place to put this in writing because I would like to stand by what I am putting in writing.

I would like to focus on something I wrote before my trip to Tela, Honduras; I said something to the effect that my trip to Honduras was about the cultivation of a healthier relationship between the physical and the spiritual. I am now convinced more than ever before that our identity is a link between the two; physical and spiritual; I also believe that our identity can take us one step farther and make us stronger.

The workshop in Honduras is about rural development and territorial rights for the Garifuna Nation in Central America. ONEGUA is the organization that is taking a responsibility to represent the Garifuna People in Guatemala. Therefore the role I will play is born from the experience I had in Honduras. It was born from being in the presence of brothers and sisters who understands the value of our identity in a struggle to maintain our Nation. The brothers and sisters from Nicaragua allowed me to understand that we had to take immediate actions there and then.

Time and Place is about a link that is taking place in our communities and the Garifuna Nation; the time has come for us to strengthen the link between brothers and sisters that will take us to another level and make us stronger.

Au-le

Lúbara Huya