Thinks He’s the Godfather, but He’s Nothing but a Thug

In retrospect, I am amazed to realize what different perspectives El Padrino and I brought into that meeting. I arrived believing that, once explaining the situation, nobody could possible say no to supporting the community with a project that meant so much to them. I was convinced that no one would willingly want to take away the opportunity for families, for women, men and children to change their lives and improve their living conditions. There can not possible be such bad people in the world.

He, on the other hand, was convinced, even before he met me, that nobody in the whole wide world would be willing to work on something like that project without any hidden interest at heart. That I was a hypocrite and that he only needed to push my buttons until it all showed.

I believed humans are good, giving, and generous by nature. He believed we are greedy, sleazy, and only interested in our own individual interests. I thought I could convince him to help, he thought he could corrupt me into stop helping.

The Wednesday after our meeting, I called El Padrino’s home number to confirm we were still scheduled for the joint trip to Cayos the next day. I had held my side of the bargain, restraining from visiting the community after the meeting and by phone only mentioning the meeting and that we would visit them to share the details. His wife answered the phone. When I asked for El, she said he had left to the Cayos the day before and wasn’t scheduled to return until Friday (the day after our trip). He had not mentioned anything about the trip with me. I thanked her and hung up the phone.

My head was racing. In that very instant I realized what I should have known from the beginning, that it had all been a farce. The guy had lied to me to keep me from talking to the community before he talked to them. I guess he had been right. At least some humans are selfish, sleazy, and only interested in themselves.

I called the community and someone traveled to the mainland to tell me what happened while he visited the island. El Padrino and Pablo Morgan arrived in the community’s property; both armed, and threatened them to stop the project immediately. They never pulled the guns, but made sure they were well visible while they talked to the community, in the same forceful tone he had initially used with me. El Padrino told them I had arrived at his house, uninvited, imposing the project on him. He said I confessed to doing the project as a business for myself and that my intention was to use the community to work in the construction of my cabins for free and to later use them as employees and pay them close to nothing while I kept all the profits for myself. He said he knew what kind of woman I was and that he never wanted to see me step a foot on that island again. When a dog approached them barking, one of them pulled out the gun and shot at the floor, in front of everybody, including the kids.

Of course, he wasn’t counting with the fact that the people of East End know me well and really appreciate me. That our relationship is more than professional, and that we really are friends. He was trying to discredit me in front of my friends, but they didn’t believe a word he said.

In that moment I decided I would have nothing to do with those people. I would not respond to any phone calls and I would not talk to them personally. The community was in their legal right to move forward with the project and these people had no right to do what they were doing. Unfortunately, in Honduras I couldn’t go to the court and sue for defamation and I couldn’t put a restraining order against them for myself or the community. So we would confront them in the only way we could. We would begin the project immediately.