I stepped into the taxi, and as I sat back in my seat I could feel myself sinking into filth. I could feel the grime leaking into my skin on contact. As the taxi sped away from the International Airport in Managua, Nicaragua, the heavy June air, weighted down by the thick black exhaust from trucks, filled my lungs.

“This is it. This is the third world,” I told myself as we sped through roads lined with small shacks made from sheet metal and scrap bark. As we passed alleyways, these shacks seemed to extend forever into the distance. Seeing those passages was like glimpsing the shadow of poverty from the corner of my eye, but I couldn't get a good look at it because we were racing so fast through the city, taking unmarked detours and nearly hitting children playing in the streets.

I was going to the second annual National March for Life in Juticalpa, Honduras. The National March for Life was actually four simultaneous marches that converged at the capital of Tegucigalpa from the north, south, east and west. The marchers were bringing a list of demands to the president of Honduras, Ricardo Maduro, that included stopping all logging until the forests could be assessed and a forest practice plan could be implemented.

A young man holds a Honduras flag as the National March for Life descends upon Tegucigalopa, th capital of Honduras.

When Gilberto Florez came to my hometown of Arcata on his way around the United States, speaking about the environmental issues in Honduras, and mentioned the National March for Life, I made up my mind that I wanted to find out what life is like in Honduras and why these people decided to march.

I had learned why these people were marching. Several activists had been shot for speaking out against the heavy logging that was destroying the local economy. The huge hydro-electric dam that is being built is displacing tobacco growers upstream and will deprive people downriver of clean water. Mining has been contaminating an entire lake. I heard of these atrocities, but I wanted to learn more than just statistics and facts. I wanted to see, touch, and taste the stories I had heard about.

Well, actually, I never wanted to taste the story, but when I got giardia (parasites), I sure got a taste of their story I could have done without.

So I marched with these people more than 100 miles in seven days. There were about 80 people who marched the whole way and I was the only gringo, or North American, who marched the whole distance. I had the honor of being called “gringito,” meaning “Little North American.” There was an average of 130 to 180 people marching at any one time who would walk for a day or two, and I did see a few other gringos while demonstrating.

The Catholic Church, particularly Father Andres Tamayo, had put a lot of planning into the march. On the first day of the march, I had my backpack, my boots and a desire to understand. I was ready. We were all ready. We listened to several impassioned speakers and the crowd sang a few songs. We were on our way when somebody turned on the siren to the fire truck that had been rented to carry the marchers' luggage.

	A federal guard protects the marchers and a fire truck carries their luggage.

We marched through blazing sun and pouring rain. We began marching at 5 o’clock every morning and walked until about 5 p.m., only stopping three or four times for food and rest. We ate three meals a day of rice, beans and tortillas with either an egg or a small piece of chicken. A few times we had the treat of tamales wrapped in banana leaves. My legs were sore from walking, my skin was burned from the bright sun, and my clothes remained damp from one day to the next.

But that was nothing compared with the way many people in Honduras live, or the sacrifices these people made to come on the march. Margarita Salinas, 50, has inflammation of the veins in her feet, ankles and lower legs. She said she doesn't like to leave the house because it hurts to walk, but she was walking the final three days of the march. She said there is medicine for her condition but it costs more money than she has. Many people had nothing but flip-flops on their feet. There were people walking the whole way in these flip-flops. Imagine 105 miles in flip-flops. Most of them did not have any other shoes.

Rosemary Motute, who is 27 years old with three children, was wearing somewhat dressy shoes for the march and she complained a little about her feet hurting. However, she said they were the only shoes she had. She said in her spare time she likes to go shopping. So I asked her what she likes to buy. She said she likes to buy clothes, and that if she saved her money she could buy two shirts and a pair of pants every two months. She said that buying clothes for herself meant that her children would not get new clothes.

The streets that we walked were often littered with trash. We marched by a dead horse on the side of the road with nearly 20 vultures eating the carcass. Another time I saw a dead dog lying in a puddle in the middle of the road with a chicken biting the dog’s leg, trying to move it. Honduras is a different culture, where you can see the ribs of most of the dogs and cows that often scavenge for food amongst the trash, with tiny and medium-sized chickens missing most of their feathers. Most people in Honduras have very little.

Bayardo Diaz Zelaya, an organizer of the march, explained that their local and national governmental officials are very corrupt and get money from international corporations who strip the trees from the hills and exploit the resources, leaving nothing for the people of Honduras.

Kathrine Bates, a Peace Corps volunteer who I met on the march, agreed generally with what Diaz said, but pointed out the complexity of the situation. The peasant farmers, she said, were also largely responsible for the deforestation because they gather wood for fire and houses. She said the best thing about the march is that it is spreading awareness about the environment.

Margarita Salinas (with umbrella) participates in the march while a government helicopter circles above.

The marchers consisted of men and women, young and old, with many different reasons for marching, and different levels of understanding about the environmental issues. However, almost everybody mentioned the need for water as his or her reason for marching.

Motute said, “I am marching because there is no water in my community. I buy my water.” That water costs her a quarter of her $110 income each month. Not everybody in her village can afford water. Salinas, for example, lives in Guacoca, which also doesn't have purified water. She doesn't have money for bottled water, so she has no choice but to drink the water from the river. She raised five kids on river water and she said they often got giardia.

Karla Vindel Moya, 27, said, “Everybody here has had parasites. In the country the children get approximately five to 14 parasites per year. Some of the children have big bellies full of parasites because they don't have money for medicine.”

Astounded, I asked her what she meant by big bellies. She ran her hand over her pretend big belly the size of a pregnant woman and said, “Big! Children have parasites because there is no clean water, which is because there are no trees.”

“We march for air, for water and for food,” said Antoni Joser Benitez, a 60-year-old man who has lived his whole life in Alancho, the province where the march occurred. “The majority of the people don't have medicine for parasites in the water. Many children die from parasites and hunger. In some villages, approximately 85 percent of the people have malnutrition and 90 percent can’t read or write. With no ability to read and write there are no doctors, and with no doctors there is no medicine.” I began to understand that for these people the National March for Life was literally a march for their life.

As we walked through valleys used for agriculture, Benitez pointed to the mountains in the distance and said, “I remember when all these mountains here were covered in big trees.” The mountains he was pointing to were totally bare with the exception of a few patches of skinny trees.

The night before the last day of the march we were going to stay at a high school in the outskirts of Tegucigalpa. We were winding our way through the streets toward the school when I noticed a few really expensive cars. Behind the cars was a group of very important-looking gringos. I was introduced to the crowd in soil-stained clothes and they explained that they were financiers of the march. They were going to speak with the president the next day, along with the leaders of the march.

I met Mike Farrell, who acted on “M*A*S*H.” and was now co-president of the Committee of Human Rights Watch in California. I also met Bob Edgar, secretary general of the National Council of Churches; Joseph Eldridge, chairman of the board of the Washington Office on Latin America and chaplain of American University; Allen Andersson, a businessman, investor, and former Peace Corps volunteer in Honduras; and his daughter, Rachel. They expressed concern that if the marchers left at 5 a.m., they would arrive in downtown Tegucigalpa too early, and that Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, lieutenant governor of Maryland and daughter of Robert Kennedy, would be late to the talks with the president. These people made up the international delegation that attended the talks between the leaders of the march and the president.

Once in the school, I met students who said they had been on strike for 45 days because their government wanted them to pay more than $1,100 in order to graduate. The rest of the schools—elementary and junior high—had not been in session for 30 days because the government denied teachers the opportunity to get raises and benefits after five years of teaching at the same school. Nobody could explain why the government would impose a fine nobody could pay. Everybody I spoke to speculated that the government wanted them uneducated.

That last night the marchers sung songs, danced, listened to talks, and relaxed. I visited with the high school kids. We did gymnastics and break-danced together. I had done gymnastics and break-danced earlier on in the march and people often tried to get me to do more. Nobody else knew how to do this, although many had seen it on MTV, so I tried to teach and involve more people while being egged on by as many as 50.

If a village has electricity, almost everybody that can buys a TV. Most of the kids watch MTV and listen to hip-hop, and imitation reggae called reggaetone. Many kids have already tried to teach themselves how to break-dance but nobody has ever showed them basic dance steps. Many times I taught crowds of kids from elementary school age to mid-20s how to do basic break-dance steps like the “six step” and the “up rock.”

	Entering downtown Tegucigalopa, the multitude of marchers extends as far as the eye can see.

The last day we descended on Tegucigalpa with approximately 8,000 to 10,000 people. We marched up to the congress building and held a rally on the steps. Of all the people who spoke, Father Tamayo had the most popular speech. He spoke very eloquently of the problems of the country and the reasons for the march. He ended his speech saying, “This march does not end where it finishes. This march begins where it ends. We will always continue to march.”

After the rally, Father Tamayo, the organizers of the march and the North American delegates talked with the president late into the evening and the following day. The president offered to meet all the original demands they made last year, according to Diaz. However the marchers could not accept that because it would have divided the solidarity of the movement. Everybody walked away empty-handed, but it was an improvement over last year when the president and the congress refused to speak to them.

I saw the march from beginning to end. It is clear to me now after having marched that it is inspiring others to live with an awareness of life, to live with a passion, to bring order to life. That is the most significant of all human transactions. In that regard the National March for Life was very successful.