Ours Seeds, Our Gifts
"The Seeds we carried are the gifts we Share”
It was September 13, 2005, when I landed at the Sacramento airport, marking the beginning of my life in the United States. I had just graduated as one of the first women Industrial Engineers in Honduras, and I thought the world was at my feet. After a 12-hour trip, I was waiting anxiously, wanting to be fully aware of the moment when I would touch the ground. It didn't happen in Houston, where the plane first landed; it was here in Sacramento. I was on an electric stair, and I still remember my thoughts as we were descending, thinking, 'Should I step with my right foot or the left foot? Which brings better luck?' I can't remember which foot touched the ground first, but I do remember an unknown voice in my head saying for the first time, 'You are here now,' and I inhaled.
After several steps, I was greeted by 'Samson,' a whimsical structure made by California artist Brian Goggin, a stack of luggage towering over the baggage claim area in Terminal A. I saw it, and the voice spoke again, saying, 'You are not the first one.' I woke up the next day in a new place, in a new house, staring at a popcorn ceiling, thinking, 'You are here now.' I opened my suitcase, a suitcase that I did not pack; my family did—my mom, my tias, my cousins, my whole neighborhood. All I saw were plastic bags and bottles, carrying all types of seeds and foods: corn, cacao, salt, cinnamon, panela, vanilla, cheese, cream, pan dulce, achiote, recado, vinegar, and rum. I saw sweets, plantain chips, pinolillo, and coffee, of course.
Phone calls were not as easy back then as they are now, so I had to wait to figure out how to call back home. But when I did, the first thing I asked was, 'What were you guys thinking? You packed the whole market.'
My mom said: 'This is what you're going to miss. You can't find these little things anywhere else.' I thought it was funny; I kind of pitied them. Don't they know that I have now arrived in the country of wonderlands? I don't remember eating any of the food; I probably threw it away or placed it in the back of the pantry, just to be thrown away later.
This type of suitcase has always made its way to me, either from my mom's visits, friends' visits, or even when I go back to Central America. It's impossible not to carry them, even though we know they will be forgotten or placed in the back of a pantry, where they will replace the last load. Seven years later, after a divorce, I was a single mother of two children, and it was 2012. Not only was the world supposedly going to end, but the economy also got scared and decided to take a break. One of those nights, after working several jobs and coming home to apply for more, I cried myself to sleep. I didn't see a future for myself in the United States, and worse, I barely saw my own children between juggling jobs and arranging daycare. My whole life was being lived in frantic survival mode. I cried myself to sleep that night, all I wanted was to go back home. But I was here now, and I was not the first.
That same night, I had a dream. It was my grandfather, whom I never met. I saw his face; he grabbed my face, looked into my eyes, and said, 'Do coffee.' The next day, I woke up in ecstasy. There's nothing people from our culture love more than seeing dead people. I called my mom, my tias, my cousins, and we were all happy. The message didn't matter; nobody stopped to ask, 'What did he mean?' They were asking me what he was wearing, did I sense any smells, was he wearing glasses, and my grandma asked if he was angry, to which we all laughed, responding, 'You shouldn't have gotten married again, grandma. Of course, he's angry with you.'
Within a week, still feeling energized by that dream and without thinking, I put some music on and looked back at the forgotten pantry. And there they were again: corn, coffee, salt, cinnamon, vanilla, panela sugar, achiote, recado, vinegar, and rum. There were sweets, plantain chips, pinolillo, and cacao, of course. I took the cacao, welcomed the fire, roasted the cacao on the stove, hand-peeled each one, and used a blender to make a powder, but that was not how I remembered it. So, I went to the creek, picked a stone, and ground and pounded the cacao on a cutting board. I added sugar, vanilla, corn, and rum, of course, and made cute little balls. They smelled good; they tasted good. At that moment, a friend walked in; she was bringing me food. 'Smells amazing,' she said. 'What are you doing?' 'Oh, I'm just making chocolate,' I said. 'Chocolate? You can't just make chocolate,' she said. I shared with her, and her eyes lit up. 'This is amazing,' she said. I was happy that she liked them, but more than anything, I was happy that I had something to share with her. She is my friend, and I love her dearly. She had never seen a cacao bean in Bulgaria, where she is from; she was blown away. This became a holiday tradition with friends. Later, I bought a molcajete, and it would be passed around, and everyone would participate in the roasting, the peeling, and the grinding of the chocolate.
A year later, my uncle called and said that the coffee coop that my grandpa had founded was gifted a coffee training from a fancy American organization, but it was in English, and they wanted to offer it to me. It included everything: food and lodging. I need not worry. My mom, my tias, my cousins all put money together, and they sent me a plane ticket for 5 days in Honduras. And I went. I grew up on a farm, and everyone before me did as well, but up to that day, a farm was what you needed to run away from. A farm meant being poor, a farm meant no education, a farm meant hard work. After that trip, my eyes opened, and I saw what my grandparents always saw: the fields as an opportunity for prosperity. I saw the insistent seeds as our ancestors, our foods as our gifts, our pantries as our altars, our kitchens as temples, and our lives as works of art. Obviously, I did not choose coffee, as cacao had already chosen me.
My reality now is the dream of my ancestors. I have an amazing family with two teenagers who may or may not speak my language or understand where I come from, but they absolutely love our foods and, more importantly, they love the land, the rivers, and the seeds of where they were born, here in California. They are my seeds; they are my gift to Her.