Blogue||Nous sommes - noussommes.ca

Back in 2005, I found myself traveling throughout Honduras, the third poorest nation in the western hemisphere according to the World Bank. A perilous drive through the winding, mountainous roads on a relic of a North American school bus - wealthy North American Business men sell these mechanical monstrosities to destitute countries, as they cannot afford safer, more modern vehicles. For countless hours, we drove, maybe 7 or 8 hours past endless Banana Plantations, punctuated by the occasional jungle mud hut, dirty barefoot child standing, staring, as though he’d been poised in the same place the whole day. Like those workers who just sit as though stranded in time, on the side of the highways, hoping that a construction truck in need of cheap labourers will offer them some work. Eventually it was time to pause to fill our famished bellies so we stopped at one of the major super-market chains. After having seen all those banana trees, I thought it best to taste the fruit from the source. I was anticipating tasting what will probably be the freshest banana I will ever taste - I entered the store and  I hurriedly  made my way to the produce section only to find the bananas were utterly and completely rotten.
Bewildered, I later asked a local banana picker I had met, why this was - where were all the bananas from the thousands trees I had just witnessed, going?  He smiled a nearly toothless smile and said in a thick accent, “Banana go norte, to USA, to Canada.” Many like the banana plantation worker I had just met, dream of making their way to the US or Canada and often do make the treacherous, illegal journey north out of destitution and poverty.  They risk the passage where many are sent back and where many lose their lives to build a new life. And as I learned from the banana incident that summer in Honduras, they come to reap what hey sow.