Ancestral Embrace

The lives of the Garifuna, afro-indigenous peoples spread across the coasts of Northern Central America but more specifically Honduras, were not spared the crises that swept the country. Insecurity, scarcity and dispossession forced many to leave the country, while others moved from their ancestral villages to the cities of Honduras.

This was the case for the Guity family from Rio Esteban. Thirteen years ago Ella, and her mother Tomasa left the caribbean settlement to the capital for a chance of economic betterment. There they were succesful with an informal bakery, but once the 2020 pandemic struck, Ella as well as the diaspora, began to feel the crush of government mismanagement.

Health scares, hunger and the concern of that the childhood of her two girls would be forever interrupted by the strict lockdown in the capital city made Ella move back to the village. A return to the ancestral embrace of the lands hard fought, won and stewarded by her ancestors. Back in Rio Esteban, the Guity women found the community that was so sorely missed during their new life in Tegucigalpa. They returned not as strangers but as the missing pieces that re made the community whole again. Hidden behind cloud rain forests and flanked by the slow tide of the caribbean pool, there's is the story of coming home to the company of loved ones, both present and spectral.