Greg Taylor - Lay Down Your Guns: One Doctors Battle for Hope and Healing in the Honduran Wild West

October 19, 2012

Dr. Amanda Madrids driver guided us in a Landcruiser on a narrow horse path in theCuyamel River Valley of Central Honduras, where Dr. Madrid had just spoken to frightenedmedical personnel. More drug-cartel connected murders had been committed in theregion, panic led to five clinics closing temporarily, and medical workers neededa plan from the doctor to care for pregnant women and sick children.

My purpose for traveling with the doctor was to see her in action as background forthis book, but when two armed Honduran men stepped from behind a thick stand of eucalyptustrees into the path of our vehicle, what she did next became vital to understandingDr. Amanda Madrid.

Both men were camod up, armed with Glocks and AK-47s. One man guarded the bend inthe road ahead, while the other stepped directly in front of the vehicle. In Honduras,police stop cars at roadblocks everyday, but these men were neither police patrolsnor military, so adrenaline surged and worst-case scenarios flashed to mind.

Driver Don Gila fifty-eight-year-old Honduran who bowed with his head against thesteering wheel before we left, praying for our safety and successapplied the brakesand stopped the vehicle, but he kept the diesel engine percolating, ready to makenecessary moves to escape, even if furiously in reverse.

Get down in the floorboard, I told my sixteen-year-old daughter, who had come withme to Honduras as my assistant. She did not hunch down but focused on the armed men,wanting to know what was going on. I didnt know. All I could tell her was we werein a village called Agua Caliente. Hot Water.

To my surprise, the door of the Landcruiser opened, and Dr. Madrid reached for hercalendar book and pen.

What was she doing? Why were these armed men stopping us and why was Dr. Madrid gettingout? Why couldnt Don Gil simply wave, point to the Predisan logo on the vehicletheequivalent in this region of a Red Cross symboland drive on?

I know these guys,Dr. Madrid said.

Really? Dr. Madrid knows heavily armed men on remote roads in the mountains? Granted,for twenty-five years Dr. Madrid had treated nearly every person in this CuyamelRiver Valley region and indeed seemed to know everyone, but armed thugs?

Dr. Madrid stuck the pen through the bun of her hair, stepped out of the vehicleonto the dirt road, and strode toward the first man in the road not cautiously butboldly. She smiledthe only time wrinkles appeared on her face; you would expectmore visible wear from a fifty-six-year-old female doctor, traveled as she isandheld out her right hand toward the man.

With her left hand Dr. Madrid brushed back a wisp of auburn hair, pushed up her glassesthat had slipped down because of sweat, and her long earrings gently rocked beneathher strong jaws as she came to a stop in front of the man about twenty feet in frontof us.

The armed man stuffed his Glock in the backside waistband of his pants, then shookhands with the doctor.

Dr. Madrid was the only one of the five in the vehicle courageous enough to go toeto toe with these men, they in their combat boots, and she in her blazing red highheels. Honduran men seem to respect the doctor because she doesnt speak like mostHonduran women, in deference to men, but looks with her brown eyes directly intotheirs. She doesnt dress like a typical Honduran woman in a skirt, but she wearsjeans and high heels.

Dr. Madrid is no ordinary Honduran woman. The people who work with her say, Tienelos pantalones bien puestos. She wears the pants well. Theres slang in Spanishthat they also say about her, and it means figuratively that she is a tough leader,but the literal words wouldnt pass for good taste in genteel company. They say abouther Tiene huevos. She has eggs. And in Latin America, theyre not referring tothe female kind of eggs.

Over the past few years, Dr. Madrid has had to wear the pants because this wasntthe first time shed gone toe to toe with armed men pointing their Kalashnikovs athermen, who with their small-scale war of land grabbing, revenge, jealousy, anddrugs, were swiftly destabilizing the medical clinics that had for twenty-five yearsserved the people of Olancho, a state known as the Wild West of Honduras. The violencebetween two warring gangs destabilized the clinics and threatened the health of residentsin the mountain jungles. After decades of having no access to health care, mountainresidents enjoyed a network of small clinics for prenatal care, safe delivery ofbabies, and treatment of infectious diseases, but now all that was in jeopardy.

Dr. Madrid told the man on the road the problem she had explained to me: Peopleare afraid to transport the sick at night because cars are being stopped; thugs arebeating people, stealing from them, threatening them. A pregnant woman died in childbirthrecently because her family waited till the next morning to transport her to thehospital. A young girl bitten by a snake also died because her family was afraidto go anywhere at night in this region, Dr. Madrid said.

My staff is developing an evacuation plan in the five mountain clinics to take sickchildren, adults, and pregnant women out to hospitals in case of emergencies, Dr.Madrid told the man. I could see veins bulging in the doctors neck as she spoke.I learned the mans name but will use a pseudonym, Diego Salazar.

Diego listened then told the doctor hes defending his village against a drug cartelbuying up land and cattle to launder money and to clear a path for transporting drugsthrough this region.