Word: ceiba
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...With reporting by Julia Powell, CNN/La Ceiba...
...teacher from Philadelphia is in prison in Honduras now, but once upon a time, as his diary relates, Daniel Gary Rounds was in "paradise." His paradise lies beyond the prison gates and through the storm-ravaged Honduran countryside. Just outside the local Pizza Hut in the town of La Ceiba, boys addicted to sniffing glue work the streets until gringos offer to buy them shoes or let the boys watch TV in their hotel rooms. For many it is a chance to take their first hot shower or get the $10 they need to buy several weeks' worth of rice...
...then the thought comes to me that this is the wilderness, not a zoo; the monkey is wild; the ceiba tree spreads its lush green cover in a vast tract of 4 million untrodden acres that constitute the Central Suriname Nature Reserve. Except for the few of us in the camp, there are no other people within a radius of 50 miles, nor is it likely that any people have even set foot in most of this land within the past thousand years. There are plenty of other species in evidence: rain forests contain a disproportionate share of the world...
...house and its chief occupants. The spiny understory palm trees make baskets from branches growing out of their trunks, which become compost machines for falling leaves, which in turn sustain the trees. Since the soil is not deep enough for roots to penetrate, the larger trees like the ceiba have buttresses that lie flat on the platform of the forest; some of the narrower trees are supported by stilt-roots at the base that look like whisk brooms. The Parkia tree rises to the sun and spreads a flat umbrella over the others. There is full employment. Trees support lizards...
...slaves from Dutch plantations in the 18th century. We go by corjal to visit their descendants. Some are swimming; some are washing clothes in the river; some are staring at us. The faces of the children are a cross between innocence and gravity. On a far bank, a glorious ceiba rises to the sky. It is called the "house of the spirits" and is never cut down...