EL PROGRESO, Honduras - Our inseparable high school trio - Dalila Dubon, Aurora Gonzalez and I - was abruptly disrupted in 1969 when Dalila was sent to study in Tegucigalpa for a year. Our trio readjusted the day that the new kid in town, Jeannete Barahona, joined our 11th-grade class at Instituto San Jose here. Dalila returned for our senior year, and we became a quartet of lifelong friends.
In impeccable school uniform and with a natural aura of royalty, Jeannete - daughter of Don Rufino Barahona, the superintendent of a United Fruit Co. subsidiary - was taken to and from school in a chauffeur-driven car. She was one of only a handful of students who enjoyed such a luxury in our modest town. The rest of us rode our bikes or walked.
The teenagers of that rambunctious quartet have grown into mature women - rich in experience, knowledge, reflection, love. Dalila became a schoolteacher and homemaker in Tegucigalpa; Jeannete a schoolteacher and businesswoman in Tampa, Dallas and San Pedro Sula; Aurora a schoolteacher, principal and a top-level school administrator all over Honduras; and I a journalist in Miami.
Bit by bit, we turned into reality many of our teen dreams regarding careers, marriage, children, travels, enterprises. But there was one special dream that had eluded Jeannete … until last month when she opened Discovery School, a bilingual academic institution from nursery school to sixth grade, in our beloved town. Whom did she hire as academic advisor? Aurora, of course.
The school’s inauguration day brought together not only our quartet but also 16 of the 22 students of our 1970 graduating class. Adding the professional seal of approval, our strict pedagogy teacher, Fidelina de Gamez, was there as well. She recently retired after teaching several years in U.S. schools and moved back here.
In an impressive show of support and to the delight of the audience, we, the teacher and former students, all marched up to the podium and surrounded Jeannete and her family - husband Eduardo Ignacio Ponce and daughters Rocio, Carol and Vanessa, now staff members of the school.
Most of the Discovery School parents had not even been born when our friendships were being cemented in the ’60s, but they indubitably know that they are entrusting their children to experienced educators - and “to generosity incarnate,” I told them as I shared the story of `’The Princess and the Pauper.”
Sister Joyce des Jardins, the school principal, had awarded me a scholarship for the last two years of high school. In our senior year, then-Jesuit Miguel Barbieri encouraged me to participate in a local journalism program sponsored by the University of Missouri/Columbia. The two-hour class was to be held daily at the same time as our Pedagogy III period. I asked Mrs. Gamez to allow me to miss her class to enable me to attend Journalism 101; she agreed, provided that I kept up with her course’s assignments.
But I still had another hurdle to overcome. As a scholarship recipient, I was required to staff the school’s snack bar during recess, which fell during the second hour of the journalism class. No saint I, I couldn’t be at two places at the same time. How could I keep my scholarship? Upon learning about my quandary, Jeannete (after whom my daughter, Yane, is named) volunteered to do the work for me.
Only until the school’s inaugural ceremony did Don Rufino learn - with an approving, proud smile - that his princess, ceremoniously taken to school in a fancy car, had been selling chips and drinks to help a pauper who rode her old bike to school to begin realizing her dream of becoming a journalist.
In returning 36 years later to their formative town - to give back what they received here and to share the priceless human wealth that they have accumulated at work and home - Jeannete and Aurora teach us lessons of gratitude and hope:
_Gratitude for the fine education, old-fashioned values and sense of community that we received here.
_Hope for El Progreso’s children, who are developing the proper tools and sensitivity to live, work and compete in our global village - in Spanish and English.
On Aug. 28, I was fortunate to witness the historic moment when my friends opened their arms to the first students of Discovery School (DiscoveryProgreso yahoo.com).
Bilingual education in my hometown is in great hands.
By Zulay Dominguez Chirinos
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