Bolos

A “bolo” is the name that is affectionately bestowed upon the village drunks. In Honduras, people don’t drink; well let me rephrase that: if you are in any way a contributing member of society, then you don’t drink. People don’t drink socially (well, we’ve seem some that do, but they do it so secretly that even the best efforts of NDSP would be hard-pressed to catch them in the act). People who do drink are drunks, nearing the point of general incoherence and debauchery by the time most people are heading to work. As the bolo is something that is regularly encountered here, it’s worth talking about. Beyond this given description, I guess the easiest way to describe a bolo would be to ask if you’ve ever seen a zombie movie (not the recent movies where zombies are adrenaline-driven running-and-jumping athletes, but the older versions where fields of zombies sluggishly drag their feet at a snail’s pace after a single person as they continually grunt “brains” in varying degrees of volume and length (so yea, bolos are basically the latter)). I draw the comparison between bolos and zombies for several reasons:

1.) Bolos are easy to get away from (if spotted from a distance, evading a bolo is as easy as taking candy from a baby (a sleeping baby, that is very small, and not holding the candy with much force)).

2.) I swear that during one of our first encounters with bolos, one went up to Joe offering a hug and getting close enough actually attempted to take a bite of his neck.

3.) Bolos usually hang out in groups (near trash bins), and having spotted you, they will (in unison) slowly shuffle towards you while offering grunts of… well it’s hard to tell what they’re grunting about but it very closely resembles the “brains” chants from classic zombie movies.

4.) Appearance. Nuff said.

5.) Bolos scare me (just as I have an unnatural fear of zombies (though I feel this current fear is much more natural and justified)).

There is one exception to this criteria, and he scares me more than anything has ever scared me. Where most bolos are fairly territorial or otherwise stationary, we have encountered a single subject we defies normal logic, being spotted in the main town as well as several of the surrounding aldeas (some of which are a 30minute car ride away). For his mobility, we have appropriately labeled him as the “mo-bolo” (get it?). Seriously, he is to the old bolos what the “28 Days Later Zombies” are to the “Night of the Living Dead Zombies” (in case you miss that reference, think really fast and aggressive versus really slow and plodding). Usually, mobolo is either wearing no pants and a really long t-shirt or no shirt and pants which he has to hold up (where he gets such constantly changing outfits is only another source of worry).

Note: If I can somehow catch a rare shot of the mobolo on camera, it will definitely be added to this post.