An Open Letter to: All Roatan Construction and Landscape Workers

From: Women of Roatan

We’d like to take a moment to thank you for your service to women here on the island. You work hard, pouring sweat, the sun beating down on your necks, your backs pushed to breaking point hefting lumber and buckets of cement.

Your palms are calloused from shovel handles, your fingernails black with dirt, your muscles ripped under the grueling work that awaits you from sunrise to sunset. Your daily perseverance turns chaotic piles of rocks and sand into oases of constructed beauty.

And you make the best of the shoddy transportation solution you’ve been given, cramming shoulder to shoulder with other dirt-streaked fathers and brothers and sons into trucks that wind the roads morning and evening.

We Women of Roatan thank you for your labor, for your faithfulness, for your artistry evident across this growing island. We respect you.

However, we have one simple request: In the words of Aretha Franklin, “R-E-S-P-E-C-T!”

While it’s always nice to receive a compliment, especially from a husband or friend, we’d prefer not to hear exactly how you could endear yourselves to us shouted from a truckload of sweat- and testosterone-drenched men.

Catcalls, air kisses, your loving plans for us and the like—we’re not sure if you realize that your approach to winning our hearts (or otherwise) is having an entirely opposite effect.

We will grant one exception: If we, the Women of Roatan, initiate with shouting catcalls, air kisses, our loving plans for you and such, you are more than welcome to reciprocate in turn. This occurrence may never actually happen in your lifetime here in Roatan, but it is always something you can hold out for.

If you are absolutely overtaken by the beauty We Women of Roatan possess, you may respectfully wave and smile. Even a simple, friendly “Hola” or “Hello.” But please, these greetings are not to be followed by “Mama” or “Sexy Mama” or “Baby.”

Thank you for your irreplaceable service to the island of Roatan and to us, the Women of Roatan. Thank you most of all for your RESPECT.

Respectfully and Truly (but not necessarily) Yours,
Women of Roatan