Gracias, Lempira Honduras

Doňa Desideria

One Kilometer south from the magical town of La Campa Lempira, where time seems to have stopped a long time ago, in a land of dreams where if you pay close attention you can hear Lenca voices and their echo in the beautiful red pottery, lives Doňa Desideria Perez a good friend with a great smile and magical hands. A master craftsman of the ancient ways of making pottery in the Lenca style.

Doňa Desideria looks at my eyes and tells me, with her eternal friendly smile of a person with a big heart, that she started making pottery when she was 12 years old. As a child she would play with clay all the time making her own toys, little pots and pans that she would shape with her hands to play cook with her friends. Her father, a master pottery maker, told her one day that if she learned how to make the beautiful pottery he would take her to Santa Rosa de Copan to the local market to sell it so she could buy a beautiful dress.

The day finally came and Desideria and her father took the long road to Santa Rosa de Copan, on a Friday, by foot. It was tortuous journey through mountains carrying on their backs the fragile pottery along with their hopes of selling in Santa Rosa.

After 12 hours of walking they reached Rio Grande, a small village past the City of Gracias, where they were able to rest. The next day after a quick breakfast of coffee and bread they continued their journey to Santa Rosa de Copan and by dawn they camped in the outskirts of town. Sunday morning they made their entrance to Santa Rosa de Copan. It was like magic she says. They sold their pottery and Dona Desideria, twelve years old then, got her dream dress and after that she was forever in love with making pottery for a living.

Today, Doňa Desideria occupies her time making pottery, teaching occasional classes to students from Gracias, Santa Rosa, and San Pedro Sula and playing and teaching her grandchild the craftsmanship. Her beautiful pottery is displayed throughout Honduras at five start hotels including Hotel Sula and the Municipal Building of La Campa. Most recently she designed a beautiful pottery sculpture for the new Real Camino Lenca Hotel in Gracias.

view of the city of gracias