We didn't do as much our last week there because we had final projects to work on as well as group interview projects. I was in a group of six that focused on women's issues in El Salvador. We met with a representative from the 700 Club, a woman who works for the FMLN, one of the coordinators for the feminist organization Las Dignas, and with a very progressive theology professor at the UCA.
On Monday afternoon, we visited the chapel where Romero was killed on March 24, 1980, while doing a private mass. It's another of those sacred spaces--on the grounds of the [cancer hospital/hospice center] where Romero lived during the last [9] years of his life. The little house where he lived has been turned into a museum, and there are murals of him on the outer walls.
That evening, Guillermo Cuellar, the author/composer of the Salvadoran Popular Mass, came and gave an informal concert at our house. What the Popular Mass does is take each sung part of the standard Catholic liturgy and interts new songs that relate to the Salvadoran people's context, history, and struggles.
For those of you who don't know, Romero was the Catholic Archbishop of San Salvador from 1977- 1980. He was chosen for the position because he was known for being more conservative and it was thought that he'd be able to halt the process of social mobilization that was growing from within the Church through liberation theology. It didn't take long though before he had a change of heart and essentially became an embodiment of what liberation theology was -- the church working on behalf of and with the poor and oppressed, empowering them to organize and change their situation. He was killed for speaking against the repression by the army, against the government. He is honored here as a martyr, but more than that (for the war created many, many martyrs), he is revered almost on par with Jesus. Because what he did was really to put a contemporary human face on the historical person of Jesus and contextualized his teachings to the Salvadoran situation.
With his death, the government had hoped that that would put an end to the Church's radical teachings and to the social mobilization of the people -- the movement that Romero had helped inspire. Instead it had the opposite effect -- people were inspired to act out of anger against the injustices committed against them by the government, and full-fledged war began, lasting 12 years.
I'm so glad they decided to let us stay in El Salvador one day longer than originally planned so that we could attend the march to commemorate Oscar Romero. March 24 is the anniversary of his assassination, but the big hoopla was on Saturday and Sunday. The march was a really neat experience. It started at the Plaza Salvador del Mundo, where there is a statue of Jesus on top of the world and also a bronze one of Romero. Practically everyone was wearing a Romero or FMLN shirt. There was some talking and singing and chanting and vendors selling Romero and FMLN stuff. The march was supposed to start at 5:30, but we didn´t really get started until almost 6:30. It was pretty slow going--made my feet, knees, and back sore! People were carrying candles, posters, and banners and chanting, "Romero vive, la lucha sigue!" (Romero lives, the struggle continues!). It was very special to be able to a part of that, even though we didn't stay until the very end because we needed to eat dinner and pack.
As much as I loved Guatemala and am expecting to love Nicaragua, I think my heart really beongs in El Salvador. Not the capital -- I hate San Salvador, at least what I saw of it -- but the country. I think it's because of all the stories that it holds, that the people carry in their hearts. I like El Salvador for its history. I think the reason I am drawn so to Salvador's history is because of the church's role in the story. It amazes me how the Catholic church was able to change so much that many from the US probably wouldn't even recognize it as Catholic anymore. I am awed at how so many priests dedicated their lives to the cause of educating, organizing, and liberating the poor, instead of sticking with the status quo. Nueva Esperanza, San José las Flores, El Sitio -- communities that took their liberation into their own hands with the help of the church. Sadly, that led to more and more repression from the government, and also made people take up arms. But those communities have rebuilt, and they are still working for justice, because there is still so much discord and injustice, and poverty.
Things appear smooth on the surface -- marred only by the number of homicides and rate of emigration (700 people leaving per day). But underneath this calm exterior, calamity is waiting to happen. You see it in the vicious election campaigning, in the graffiti that criticizes the government, in the protests and unrest surrounding what were probably fraudulent elections, in the huge number of people that marched to honor Romero. Romero is one of my biggest heroes. We need more people like him. Knowing the state of the world today, it probably won't be too long before another great leader emerges. In El Salvador, the spirit runs deep -- it is pulsing with vigor -- it is a cocoon waiting to emerge into a free butterfly, no longer a blind, bumbling caterpillar, but extremely fragile. There has been "peace", but no resolution or reconcilliation. One day, that cocoon will burst open.
During our last week there, one of our speakers, Dean Brackley, told us that our job was to "come here, fall in love, get your heart broken, and go home ruined for life." My hope is that I can return home changed for life, rather than ruined.
But before I can do that, I get to spend 5 more weeks in Nicaragua! That's right--after an 11- hour bus ride from 6:30 am to 5:30 pm, we arrived at the Casa Jaime Mayer (the Center for Global Education house) in Managua, Nicaragua, last Sunday. I'll save my descriptions of Nicaragua for a later date so that this email doesn't get any longer than it is! But just so you know, we're taking a women's history class and one on political science, esp. globalization. And we're living (in pairs) with families. It's going well so far, but we have a lot of work to do!
Thursday, April 6, 2006
Saturday, April 1, 2006
My Escapades in El Salvador, week 3
Three things of note that we did during the third week were to visit with the Lutheran Bishop, artist Fernando Llort, and the US Embassy. It was good to hear from a religious organization besides the Catholic church, especially one that is so similar to my own denomination, and to hear their take on liberation theology and social justice. Fernando Llort is considered the national artist of El Salvador. He designed the art on the front of the Cathedral, and if you've ever seen a cross from Central America painted with very colorful simplistic pictures of people, huts, and animals, it is basically a Fernando Llort design. We got to visit his gallery, "El Arbol del Arco Iris," talk to him in person, and see his ceramic and silkscreen workshops.
It was quite a switch to hear what the US Government had to say about the current situation in El Salvador, after our experiences of talking with middle and lower class Salvadorans. I think we got what we were expecting, but it was still interesting to hear them gloss over some of the things that we'd perceived as being very controversial issues.
That weekend, we went to Suchitoto, where Sister Peggy lives and works. It was a simply amazing experience. For one, I absolutely loved the town, which reminded me a whole lot of Xela (but less urban) and Chichi (but bigger). We stayed at the Centro de Arte para la Paz, Centro Artex for short, which is a project that Peggy is developing. It consists of a very old building complex that needs to be remodeled/refurbished, including a large church. The hope is for the Center to be a place where community members can come and take classes in music, fine arts, theater, and digital/electronic art (inc. photography), as well as writing and journalism. There will be a library and a computer lab, a peace garden, and a little store/restaurant. I would love to return to El Salvador some day and volunteer at the Center -- it is such a hopeful vision. For more info, check out www.centroartex.org.
We had the biggest pupusas I'd ever seen for dinner on Friday. Pupusas are the national food of El Salvador: tortillas cooked with a filing of beans and cheese. They're pretty amazing creations, and delicious! Most of the ones we'd eaten were 4-5 inches in diameter, but these were 6-7!
Saturday was a very intense and emotional day. In the morning, we went down to nearby Lake Suchitlán, which is actually part of the Rio (river) Lempa, and a group of people from a nearby village took us by boat to Viejo Copapayo. There used to be a rural community there, but now there are only ruins of house foundations. It has a horrific history, which we got to hear first-hand from the survivors. They, like many other small communities during the war, were the victims of a massacre by the army. Twice. Besides the people that escaped before the first massacre occurred, only one person survived both of them: Rogelio, who was a 10-year-old boy at the time, and who told us his story.
It was November of 1983 when the army came to bomb and raze the town. The inhabitants knew what was coming and so some fled the day before, but the rest took boats across the river and waited until they'd thought the army had gone. The massacre happened when they came back, incorrectly thinking it was safe. Those that survived were rounded up and taken to an army official's home, where they were all gunned down the next day. Rogelio got lucky by hiding in the grass behind a tree and not being discovered.
As refugees, the surviving members of the community only lived in Honduras for three years before returning to Viejo Copapayo in October of 1987. That is the year Peggy began working with them. They relocated to a new site, El Sitio Cinicero, in 1990. After visiting the massacre site, we boated over to El Sitio, where we spent the night. What a wonderful little place! I really do love the campo. We visited their little library and met with the librarian, and later with the directive board of the town. In the evening after dinner, we and a number of families with children gathered in front of the new church where there is a large mural listing the names of those who died in the massacre (about 150) and scenes of the massacre and the new town. We recited the names, saying "Presente" after each one. Then we were sent off to host families for the night -- I shared a bedroom with the 5 other people that lived there.
It was quite a switch to hear what the US Government had to say about the current situation in El Salvador, after our experiences of talking with middle and lower class Salvadorans. I think we got what we were expecting, but it was still interesting to hear them gloss over some of the things that we'd perceived as being very controversial issues.
That weekend, we went to Suchitoto, where Sister Peggy lives and works. It was a simply amazing experience. For one, I absolutely loved the town, which reminded me a whole lot of Xela (but less urban) and Chichi (but bigger). We stayed at the Centro de Arte para la Paz, Centro Artex for short, which is a project that Peggy is developing. It consists of a very old building complex that needs to be remodeled/refurbished, including a large church. The hope is for the Center to be a place where community members can come and take classes in music, fine arts, theater, and digital/electronic art (inc. photography), as well as writing and journalism. There will be a library and a computer lab, a peace garden, and a little store/restaurant. I would love to return to El Salvador some day and volunteer at the Center -- it is such a hopeful vision. For more info, check out www.centroartex.org.
We had the biggest pupusas I'd ever seen for dinner on Friday. Pupusas are the national food of El Salvador: tortillas cooked with a filing of beans and cheese. They're pretty amazing creations, and delicious! Most of the ones we'd eaten were 4-5 inches in diameter, but these were 6-7!
Saturday was a very intense and emotional day. In the morning, we went down to nearby Lake Suchitlán, which is actually part of the Rio (river) Lempa, and a group of people from a nearby village took us by boat to Viejo Copapayo. There used to be a rural community there, but now there are only ruins of house foundations. It has a horrific history, which we got to hear first-hand from the survivors. They, like many other small communities during the war, were the victims of a massacre by the army. Twice. Besides the people that escaped before the first massacre occurred, only one person survived both of them: Rogelio, who was a 10-year-old boy at the time, and who told us his story.
It was November of 1983 when the army came to bomb and raze the town. The inhabitants knew what was coming and so some fled the day before, but the rest took boats across the river and waited until they'd thought the army had gone. The massacre happened when they came back, incorrectly thinking it was safe. Those that survived were rounded up and taken to an army official's home, where they were all gunned down the next day. Rogelio got lucky by hiding in the grass behind a tree and not being discovered.
As refugees, the surviving members of the community only lived in Honduras for three years before returning to Viejo Copapayo in October of 1987. That is the year Peggy began working with them. They relocated to a new site, El Sitio Cinicero, in 1990. After visiting the massacre site, we boated over to El Sitio, where we spent the night. What a wonderful little place! I really do love the campo. We visited their little library and met with the librarian, and later with the directive board of the town. In the evening after dinner, we and a number of families with children gathered in front of the new church where there is a large mural listing the names of those who died in the massacre (about 150) and scenes of the massacre and the new town. We recited the names, saying "Presente" after each one. Then we were sent off to host families for the night -- I shared a bedroom with the 5 other people that lived there.
My Escapades in El Salvador, week 2
Since we were doing class work over the weekend, our "weekend" was Monday and Tuesday (this was true every week). On Monday, we all went to Costa del Sol, one of the best beach spots in the country. I couldn't believe how warm the ocean water was! Because it was so warm, it wasn't really very refreshing, but it was fun to play in the waves and build sandcastles and just relax. At the same time, it wasn't fun to discover I had gotten the worst sunburn of my life.
On Thursday, we traveled south to Nueva Esperanza, another resettled community with a difficult but inspiring history. Most of the residents were originally from the department of Chalatenango and had to flee because of the violence and repression during the war. They were able to find refuge in Nicaragua, and lived there for 9 years, learning how to organize themselves. After almost a year-long struggle, they were finally able to return to El Salvador to the place they are located now, and since then they have suffered an earthquake and two floods caused by Hurrican Stan. The floods were caused by damage done to the dike when the dam upstream decided to open their gates and let all the water out at once. Nueva Esperanza is an amazing community -- even more organized than Las Flores. It permeates the air. They have co- op after co-op after co-op (coconut, sugar cane, cashew), sturdy homes, water, electricity, community organizations and activities for youth and cultural memory (e.g music and dance).
Their history, with first-hand accounts, is in a book called "Like Gold in the Fire."
Here's a little anecdote for you about life in the campo: "The first night here, when I went to use the latrine at my host house before going to bed, I took my flashlight. You have to go to the back of the dirt yard, past where the chickens are sleeping in the trees, through a little barbed-wire and stick gate into the area where the cows are, and then up the stairs into the latrine. Well, there were a bunch of sleeping cows back there, and on was laying directly on the other side of the gate, which I had to walk past. Then, when I entered the latrine, I saw cocroaches skittering across the walls away from the light. And on my way back, a cow started grunting and walking toward me. I never used that latrine at night again."
On Thursday, we traveled south to Nueva Esperanza, another resettled community with a difficult but inspiring history. Most of the residents were originally from the department of Chalatenango and had to flee because of the violence and repression during the war. They were able to find refuge in Nicaragua, and lived there for 9 years, learning how to organize themselves. After almost a year-long struggle, they were finally able to return to El Salvador to the place they are located now, and since then they have suffered an earthquake and two floods caused by Hurrican Stan. The floods were caused by damage done to the dike when the dam upstream decided to open their gates and let all the water out at once. Nueva Esperanza is an amazing community -- even more organized than Las Flores. It permeates the air. They have co- op after co-op after co-op (coconut, sugar cane, cashew), sturdy homes, water, electricity, community organizations and activities for youth and cultural memory (e.g music and dance).
Their history, with first-hand accounts, is in a book called "Like Gold in the Fire."
Here's a little anecdote for you about life in the campo: "The first night here, when I went to use the latrine at my host house before going to bed, I took my flashlight. You have to go to the back of the dirt yard, past where the chickens are sleeping in the trees, through a little barbed-wire and stick gate into the area where the cows are, and then up the stairs into the latrine. Well, there were a bunch of sleeping cows back there, and on was laying directly on the other side of the gate, which I had to walk past. Then, when I entered the latrine, I saw cocroaches skittering across the walls away from the light. And on my way back, a cow started grunting and walking toward me. I never used that latrine at night again."
My Escapades in El Salvador, week 1
Wow, what a month! We did so much and learned so much, that there's a lot of detail that I'm leaving out, so I'll apologize in advance for those of you who don't know much about El Salvador's history...
We arrived in El Salvador on Sunday, February 26, for a four-week stay in which we took a course in liberation theology with Sister Peggy O'Niel, a Sister of Charity from New Jersey who's been living and working in El Salvador for 20 years. All 20 of us lived together in a pretty little guest house for the whole time we were there, except for our rural visits. And we had a pet duck named Pato (which means "duck"--very original, no?).
Most of us had a pretty difficult time adjusting to life in San Salvador because it is a very dangerous city with a very high crime rate and we were warned against going anywhere alone or leaving the house at night. Plus, there wasn't anything to do in the area right around our house except to go to the MetroCentro -- the biggest mall in Central America (? - I'm not so sure about that fact, but it is huge) -- six blocks from our house. We also didn't feel very connected to the local culture, and I certainly didn't feel very grounded in the city. San Salvador is such a globalized city that there were times I felt like I could have been in almost any US city, with so many malls, plazas, and chain restaurants and stores.
El Salvador, as they say, is a country of extremes. One of those extremes is the disparity between the rich and poor, another is in politics. We were in El Salvador during the campaign season -- elections for mayors and congresspeople took place on March 12, and so political graffiti was at its peak. Each political party has a particular color combination, and many electricity poles and road barriers are painted those colors or slathered with posters and slogans. The two main political parties are the FMLN and ARENA. The FMLN is the political party of the former guerrilla movement, and ARENA is the hard-right party that the current president belongs to. The elections reminded me of the US in 2000 and 2004: it took them almost a week to verify the election results for San Salvador's mayor because the difference was so small -- there was even a non-violent protest by the FMLN outside the hotel where the counting was going on, which the police retaliated against. The FMLN candidate, Violeta, ended up winning by 59 votes, out of about 3 million.
Week One:
One of the first things we did after arriving in San Salvador was to take a drive through the city and visit the Centro Historico (historic center), where the National Cathedral is. Archbishop Oscar Romero (more on him in Part 2) is buried in the downstairs of the catheral with a very beautiful but fairly simple monument. It was an amazing feeling to be in a place -- the church and the central plaza -- where so many major events -- protests, massacres, Romero's funeral -- occurred. One block off of the main park is the Plaza de Libertad and La Iglesia del Rosario. It is a really interesting building, with a curved roof and full of rainbow stained class and iron sculpture work. It was also the site of some historical protests and massacres.
For those of you who have studied religion and theology, you might be interested to know that we had a meeting with Jon Sobrino, that eminent liberation theologian who was lucky enough to be out of the country when his fellow Jesuits were killed. He is a theology professor at the University of Central America (UCA), where our classes were held, and his appearance and pleasant manner reminded me a little of Mr. Rogers.
The building at the UCA where we took our classes was called the Centro Monseñor Romero. On November 16, 1989, six Jesuit priests who lived there, as well as the wife and daughter of the gardener, were killed by the Army during the night. There is a now a rose garden in the place where the massacre occurred, and the museum inside contains not only information about those killed that night (including the clothing they were wearing), but about many of the other people that were assassinated during the war. They also have a set of Romero's robes, which I just wanted to reach out and hug, but they were behind glass. It was very special and sacred for me to be in that space, which to me is a historical symbol of the voices of prophets, of truth, of a struggle for justice.
At the end of our first week in El Salvador, our group split up to visit different church communities, some in the city, others in the countryside. We were to visit with these communities and observe how liberation theology is at work today. Five of us went together to the town of San Jose Las Flores, which is in the north-central part of El Salvador, in the department of Chalatenango. We met with the directive board and visited a number of cooperatives, including a large fruit tree and livestock co-op. It was boiling hot! We lived on "campo time," which means the schedule was extremely relaxed -- things didn't have set times, and if they did, they usually started late.
Everything about Las Flores was peaceful and relaxing--except for it's history, which is pretty horrific. The town was mostly deserted during the war (which lasted from 1980-1992) after a military operation in 1982 that included the bombing of the town. Most people escaped to Honduras, but a group of people returned to El Salvador to fight for their right to return to their hometown, which they finally did in 1986. The host mother that Hannah and I stayed with lost her husband and one of her brothers during the war as guerrillas, and her parents as well died when they were in their late 20s. (I had to write a reflection paper on the experience, relating it to our study of liberation theology, and I can email that to those of you who are interested.)
Saturday morning, the five of us decided to climb up the hill behind my host family's house, which was a moderate size and had a cross and an FMLN flag at the top. "It was HOT and steep.
We had to climb over a barbed wire fence at one point, and then it was an adventure, although there WAS a skinny path. The region is very hilly, and very dry this time of year -- dusty and hot, the hottest month -- but humid too. After lunch, we met in the town square, where someone from the directive board was supposed to meet us to take us down to the Sumpul River. Well, we sat there for almost two hours before anything happened. The water was amazingly warm for a river, and we had a lovely time swimming, although even the river played a terrible part in the war. People would escape across it into Honduras, and one of the biggest massacres of the war occurred not too far upstream from where we were, when refugees were attacked from both sides by the Salvadoran and Honduran Armies. 800 died.
We arrived in El Salvador on Sunday, February 26, for a four-week stay in which we took a course in liberation theology with Sister Peggy O'Niel, a Sister of Charity from New Jersey who's been living and working in El Salvador for 20 years. All 20 of us lived together in a pretty little guest house for the whole time we were there, except for our rural visits. And we had a pet duck named Pato (which means "duck"--very original, no?).
Most of us had a pretty difficult time adjusting to life in San Salvador because it is a very dangerous city with a very high crime rate and we were warned against going anywhere alone or leaving the house at night. Plus, there wasn't anything to do in the area right around our house except to go to the MetroCentro -- the biggest mall in Central America (? - I'm not so sure about that fact, but it is huge) -- six blocks from our house. We also didn't feel very connected to the local culture, and I certainly didn't feel very grounded in the city. San Salvador is such a globalized city that there were times I felt like I could have been in almost any US city, with so many malls, plazas, and chain restaurants and stores.
El Salvador, as they say, is a country of extremes. One of those extremes is the disparity between the rich and poor, another is in politics. We were in El Salvador during the campaign season -- elections for mayors and congresspeople took place on March 12, and so political graffiti was at its peak. Each political party has a particular color combination, and many electricity poles and road barriers are painted those colors or slathered with posters and slogans. The two main political parties are the FMLN and ARENA. The FMLN is the political party of the former guerrilla movement, and ARENA is the hard-right party that the current president belongs to. The elections reminded me of the US in 2000 and 2004: it took them almost a week to verify the election results for San Salvador's mayor because the difference was so small -- there was even a non-violent protest by the FMLN outside the hotel where the counting was going on, which the police retaliated against. The FMLN candidate, Violeta, ended up winning by 59 votes, out of about 3 million.
Week One:
One of the first things we did after arriving in San Salvador was to take a drive through the city and visit the Centro Historico (historic center), where the National Cathedral is. Archbishop Oscar Romero (more on him in Part 2) is buried in the downstairs of the catheral with a very beautiful but fairly simple monument. It was an amazing feeling to be in a place -- the church and the central plaza -- where so many major events -- protests, massacres, Romero's funeral -- occurred. One block off of the main park is the Plaza de Libertad and La Iglesia del Rosario. It is a really interesting building, with a curved roof and full of rainbow stained class and iron sculpture work. It was also the site of some historical protests and massacres.
For those of you who have studied religion and theology, you might be interested to know that we had a meeting with Jon Sobrino, that eminent liberation theologian who was lucky enough to be out of the country when his fellow Jesuits were killed. He is a theology professor at the University of Central America (UCA), where our classes were held, and his appearance and pleasant manner reminded me a little of Mr. Rogers.
The building at the UCA where we took our classes was called the Centro Monseñor Romero. On November 16, 1989, six Jesuit priests who lived there, as well as the wife and daughter of the gardener, were killed by the Army during the night. There is a now a rose garden in the place where the massacre occurred, and the museum inside contains not only information about those killed that night (including the clothing they were wearing), but about many of the other people that were assassinated during the war. They also have a set of Romero's robes, which I just wanted to reach out and hug, but they were behind glass. It was very special and sacred for me to be in that space, which to me is a historical symbol of the voices of prophets, of truth, of a struggle for justice.
At the end of our first week in El Salvador, our group split up to visit different church communities, some in the city, others in the countryside. We were to visit with these communities and observe how liberation theology is at work today. Five of us went together to the town of San Jose Las Flores, which is in the north-central part of El Salvador, in the department of Chalatenango. We met with the directive board and visited a number of cooperatives, including a large fruit tree and livestock co-op. It was boiling hot! We lived on "campo time," which means the schedule was extremely relaxed -- things didn't have set times, and if they did, they usually started late.
Everything about Las Flores was peaceful and relaxing--except for it's history, which is pretty horrific. The town was mostly deserted during the war (which lasted from 1980-1992) after a military operation in 1982 that included the bombing of the town. Most people escaped to Honduras, but a group of people returned to El Salvador to fight for their right to return to their hometown, which they finally did in 1986. The host mother that Hannah and I stayed with lost her husband and one of her brothers during the war as guerrillas, and her parents as well died when they were in their late 20s. (I had to write a reflection paper on the experience, relating it to our study of liberation theology, and I can email that to those of you who are interested.)
Saturday morning, the five of us decided to climb up the hill behind my host family's house, which was a moderate size and had a cross and an FMLN flag at the top. "It was HOT and steep.
We had to climb over a barbed wire fence at one point, and then it was an adventure, although there WAS a skinny path. The region is very hilly, and very dry this time of year -- dusty and hot, the hottest month -- but humid too. After lunch, we met in the town square, where someone from the directive board was supposed to meet us to take us down to the Sumpul River. Well, we sat there for almost two hours before anything happened. The water was amazingly warm for a river, and we had a lovely time swimming, although even the river played a terrible part in the war. People would escape across it into Honduras, and one of the biggest massacres of the war occurred not too far upstream from where we were, when refugees were attacked from both sides by the Salvadoran and Honduran Armies. 800 died.
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