dying in El Salvador...

I'm not even sure how to write about El Salvador. So I've been putting it off; which is a shame, because it's a fascinating place.

I look forward to our arrival here and the process of learning and analysis that students begin in their Liberation Theology course. In Guatemala they learn a skill, they learn to speak Spanish. Here in El Salvador, they learn about a reality that hardly seems possible, and one that certainly hasn't created ideal conditions for hope. They have the opportunity to hear people's testimonies and they are challenged both in conversation and in readings to 'take people down from their crosses'.

In El Salvador crosses and suffering aren't figurative. People are dying at incredibly saddening rates. According to the blog Voices on the Border, there were 440 reported murders in the first 5 weeks of 2010. Keep in mind that this is a tiny country - with a total population about equal to that of New York City. To put that number into perspective, New York City only reported 419 murders for the entirety of 2009. It's a problem that keeps getting worse - and people don't really know why. The majority of the victims are gang members, and are young males. However, many have been bus drivers or "political activists, presumably killed for their opinions and public pronouncements".

It's incredible that in a "post-war" country, people can't leave their houses at night. This situation of such extreme violence has brought the military back to the streets to attempt to protect civilians. During the war, the United States sent an average of 1.5 million dollars a day to support the government's attempt to wipe out the 'communists'. The Truth Commission after the war reported that the guerrillas were responsible for approximately 5% of the war crimes. In a conflict that took about 70,000 lives, that means the 'bad guys' the US was paying so much to fight were responsible for about 3,500 deaths...over the course of 12 years.

If murder rates keep up their current rate - El Salvador will loose 4,576 people to violence this year alone. Last year 4,365 were killed.

What is the US sending now? USAID is working on some development projects, and non-profits are doing what they can; but mostly, the US is sending trade agreements that favor the powerful and deporting poor Salvadorans back to a place where there aren't any jobs, and there's a whole lot of death. It sure isn't sending 1.5 million a day. Of course, a million a day wouldn't be the answer (would it?). I don't know what the answer is, but this tiny country's current plight deserves to be heard.

In our religion class we're encouraged not only to ask ourselves about 'taking people down from their crosses' but also "How am I complicit in building crosses?" As a citizen of one of the most powerful nations in the world, living in a reality like El Salvador's, this question haunts me daily.

(pictures: sketches of salvadoran torture victims - rendition of the stations of the cross from the UCA chapel in San Salvador)

humbling perspective...

Last week, during our rural stay in a tiny Guatemalan, mountain community I was fortunate enough to stay with the same family that received me and Chepe back in September. I arrived exhausted, both physically and emotionally, and on the eve of my 27th birthday. My two little 'host-sisters' ran out to greet me: "Seno Rebekah!" And I was so honored that these gorgeous little ladies remembered me fondly. It strangely felt something like a homecoming. Throughout the course of the week, the entire family continuously awed me with their enthusiasm and open love, their heartbreaking generosity and their gratitude. Over and over, their ability to put things in perspective humbled me and my often, all too enormous lack of perspective.

We spent meal times together, in their cozy kitchen, around their table chatting, the girls drifting off to sleep on my lap. I thought often about what I've heard many say in response to such beautiful displays of humanity in a new or different culture - "Look, they're poor, but they're happy." And I'd agree; they are poor and they are - for the most part - happy.

But if that's true, it's because they've chosen to be happy. They have plenty of reason not to be: the smoke from that 'cozy' wood-burning stove is killing their Grandma. She can hardly talk and her lungs are as black as the walls. Mama Alba has a debt so large, due to mistakes not her own, that she fears losing their house and land. The kids study without pencils or paper and work tilling the land by hand and chew their food on painfully rotted out teeth, but they smile when they dance and they get excited about garbanzo beans for dessert and they cuddle up with each other, finding the happiness to be found in simple situations and each other. My host mom landed a 'temp' job of sorts while I was staying there. It would only be a few weeks of work - but opportunity is so scarce that this was a huge victory. She just beamed and I ached. I want so deeply for them to have opportunity.

And what amazed me is that it seemed clear to me that they choose to get up every day and live out of a deep perspective; appreciating the things that can bring light rather than passively watching the darkness envelop them. So good for them that they are 'happy' - and good for people for recognizing the beauty of that - as long as it isn't used as an excuse not to do anything. In really seeing the miracle in their ability to live with less and choose happiness I was challenged, and hope others would feel the same, to do more to serve, live with less and still be 'happy'. Their ability to have perspective and find joy doesn't negate my responsibility to ALSO live with deep perspective, as if their happiness somehow justifies their daily injustices.

I came down from that mountain full of their light and burdened by the deep aching, the gut feeling that they deserve so much more. I felt burdened by the responsibility that beginning to learn how to love a people so oppressed entails and yet happier than I have in a long while.

multiply by three...

During my time here in Central America I've thought a great deal about life in post-war countries. About what war does to the infrastructure and the economy of a nation; but more so, what it does to the psyche of a people.

Guatemala survived 36 years of war. Thirty-six years of 'internal conflict' affects the way a country acts internally, obviously. It affects the way that people treat each other and talk to each other and the decisions they make. One of our speakers mentioned a sociological study that claims a country needs 3 times the number of years spent in war in order to leave behind the culture of fear and distrust that it generates. Which would mean Guatemala is looking at 108 years...and they're only 14 year in, with 94 to go.

That's a pretty dismal panorama...but in the face of that idea, we still see organization. And perhaps more than in certain communities in peaceful countries. It's pretty incredible when communities - whether out of necessities or ideals - rise out of such an extreme culture of fear to organize and help/support each other. Both post-war and peaceful countries need our encouragement in doing so, it seem. So here's to organizing, and here's to breaking down barriers constructed by fear, and here's to healing.


(mural from PLQ with a quote from Pablo Neruda: 'Podrán cortar las flores, pero no podrán detener la primavera.'/'They can cut down the flowers, but they can't stop spring.')

constant change...

We've been in Guatemala for four weeks now and we're headed out to Santa Anita - a community of ex-guerrillas that have 'traded in the smell of gunpowder for the smell of coffee'. They work together as a cooperative to produce coffee and we get to spend the weekend hearing their story and touring their gorgeous property (and drinking lots of coffee!). After that we'll spend a week in the countryside learning about rural life in Guatemala.

Things are wrapping up here, is what I'm trying to say, I guess. And that's happened three other times, but this week, it's likely the last time. I'll often complain about certain parts of the semester but I've grown quite fond of Xela and I will miss lots about it.

There's something incredible about the way that knowing you're leaving a place changes perspective. For me it heightens things - food tastes better, people seem more interesting, music more nostalgic, mountains more grandiose, sunsets more beautiful. Maybe that's why I've turned into this strange breed of transition-junkie. Constant change doesn't let you get used to much or take much for granted.

I don't think my post has a 'point' today really. I suppose I'm just more conscious of the emotions surrounding coming and going this time through. I hope that you're all well and surviving the snow at home :) I miss you.

acknowledgment...

We're a few weeks into our time here in Guatemala and things are moving along quite nicely. Students have, thus far, averted extreme/bizarre illnesses (no Scarlet Fever this time around - thank God). And despite the group being small, they are good to each other and have displayed an impressive level of interest and appreciation for our speakers.

I've been reading more than normal and going to bed early, probably part of the reason I haven't been writing here as much as I'd like to. But I have been thinking much about solitude and presence and why we're/I'm here in Central America.

On Saturday we went to a small indigenous community where we heard the story of a group of widows. Before we make the hike down to their houses Fidel always teaches us some words in Quiche and reminds us that by attempting to speak their language, by listening to their story, and by sharing a meal with them - we show them that we value who they are. This has been a recurring theme during my time here: that with your presence alone, you can show someone you value them.

I'm reading a wonderful novel in which a dying Reverend writes a long letter to his boy in hopes of telling him the things that might not ever be told otherwise. He speaks about baptism and the act of blessing something.

"There is a reality in blessing...It doesn't enhance sacredness, but acknowledges it, and there is power in that. I have felt it pass through me, so to speak. the sensation of really knowing a creature, I mean really feeling its mysterious life and your own mysterious life at the same time."

It's pretty unlikely that I'll ever baptize anyone, but my hope would be that through our presence and our solidarity with these communities, we would bless them - and acknowledge the sacredness within them. Certainly I am always blessed by them.