"El martirio es una gracia de Dios que no creo merecer. Pero si Dios acepta el sacrificio de mi vida, que mi sangre sea la semilla de libertad y la señal de que la esperanza será pronto una realidad."
"Martyrdom is a grace from God which I do not believe I deserve. But if God accepts the sacrifice of my life, then may my blood be the seed of liberty, and a sign of hope that will soon become a reality."
~Monseñor Óscar Romero, 16 Marzo 1980 (8 days before his martyrdom)
I've been in the United States for about two days now, but my heart is still in El Salvador. This spring break I decided to step way out of my comfort zone and going on a trip to El Salvador through campus ministry. I remember sitting in bed the night before we flew out of Saint Louis, and fears and worries just started filling my mind. I worried about the language barrier (since I know no spanish), about getting sick, about safety in general (the travel warning issued only heightened that fear), I even worried about my shy nature keeping me from opening up and making friends with the other students on the trip. Little did I know then, those fears where completely irrational. I realized not knowing the language made everything I learned that much more special and that you don't have to speak the same language to connect on a deep level. I never got sick once the whole trip, and never at all felt unsafe. And much to my surprise, I was actually open with others on the trip and watched a lot of new and great friendships develop. I am so ever grateful that I was able to go on the trip, I really owe Stewart a lot for convincing me to go. This trip helped me to discover a new passion and taught me more that I could have ever hoped for. I'm hoping in writing this post, I can share my extraordinary experience with you and show you how amazing the country and the people of El Salvador truly are.
You may not know much about the history of El Salvador, I didn't really until this past week. It would take a while to tell the whole history, but I want to give an quick overview to kind of set a context for this whole week. El Salvador is the smallest country in Central America (about the size of Massachusetts), and the history of the country is characterized by marked social inequity. This led to a twelve year civil war between the FMLN (leftist guerilla movement) and the United States backed military-led government. Many Salvadorans disappeared during this time and tens of thousands of innocent civilians we killed, not including the soldiers and the guerillas killed. It was during this time that Oscar Romero was named Archbishop of San Salvador and advocated for liberation theology which is the concept that the poor should not be oppressed and it not the will of God that they are being oppressed and that they are being deprived of basic rights. Oscar Romero told the people that they do not have to wait until Heaven to be rewarded, the should have that on earth. The government saw Monsenor Romero as a threat and had him killed on March 24, 1980. He was shot and killed with a single bullet while saying mass. Others killed, to name a few were Father Rutilio Grande, the six Jesuits Martyrs along with Elba and her daughter Celina, Octavio Ortiz and the four American church women. Not to mention the thousands of innocent men, women and children killed during the 12 years of war.
I don't even know where to start, so I guess day 1 is the best place to begin. Last Saturday, after a long day of travel, we arrived at the airport in San Salvador around 11 pm only to be greeted by hugs from the wonderful Christine, a graduate of SLU last year and a former Micah, and Ana Luz, who is a funny, passionate and amazing Salvadoran who was with us our whole week in El Salvador. When we got back to Fundahmer (our home for the week), we had a small orientation and a surprise of homemade pupusas! Pupusa are corn tortillas stuffed with beans and cheese and meat, and are basically heaven in tortilla form. To say the least they were a favorite of most everyone on the trip and, over the course of the week I must have eaten at least 8 pupusas if not more... To say the least, we fell asleep that night exhausted and with a slight pupusa food coma. The next morning we woke up and headed into the center of San Salvador to the Cathedral to attend mass. The cathedral is beautiful and sits facing the Plaza Barrios where the funeral of Monsenor Romero was held. During the funeral of Romero, smoke bombs went off and shots were fired from the top of the Palacio Nacional. We attended mass in the basement of the Catherdral, which is the burial location of Monsenor Romero! We literally went to mass with Monsenor Romero. The mass was beautiful, personal and full of love and emotion. After Mass, two Salvadoran women asked if they could explain the crypt of Monsenor and the significance of the crpyt, and of course we said yes. These women had no clue who we were, just that we were Americans, and the volunteered their time to tell us all about Monsenor Romero and his grave. This was only the beginning of the amazing hospitality we received all week and is a small glimpse of how loved Monsenor Romero was loved by his people. After Mass we packed up our things and heading out to Las Mesas, a small rural community in the hills of El Salvador. It was formed during the war by families hoping to escape from the violence of the civil war. The afternoon was spent playing tag, and soccer with the children. If I learned one thing while playing with the children that afternoon it was this: no matter where you go, children are children. They love to play and laugh and have fun. They have this ability to love unconditionally that all of us should aspire for. The women cooked us all an amazing dinner, and after dinner we met with the youth of the community. I can't even begin to explain how mature these young men and women are. They take so much pride in their community and are very determined to do what is best for their community, their home. Listening to these young men and women really made me reevaluate my priorities. After spending time with the youth, they had a surprise for us, a DANCE PARTY. Best dance party I have had been to in my life.
The next morning after breakfast, we met with the woman of the community, who really are the heart and driving force of the community, which is amazing especially in a Machismo culture. These women have dreams and will do anything to achieve them. They raised money to build a small store for their community, make natural shampoo and soap and harvest amazing honey that they sell. They are truly an inspiring group of women. After this we visited the small school in the community which had kindergarden through 6th grade. We saw the classrooms and talked with both the children and the teacher, and during recess we played pato, pato, ganso (duck, duck, goose). After visiting the school and touring the community we had lunch, once again cooked by the women of the community. Lunch was amazing. Hot soup and chicken. I can't begin to tell you how weird it was having hot soup and chicken in the middle of the day, when it is close to 95 degrees outside. Although it was hard to get used to it was oddly refreshing. All meals no matter what time of day it is, is always hot there. So, back to lunch. They made us all chicken which is a BIG deal. Chicken or any meat is really a big deal for them, they generally don't eat that much meat, and they killed enough of their chickens to feed 16 people who were visiting their community. Talk about a major sacrifice, for people they only just met. This community opened their arms and their home to us. They sacrificed their chickens for us. And, when we were leaving, the thanked US. They were so grateful for our presence and that we took the time to visit them. This really took me by surprise, we where the ones our should be grateful and thankful to them, they opened their homes to us and fed us, yet they continued to take us!! It was as we were saying goodbye that one of the elder women of the community said that our visit truly shows that "love know no borders." That afternoon after leaving Las Mesas, we visited the UCA (Universidad Centro Americano), which is the site where the six jesuits along which Elba and Celina were killed. We spent time speaking with Padre Sivatte about Liberation Theology, and then spent time in the Museum of the Martyrs. After a very informative tour, given by a young women (it still amazes me how the young people know so much about their history and are so passionate about it) we walked up to the rose garden, which was planted where the six jesuits were shot and killed. The university is like a small oasis in the middle of San Salvador, it is beautiful. It is hard to believe that 8 innocent lives where taken there in the middle of the night. As I stood in the rose garden, thoughts of how? and why? began to rush through my head. My mind was flooded with emotions and questions, it is still something that I am trying to work though in my head. After sometime to reflect and process our thoughts in the chapel, we headed to Planes de Los Renderos to a restaurant to have more pupusas, along with 2 SLU student who are currently studying abroad in El Salvador at the Casa de la Solidaridad. After dinner, we stopped at an overlook to look at the beautiful lights of San Salvador before heading back to Fundahmer for the night.
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