Laura in El Salvador

Holy Week in El Salvador

2011-04-21T12:19:00.000-06:00

So its Holy Week again here in El Salvador, a time known for tamales pisques, ripe mangoes, torrejas, alfombras, cicadas and immense heat. Since Holy Week this year fell later than normal and it rained a few times in February and March, the cicadas are almost all gone, but pretty much everything else on that list is all over the place.

In El Salvador, most people get at least two or three days, if not the whole week off of work. In the NGO world, we get the whole week off work. Many Salvadorans use this time to go to the beach and visit family. Since everyone is flocking to the beach, especially these last few days, that is the one place we have not gone. However, I think we have taken advantage of our vacation in other ways. Here is how.

1) Bajo Lempa. We headed out to the Lower Lempa region of the country on Saturday and stayed until Monday. This visit was characterized more than anything by an excessive amount of heat and mangoes. Though the highlight of the visit for me was a trip to the Lempa River. My dad asked me if the river was clean and I responded: "Is the Ohio River clean? No. Do we still swim in it? Yes." Though since it hasn't rained much yet, at least the river looked pretty clean. Trying not to think about water contamination, this was an awesome experience. Alejandro laughed hysterically as he splashed around the water wearing nothing but a big hat. As we left we realized that thanks to river currents and the hydro-electric dam upstream, the water had risen and it had swept away Alejandro's new sandals. Still didn't ruin the experience though. Check out these pictures of Cesar in the mango tree, Alejandro eating a mango with our friend Vilma and of Cesar and Alejandro in the river.

Cesar getting the mangoes out of the tree

eating the mango

Alejandro and Cesar in the Lempa River

2) San Salvador volcano. This was a favorite activity of mine when I was pregnant because the volcano is elevated enough that you escape the suffocating heat of April. Its also close enough that you can go for a few hours, have some coffee and come back down. Alejandro and I went with our friends Guiselle and Amelia. I keep saying, the only thing cuter than one baby is two babies! Check out the two of them checking out this fountain. (I swear Alejandro was trying to say "agua" while we were looking at it. Guiselle agreed, but he has not said it since, so maybe not.)

Amelia and Alejandro

3) Doing nothing at home. Another popular activity that Salvadorans partake in during Holy Week. This has been kind of nice. Except for the volcano visit, this has been our lives since Monday afternoon. It has given me the chance to make pepper dip from the 40 sweet peppers I brought back from the Bajo Lempa. I also experimented with tomatillos and made soup. Mostly its been nice to spend time with Cesar and Alejandro and not have a billion other things to do.

4) Go to Tepecoyo. We are heading out this afternoon. This part of our trip we will experience the torrejas, tamales pisques and alfombra part of Holy Week, in addition to spending time with Cesar's family. Torrejas are kind of like Salvadoran french toast and everyone eats them during Holy Week. I don't know why. Tamales pisques are bean filled tamales. I DO know why people eat them this week. Apparently you are not supposed to kill animals during Holy Week so the tamales are filled with beans instead of chicken. Alfombras are giant sand murals that are made on Good Friday in the streets of various towns in the Western part of El Salvador. Often they depict part of the stations of the cross. In Tepecoyo all the different neighborhoods and streets make them. They spend all day working on them using colored sand and lots of volunteers. At night when the stations of the cross procession passes through the town, they walk over the alfombras completely destroying them. Since we haven't gone yet, I don't have a picture. But I am adding one of the alfombra we worked on in 2008.

So that is my Holy Week. Very different from Easter in the States where we paint eggs and eat chocolate bunnies. Both very interesting ways to end Lent and commemorate the crucifixion and resurrection. If you want to read an amazing reflection on Holy Week and El Salvador, I invite you to read these reflections written last year in the mark of Romero week.

Happy Easter!

Living by the Wisdom of Blind Melon

2011-02-02T09:50:00.000-06:00

Inspired by my brother and my life these days. Thanks to Leigha for the antecdote.

My friend once told me that she was dating a guy whose favorite band ever was Blind Melon. We laughed. What did Blind Melon ever do besides "No Rain?" Wasn't that a one hit wonder? Spoken true like two girls who were only ten when Shannon Hoon overdosed on drugs. And while "No Rain" was probably the theme song of my freshman year at college and still holds a special place in my heart, it wasn't until a certain Salvadoran who spent his youth obsessed with the rock music scene of the early 90's introduced me to the wonderousness of groups like Pearl Jam and of course, Blind Melon, that I realized how wrong I was about them being a one hit wonder.

Sometimes at work I go through song playlist on youtube to spice up my day. Those playlist have include Les Miserables, Glee and about a year ago, Blind Melon. I hadn't listed to them for a while, but the other day at a street festival with friends, the song "Change" came on and Cesar and I looked at each other and smiled. I think some songs jump back in your life for a reason. You usually know that by the fact that the song brings you to tears when you hear it.

I think I heard "Change" for a reason.

The past few weeks have been up and down for me in most aspects of my life. When so many things are shaken like this, you start to look around you and see that the world you have built isn't as sturdy as you thought it was. This month, was the tenth anniversary of the earthquake in El Salvador that devastated the country. Living in a place of such natural disasters teaches you that things can collapse at any minute, even if you try so hard to hold things in place.

Blind Melon says:

When you feel your life ain't worth living
you've got to stand up and
take a look around you then a look way up to the sky.
And when your deepest thoughts are broken,
keep on dreaming boy, cause when you stop dreamin' it's time to die.
And as we all play parts of tomorrow,
some ways will work and other ways we'll play.
But I know we all can't stay here forever,
so I want to write my words on the face of today.

...When life is hard, you have to change.

The words touch my heart and I know its because this year will bring great change for me. And that is very scary, but I know that change needs to happen. So I trudge through the daily stresses and treasure those moments that remind me to look up to the sky.

Alejandro's shriek of joy when I come home from work.

My friends singing Las Mañanitas to me around my birthday watermelon at the beach.

Sharing a meal with my co-workers.

And coming back from the store to my first real home that was mine and Cesar's and Alejandro's, and finding the two of them dancing to this song.

And when your deepest thoughts are broken,
keep on dreaming boy, cause when you stop dreamin' it's time to die.

My world gets rocked. I know it will even more. But we all play parts of tomorrow. So I am grateful for those moments that remind me to dream of what is to come and not be afraid of the change.

When life is hard, you have to change.

November 25th, 2010

2010-11-25T22:01:00.001-06:00

November 25th, 2010, Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. The Law for a Life Free of Violence for Women in El Salvador is approved. As the country with the number one rate of femicides in the world, its about time something changes. Hopefully this law will actually be enacted.

Here is why...

On October 21st, on the Las Quebradas finca, in the municipality of Talnique, La Libertad, the bodies of Clarisa Ortiz Valle,14 years old; Julia Araceli Hernández Torres, 14 years old; María Vicenta Ávalos Pérez, 15 years old and Georgina Lisseth Álvarez Cruz, 18 years old, were found stangled and maimed at the hands of supposed friends of theirs.

In the past ten years in El Salvador, violence against women has increased by 197%, making it the number one place for femicides in the world, with 129.46 assassinations per one million women.

According to the Second National Report of the Situation of Violence Against Women in El Salvador, put out by the Salvadoran Institute for the Development of Women (ISDEMU), between January 1st and November 5, 2010, the ISDEMU saw 6,320 cases of violence against women. Among those including: domestic violence, child abuse, sexual harrassment and abuse, labor abuse, sexual exploitation and human trafficking.

Of the 477 femicides registered in 2010, 74 were under the age of 17, thirteen were tortured, 14 were burned and 8 were decapitated. These are the characteristics of femicides in El Salvador.

In 2007, approximately every 73 hours a woman was assassinated, in 2009, it was every 31 hours and in 2010 , every 13 hours a woman was assassinated.

According to the ISDEMU document, in 2010, 702 women have been victims of sexual aggression, 4,230 have suffered from domestic violence, and 1,325 young girls were abused.

In 2008, in the town of Apastapeque, two men were convicted for raping a 14 month old little girl.

85% of the cases of violence denounced happened in the home or in the victim’s community. 47.96% of those cases occured in the home, and 14.38% in the homes of aquantainces.

According to the ISDEMU, 76% of women victims of sexual aggresion are under the age of 19.

According to the National Morgue, the most vulnerable age group for sexual aggression is girls between the age of 10 and 14.

Of 6,803 cases of sexual crimes against women in 2008 and 2009, only 436 of the victimizers were condemned with a crime.

According to the women’s organization, Las Dignas, of 119 labor violation denouncements that they received in 2009, 52 were for unjust job termination and 13 for sexual harassment in the work place.

In El Salvador, men earn 14% more than women.

In El Salvador, of 84 National Assembly representatives, only 16 are women.

Yes...time for things to change.

Jesuit Martyr's Vigil

2010-11-14T23:06:00.000-06:00

"No hay amor cristiano sin lucha de justicia"
"There is no Christian love without a fight for justice"
-Ignacio Ellacuria S.J., killed Nov. 16th 1989

Yesterday was the UCA Vigil for the six Jesuits, their housekeeper and her daughter who were killed at the UCA, 21 years ago. The Nicaragua VM's came up for the event and we stayed until after 12. Ali's first vigil! This is part of the theme quote of the year. Here are my pictures.

A Mother's Heart

2010-11-13T13:08:00.000-06:00

I wrote this after spending the day working with a team who was interviewing women who participated in the Civil War here in El Salvador.

I think every mother
has the same heart.
In that the thing that we love the most
And the thing that we most fear losing
Are the same.

Something in our biology
That makes us ache for our children if we haven't seen them enough
That puts our attention on something else first, before ourselves
Is he hungry? Is she safe? Will they always feel my love?

And it is that heart
That breaks
For other mothers
And their loss.

My heart, my mother heart,
breaks with the pain of the Salvadoran mother.

Who lost 1, 2, 4, 6, 12, children in the war
Whose child died of dengue
Whose child left for the States and never came back
Who wailed over the body of her 15 year old son, assassinated on a street corner while playing cards with his friends
Whose son was swept out of her arms in a flood.

Who cannot provide enough food for her child
Who cannot clean the water, so there is no typhoid, no dengue, no contamination
Who cannot clean the air for his little lungs
Who cannot make her home sturdier, safer, risk-free.

The mother who leaves at 5am to work and returns home at 7pm. Whose only time with her child is when she holds him in her arms as she sleeps.
The mother who waits for hours, for days, for months, for her child to be seen by a doctor.
The mother who sets up a blanket on the side of the road for her toddler to play on while she sells newspapers in the busyintersection.
The mother who is alone as a parent. Who knows that it all depends on her.
The mother is afraid of her husband. Who uses her body to block the blows he aims at her child.
The mother who tries to hold out here in El Salvador, crap job, after crap job, knowing she could earn more in the States, if only she were to leave her children with the grandmother and head north. But stays because she can't bear to be away from them.
The mother is in the States and has not seen her children in 1, 2, 3, 7 years.

I see them, I hear them, I talk to them everyday and my heart, my mother heart breaks.

So I work faster, I walk faster, I drive faster.
To get back to him. To hold my child in my arms.
For now. For today. For this moment.

Pumpkin Pumpkin

2010-11-13T11:55:00.001-06:00

Pumpkin, Pumpkin, Big and Fat

Turn into a Jack-o-Lantern just like THAT!

I have memories of my little sister in pre-school sitting at the dinner table singing that song for us that she had learned at the kids at her school got all hyped up for Halloween. I realize Halloween was two weeks ago, but I know its still fall in the States and pumpkins go with the fall. I want to share how we celebrated Halloween in our house.

Halloween is not a Salvadoran holiday. There are three predominant opinions that Salvadorans hold on Halloween:

1) It is the devil's holiday and should not be celebrate.
2) Like most things from the United States, it is great and should be copied.
3) Like most things from the United States, it is invading our culture and should be boycotted.

I experienced all three of those opinions my first year here when I had the idea to plan a Halloween party in the youth house where I was working.

The holiday that is celebrated here is the Day of the Dead. Which I already wrote about in an early post.

But, even though I can understand and sympathize with the #3 Salvadoran opinion on Halloween, it is part of my past and my culture and so I don't feel bad doing something small to celebrate.

So this year I made pumpkin bread.

This is the recipe I used:

Spiced Pumpkin Bread

3 cups sugar

1 cup vegetable oil

3 large eggs

1 16-ounce can solid pack pumpkin

3 cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter and flour two 9x5x3-inch loaf pans. Beat sugar and oil in large bowl to blend. Mix in eggs and pumpkin. Sift flour, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, salt and baking powder into another large bowl. Stir into pumpkin mixture in 2 additions. Mix in walnuts, if desired.

Divide batter equally between prepared pans. Bake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 1 hour 10 minutes. Transfer to racks and cool 10 minutes. Using sharp knife, cut around edge of loaves. Turn loaves out onto racks and cool completely. Read More

Instead of using canned pumpkin I used real pumpkin and I about doubled the cinnamon (I love cinnamon, I think its a response to our French exhange student who hated cinnamon and hated me). For the real pumpkin I cut them open, seed them and then stuck them in the oven for about a half hour. It probably should have been longer bc when I took them out and started to dish out the pumpkin goop (seperating it from the skin), I realized parts were still hard. So I steamed the bits of pumpkin until they were really soft and then mixed it in where it says to add canned pumpkin.

I had bought the pumpkins at the beginning of October when I saw them at the grocery store. Pumpkins are not a Salvadoran vegetable. It was at the grocery store due to Opinion #2 on Salvadoran's and Halloween. Cesar was at first annoyed that I bought then because he holds strong to Opinion #3, but when I told him that I was planning on making bread, he lightened up.

So on Halloween, I was feeling inspired and wanting to do something, so I started my bread. This is what the process looked liked:

One last picture with baby

Cut it open!

seeding them

drying out the seeds

With the roasted pumpkins reading the scoop out the pumpkin goop for the bread

Pumpkin goop mixed with eggs, sugar and oil, about to be added to the dry ingredients

All mixed together

Into the oven!

Sorry, I totally forgot to take a picture of the last phase, being the baked bread. But it was delish!

Victims of Hurricane Ida: Presente!

2010-11-07T22:23:00.000-06:00

A year ago today, Hurricane Ida hit El Salvador and killed over 200 people while destroying thousands of homes due to poor housing construction and environmental degradation. Today, a beautiful day in El Salvador, we remember those who died and those whose lives were affected for ever. To quote my friend Beth, "I believe that people shouldn't die when it rains." Read about her organization, CEIBA, which was founded after last years disaster.

Leaving with our arms full

2010-11-07T22:02:00.000-06:00

Today we went to Cesar's town Tepecoyo. A small town in the mountains about 50 minutes from our home. This time of year it is BEAUTIFUL in Tepecoyo. The rains have pretty much gone and all the flowers have begun to bloom. The past few days there has been a strong Northern wind which has chilled us here in San Salvador, and has hit even harder up in the mountains. Alejandro wore a long sleeved shirt with his overalls. But the cooler air has dried up the earth some and the flowers are in full bloom in the mountains. Here is a picture:

It is coffee picking season in El Salvador and while at Cesar's aunt's house, I saw this:

I asked what it was and he told me that it was coffee beans drying out to shell and roast. One thing I love about visiting homes in El Salvador in small towns or in the countryside, is how close you feel to the food you consume. In this case, the coffee that they would soon drink has come from the same mountain that they live on, picked by the family, dried in their home, roasted and ground to be consumed by the family. I could give countless examples of this in El Salvador. But it brings me to my point of this blog. The beauty of people sharing their harvest and their food with us.

I don't think I have ever left Tepecoyo without our arms full of something. When we used to go on the bus it would be a few mangos and a bag full of beans. Now that we have a car, we bring home this amount of food:

In case you can't see it all, our car trunk carried: two papayas, a bunch of green bananas, a bunch of guineos machoches (another type of banana that you fry), green onions, tomatoes, green peppers, four cucumbers, unshelled fresh picked red beans and a GIANT wild squash.

I was most excited about the wild squash. Still not sure what I am going to do with it. Cesar's aunt told me she can show me how to cook it in sugarcane honey for a tasty treat. That would be very exciting. Here is a close up:

I was also psyched about the red beans. Pretty much every time we go to Tepecoyo we get sent home with a back of dried red beans for us to cook and eat. The red bean is a staple in the Salvadoran diet. But, fresh red beans are EVEN better. They haven't been completely dried out yet and they are a little softer and fresher.

After making pasta with homemade tomato sauce (with the tomatoes, green peppers, green onions and basil from my garden) and salad (with lettuce, my newly gifted cucumber and some leftover cheese), and after bathing Alejandro and getting him into his pumpkin pj's (as they are fleece, they are best for the Northern wind that is knocking on our doors right now), I sat down to shell the beans. This is what is looked like when I was done.

All that to say that besides the fascination of knowing where my food comes from, and the excitement (for me at least) of preparing new things, its really wonderful to eat food that has been grown or picked by someone you know and given to you as a gift.

Finally, since I haven't shared a picture of Alejandro yet, I'm going to share a picture of him with Cesar's aunt. (there had to be a picture of him in this at some point!)

Churchwomen Commemoration

2010-11-06T14:11:00.001-06:00

"Am I willing to suffer with the people here, the suffering of the powerless,

the feeling impotent?

Can I say to my neighbors I have no solutions to this situation; I don't know the answers, but I will

walk with you, search with you, be with you. Can I let myself be evangelized by this opportunity?

Can I look at and accept my own poorness as I learn it from the poor ones?"

Ita Ford said that the year she was killed.

At SHARE, I am planning delegation for the 30th Anniversary of the deaths of Jean Donovan, Dorothy Kazel, Ita Ford and Maura Clarke. Ita and Maura were Maryknoll nuns, Dorothy was a Ursuline nun and Jean was a Maryknoll lay missionary. In 1980 they were all in El Salvador working with refugees and communities affected by the impending Civil War. On December 2, while driving back from the airport, they were followed by the Salvadoran armed forces. They were kidnapped, taken to a field in rural El Salvador, raped and killed.

SHARE and many other solidarity organizations are built of the legacy of the solidarity of people like those four women who gave their lives to stay in El Salvador and work for the Salvadoran people. That is why we are planning a delegation to commemorate the anniversary of their deaths.

One of the other things we did to commemorate the anniversary was produce a Commemoration Packet for communities in the States to plan events. Check out the packet. I invite you all do read the packet and if you are up to it, plan something in your community!

New friend

2010-11-06T13:52:00.000-06:00

Ali is excited about his new friend Lilly Grace

Congrats Kerry and Alex!

The pool

2010-11-04T22:44:00.000-06:00

Last Friday we went to the beach with the SHARE staff. It was great fun, especially playing with Alejandro in the pool. Here are my favorite pictures:

Day of the Dead

2010-11-04T09:49:00.002-06:00

In the United States we celebrate Halloween. Why? I don't really know the history behind the holiday.

In Mexico, on November 1st, Day of the Dead is celebrate. Apparently its a big deal, with alters, food and celebrations and ceremonies. I have never been so I can't say much more.

But in El Salvador, Day of the Dead is celebrate on November 2nd. All Souls Day. Salvadorans all make the trek to the cemetery to enflorar or put flowers and clean up the graves of their loved ones.

But some Salvadorans aren't so lucky to have graves for their loved ones. A 12 year Civil War left 75,000 dead or disappeared.

So on November 2nd, when I opened the afternoon paper, I was moved to see that all the Human Rights organizations had held their annual event at the Memorial Wall. The Memorial Wall is like the Vietnam Memorial, but it has names of civilians and not combatants. 30,000 names stretch down squares and squares of dark marble, set into the side of the Parque Cuscatlan, a Central San Salvador Park.

Its a place to remember. Its a place where families can bring their flowers.

Read my friend Danielle's reflection from her visit there on November 2nd, 2009.

Here is the picture I saw in the paper:

crazy contradictions of el salvador

2010-11-03T21:44:00.007-06:00

It's October 3rd.

In La Burrera, the small rural community in Northern San Vicente, they are celebrating the Day of Child and the Commemoration of the Guerilla Combatants who died in the war. The event takes place on the school grounds.

Cesar is trying to set up sound equipment on the stage. I am trying to keep Ali's bright green crocs from falling off. Three ten year old girls come up to hold and play with him. The know Cesar. They decide Ali looks like him except more chele (light skinned). It's time for the girls piñata so they run into the school rooms. I continue to disapprove of the fact that piñatas are segregated. One for boys and one for girls.

The party members get up and do their schpeel.

The mayor wearing his Che shirt gives his schpeel.

There is a short play but on by Salvadorans who are studying theatre abroard. Cuentos de Barro, its a famous Salvadoran story book. They tell the story of Crespin.

At one point Ali, starts to scream and I have to climb over a number of women and small children to get to the car and pull out the diaper bag.

Its hot, even in the shade, so I buy a bag of water from the woman selling fried yuca.

Then its lunchtime. Cesar comes to sit with me. One of the mothers of the kids he works with comes over to steal Alejandro. She is at least the tenth person to come over and request to hold him. Including the head of the Veterans committee, the ten year old girls, a wounded Vet with one arm and a father of a three year old who wanted to show of Ali to his daughter.

This is the day I learn what the word uraño means. It means a small child who gets fussy when strangers hold him or her. Or someone who is anti-social. Alejandro is not uraño.

While the mother holds Ali. I get in line for lunch. Its beef soup. Real beef soup. I think every part of the cow was used for this soup. The women have about three giant tubs of soup they are dishing out with tortillas. I get our portions and walk back to Cesar. The mayor is sitting on the ground eating his soup with about fifteen other campo men in their jeans, long sleeved shirts and cowboy hats. Did I mention it is hot?

As I pick bits of beef off the bone, and scoop out giant chunks of carrot and potatoes, I listen to the testimonies going on in the background. They are bone-chilling. An eighty year old man stands up to talk.

"Then we heard that the military had come through the community up the hill and so we went to see. We found fifteen dead bodies. Then they came to our house. That was the day they killed my two of my sons. In the whole war I lost six of my kids. We had to leave our house, so we just started walking. We came across more bodies on the way."

I squeeze lime onto my soup. Ali is a few yards away bouncing on the knees of the women who is holding him. The school yard is chaotic. Children make up almost half the crowd. The seem oblivious to what is being said. Young girls and boys are wearing their cool city clothes. Tight pants and blouses, shirts with logos in English. Two campesino men chat. One is wearing a Cuban revolutionary hat, the other in a cowboy hat. The older women wear aprons and old fashioned dresses. A National Representative has arrived, as this was where she fought when she was in the guerrilla. Now she spends her days in the National Assembly. She sits at the table of honor with her purse.

Another man gets up to give his testimony.

"I was in eighth grade, so I was at school the day they were killed. My father came home with two children in his arms. Look he said, I found my babies. Papa, we told him, those aren't your children, your children were killed. He was never the same after that."

I am done with my soup and so the woman brings Ali back. I look put my arms around him and try not to think about the horrifying pain of losing a child. Of watching your child be killed. I can't think of anything worse. Ali grabs my hair and puts it in his mouth.

Cesar is ready to go. So we throw away our styrofoam soup plates. Most of the other lunch plates are on the ground. They are making announcements for the afternoon activities. We say good-bye to the people we know and get in the car and go.

Ali starts to fuss as Cesar drives over the rocky partially paved road. I look out at the sunny fields and see swarms of butterflies. I think about how this used to be a war zone.

We arrive in the town and drive down the hill to the highway. Ali sleeps until we get home.

the patio

2010-11-03T21:35:00.005-06:00

This is what our patio looks like without the before mentioned tree. It has enough room for a hammock!! Our wonderfully generous neighbors lent us theirs so that Ali can take naps outside.

Sleeping baby

One Sunday in October

2010-11-03T21:06:00.003-06:00

Sundays are our family day. Its the day to leave the house and do something as a family. Sometimes that just means the sports park a few blocks away. Sometimes we go to visit Cesar's family or to see our friends in the Bajo Lempa. Mostly we just try to enjoy the time we have, the three of us, away from work and school.

A few weeks ago, we are sitting out on our recently spacious patio (I say recently because Cesar's cousin had just come with his machete to chop down the tree that had died in the middle of the patio, opening up lots of space), and Alexis, one of the kids that Cesar works with in San Vicente, calls to remind Cesar that he had forgotten to buy two piñatas for a community festival. Cesar, of course was feeling really bad about it, and feeling obligated to drive the hour out to SV to drop off the piñatas, but he had been gone all day the day before and we had hardly seen each other. So I offered that the three of us go with him.

It was actually quite nice.

A beautifully sunny day, we drove past urban communities pressed into the hills outside San Salv. We drove by Lake Ilopango and we drove by the San Vicente Volcano, where you can still see the parts that collapsed last year during Tropical Storm Ida. We got to the town, dropped off the piñatas with Alexis and headed back the more scenic route.

On our way back we did three exciting things:

1) Stopped for juice. One of my favorite El Salvador things. Ali woke up and tried to pull leaves of the plants at the juice place

2) Bought herbal plants at one of the many garden stores off the highway. We bought: basil, rosemary, spearmint and a beautiful flowering ballerina plant

3) Stopped for sopa de gallina!!! Chicken soup, something the Salvadorans do amazingly well. Chicken soup here is an ordeal. Its not just your run of the mill, sick with a cold, watery soup. They cook the entire chicken in a pot with all the good veggies and herbs. Then they pull out the chicken and roast it, and serve it separately. Our soup also came with a plate of rice, avocado, spicy sauce, salad and limes. It was AWESOME. We shared a plate because we were both kind of full from the juice.

In the end, it was kind of nice that we had turned an errand into a fun Sunday.

Back to blogging

2010-11-03T21:01:00.003-06:00

I've decided to take back the blog.

I realize that it has been over a year since I have blogged. I think that is partly because I write for the SHARE blog as part of my job. But recently I decided that their are things about my personal life worth writing about as well. So I am back.

Since my last blog entry, I gave birth to an awesome little baby named Alejandro Liam. We call him Ali. I want to continue to share about my life in El Salvador. But this time from the perspective of a mama.

Disfruta!

Scholarship Students in El Salvador

2009-10-28T16:28:00.001-06:00

Here is another video I made last month from interviews I did with four scholarship students in Tecoluca, San Vicente in rural El Salvador.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3plKduaJFQ

Buen Pastor Artisans

2009-09-18T20:18:00.001-06:00

This was an interview done with artisans from the Buen Pastor community outside of Aguilares in Northern San Salvador. Buen Pastor is a sistering community of Good Shepherd in Kansas and works with SHARE's counterpart UCRES.

The Massacre at the Calabozo

2009-08-26T13:24:00.003-06:00

I recently wrote a reflection that I posted on the SHARE blog about the Calabozo massacre that happened in Northern San Vicente, El Salvador in 1982. Check out the share blog to read the reflection. Also be sure to check out the following post which features a song that a young man from the community wrote about the massacre.

Click here to read about the Massacre at Calabozo

Youth at the Vigil for the massacre victims

A Tale of Two Hospitals

2009-07-27T18:10:00.002-06:00

This is a reflection about my visit to the private hospital and then the public hospital of El Salvador all in the same day with students on our delegation from Eastern Michigan University.

If you only went to the Hospital Diagnostico, you might not be able to relieve that a hospital like Rosales existed in the country and vice versa.

We went to the Diagnostico first and were given a tour by one of the young residents. Her English was quite good and she was incredibly friendly and helpful. We moved through the cool rooms with the artistic Salvadoran paintings, nice floors, and clean facilities. The hospital used to be a mall and you can see by the set up, do to this unique architecture, specialists are able to have their own offices. We were able to visit the room with one of the only MRI machines in the country and we peaked into the quiet ICU.

The patient rooms were individual rooms with private bathrooms, nice furniture and plasma TV’s. On the fifth floor where the rooms where oldest, the TV’s were not plasma but the view of the city from the balcony was amazing.

In the waiting room we watched as a small boy in overalls was whisked in by his nanny with a cut finger. He was immediately seen by the doctors. As we visited the emergency, the boy cried as they cleaned his finger. His young mother and father had entered and his father comforted him: “Don’t cry, this weekend we will go back Apaneca and you can ride horses again, wouldn’t you like that?”

We finished the tour, thanked our young doctor and headed to Mr. Donut for a quick lunch before arriving at hospital number 2.

It is hard to put the experience of Hospital Rosales into words, but I’ll try.

The chief of residents who took us around the hospital also spoke English. He had studied a semester in the hospital at Yale, so he must have had some concept of the vast ocean that existed between a private hospital and the one he worked at.

Rosales was various buildings. Many of which are the same as when they were build in 1904. The beds in all the wards were full. The first wards were giant high cieling rooms with about fifteen beds in each. We walked into the room for people with kidney failure. A resident was pumping air into the lungs of a patient for lack of a breathing machine. It was hot and there was no AC. Hospital staff moved around from one person to another. Some family rubbed the backs of their family who grimaced in pain.

The AIDS ward was similar.

The Emergency room was a horror. Full of people who looked as if they had come from the most remote corner of the country. Bent over, coughing, with homemade bandages. Some people leave their homes at 3am to arrive here the doctor said. They usually wait on average 4 hours before they are seen. People who need a bed sometimes wait three days. If there are no beds, they roll out towels on the floor while they wait for a doctor.

The OR had about 6 patients many of whom looked gravely, gravely ill. A man in a chair who was not able to have a bed do to the lack of them, explained to a nurse the pain in his chest that was probably a heart attack.

As we reached the nicer wards, the ones with air conditioning, but still very evident of Salvadoran poverty. We saw where the flu patients are kept. One girl in our group asked: why do you give the nicer rooms with AC to the people who aren’t as sick? This may be hard to hear, the doctor said, but we have very few resources, we have to prioritize. Many times we give priority to the people who are younger who have a better chance of living.

We walked on. This is one of the few public, full scale hospitals in the country, he told us. It is free, that is why people come all over. Most of them have to ask for a dollar to get back to their homes. We ourselves don’t have the resources to have enough doctors or enough medicine. We have a whole ward build by the government of Germany in disuse because we don’t have enough Money to pay the staff. When we do open it, we will give it to patients with renal failure, a very common illness here—it’s the farmers who get it, the ones who have been poisoned by the pesticides.

We walked on, sick person after sick person. We reached the end and thanked the doctor. He thanked us. Now you see, he said, the difference between private and public hospitals.

Like I said. Had I just gone to Rosales, I couldn’t have believed that a place like the Diagnostico existed. And vice versa.

Back pain

2009-07-11T11:34:00.001-06:00

This is a reflection on the week in June that I spent as a medical interpreter at the clinic at Maria Madre de los Pobres Catholic Church in La Chacra, San Salvador. The medical professionals who I interpreted for come to El Salvador everyone on a SHARE delegation from Visitation Parish in Kansas City.

She was a street vendor who walked around carrying a giant tub of juice cans. The pain in her heals was unbearable.

He threw his back out six years ago. He still has horrible pain. He thought it was cancer. But really it was the fact that he lifted tires everyday and put more and more strain on his back.

She lost her arm during the war. Her husband just had a stroke and is paralyzed, she now does everything for him and work to support them. She can't sleep from back pain.

She was hit by a motorcycle two years ago. She and her daughter and grandson received death threats until the boy fled the community. They cried when they talked about being afraid. They both have knee and back pain.

She didn't know that there is no pill for her mother's alzheimer's. I explained it to her as best as I could.

His knees are shot from arthritus. But he needs the factory job, and so he continues to climb up steps and lift stacks of metal plates.

She can't afford the medicine for her Parkinson's. She came to see if we would give her a cane.

One by one, they sat down with us. Soy Laura y voy a traducir. Supposedly a translator is just a tool for the doctor, but the pain they carried stuck to me and I couldn't forget after they left. Everyone was carrying some kind of pain. We taught them leg, knee, back and neck exercises. To strengthen and stretch. To give some relief. Something that could possibly be more sustainable to a pill. We were able to give some of them canes. We hoped it would work. But we couldn't give them new shoes, new floors to walk on or beds to sleep on. We couldn't give them access to a swimming pool to do their exercises. We couldn't give them new jobs or new homes. We couldn't take them out of La Chacra and the poverty and violence. We could teach some breathing techniques but we couldn't take away the stressors.

On Friday, after all the patient visits, we went with the group to the UCA to see the sacred site. On the wall there was a drawing I had never seen on previous visits. Stick figures going through their day to day life. Working in construction, repairing cars, walking through the market. Each one was drawn with a cross on their back. The cross that the poor person carries as they go through their day. No one is going to give them a break, a win. The cross gets heavier and it weighs them down. No wonder they all have back pain.

A Romero quote

2009-05-20T17:34:00.002-06:00

In El Salvador we go along with our daily lives and then are out of the blue sometimes hit with the reality of the violence that happens here or has happened here. Today while going through SHARE files, I came across a piece written about the 4 American Churchwomen who were killed and started to read it. At one point I stopped reading and realized that I was crying, I guess there are somethings that you can never be immune to, even after living here for a year and a half.

Shortly after I came across this Romero quote and decided to post it. The priest he mentions Alfonso Navarro was killed by paramilitary troops on May 11, 1977, about 1 week and twenty two years ago. He was one of many church leaders and community workers who were brutally assissinated during that time in El Salvador's history. I was most hit by the very last line. Here is it is:

"Who knows if the one whose hands are bloodied with Father
Grande's murder, or the one who shot Father Navarro, if those who
have killed, who have tortured, who have done so much evil, are
listening to me? Listen, there in your criminal hideout, perhaps
already repentant, you too are called to forgiveness."
December 18, 1977

Welcome to SHARE!

2009-05-06T10:57:00.002-06:00

I realize that it is time for me to do an update on my life as there have been some very significant changes since the last time I blogged. First being that I finished my fifteen month committment with CRISPAZ at the end of March. This means I will no longer be working at CFO with the youth, though I fully plan on visiting them on a regular basis. Looking back on my experience there I´m very grateful that I had the opportunity to work with CFO, I loved my co-workers and learned a lot about youth in El Salvador and about myself as a youth worker. Though I can honestly say that when the time was up there I was ready to move on. The organization went through a lot of changes, one of them being the opening of a new youth house at the end of February in a fairly remote and violent part of the city. Knowing that I would be leaving, I chose not to get too involved with the new house and so by the time I left, my big responsibility was teaching English and continuing to visit the Community Raul Rivas with one of my other co-workers.

Now, since last summer I had been contemplating as to what I would do once my time with CRISPAZ was up, and I decided in the fall to apply for a job with the SHARE Foundation. SHARE is a solidarity and development organization that has been in El Salvador since the civil war in the eighties. To read more about who SHARE is, click here: ABOUT SHARE. In February I found out that I got the job-YAY! And I started the last week of April, meaning this is my second week of work.

You are probably asking, so what is your job exactly? Basically its this:
1) Coordinate and facilitate General Delegations to El Salvador -- this would mean a delegation open to anyone to come to El Salvador for anniversary´s (ex: 30th anniversary of the death of Archbishop Oscar Romero) or events like the Salvadoran elections where people could come to be international observers
2) Coordinate and facilitate Theological Delegations -- theology students who would come with their school to learn more about the applied theology of El Salvador
3) Assist with the planning and facilitation of Sistering Delegations -- schools and churches in the US that financial and spiritually support communities in El Salvador, many of which visit every year or two
4) Collect testimonies through interviews and meetings with people here in El Salvador who are involved in SHARE projects as a way to put a very human face on the development work that SHARE does.

Thats it in a nutshell. My position here at SHARE is supported by the Volunteer Missionary Movement (VMM), whose website is on the right hand side of the blog. I will try to continue to post about the people I meet and the work I am doing here at SHARE, as well as posts about my life here in El Salvador. Finally, to mark this big change in my life here, I have changed the layout of my blog! Though you can still read old blog entries from my time with CRISPAZ. Enjoy!

Teaching English

2009-02-13T10:45:00.001-06:00

Last year when we opened the Centro de Alcance youth house, my friend and coordinator of the CdA asked if I could teach the English class. I agreed even though I had never taught English and began to plan out my lessons. It started out with me pretty much just sitting in front of the computer a few hours before each class and asking myself what topic I could teach: numbers? Foods? Feelings? Weather? Luckily my students didn´t seem to have a really high standard for their teacher and we got along just fine. My theory was this: the kids spend all morning (school is half day here) in class and teachers mostly just write stuff on the board that they have to copy down, in my class instead of too much copying or me lecturing, we would be more interactive using games, songs, and different activities. My first few months was a learning process but I can say that we all had fun and I think most of them learned at least something.

This year our supervisor approached us and talked about the importance of incorporating bigger life lessons into the classes, talk about self-esteem, the importance of studying, etc. I whole-heartedly agreed with this approach and it made me think about revising my teaching method a little. I was never super thrilled about the prospect of teaching English anyway and my great interest in the work we do was workshops around just these issues. I could mix things I´m interested with the way I was teaching English. I began to get excited. The kids aren´t really going to be able to be fluent in English after speaking to me but they will probably benefit some from talking about world events, wouldn´t they?

My very first day we learned introductions in English. In my advanced class this entailed teaching the introductions through two pre-written dialogues between Mr. Obama, Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Clinton and between Mr. Chomsky and Ms Gebara. This way I could ask them: who knows who Mr. Obama is? What is going to happen next week in the United States (the inauguration)? Why is Mrs. Clinton calling Mr. Obama her boss? AND Who are Mr. Chomsky and Ms. Gebara (no one knew)? I then write two Chomsky quotes up on the board. The kids also learned the two very important English words of: linguist and theologian.

Different attempts to incorporate important themes into English class included: talking about Martin Luther King on MLK day (none of them had heard of him), celebrating the Day of No-Violence and learning about Gandhi while playing cooperative games and singing “We are the World” (people love Michael Jackson here) and talking about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during a separate origami workshop.

Now, I personally have begun to enjoy the class more and I feel like the kids have learned something from these “social justice additions” to English class. I also feel like I have accomplished something so that when the class finishes even though most of them will not be able to conduct any type of conversation in English beyond “Hello, how are you”, at least they will know who Martin Luther King is. That’s something I can live with.

Bloom where you are planted

2009-01-11T14:17:00.000-06:00

About a month and a half ago, a friend gave my roommates and I three little tomato plants as a Christmas present. I was incredibly excited because after reading Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal Vegetable Miracle, I have fantasized about growing my own vegetables to eat. We put the plants outside our front door to receive sunlight and everyday I watered them until they were too big for the yogurt containers that they were planted in. At that point I started wondering what the best thing for the plants was. Should I plant them in the ground even though I will only be in this apartment for a few more months? Should they be potted? Should we put them in black plastic bags to absorb moisture? Plastic crates? In the end we decided on potting them because we happened to have three extra plantless pots. So this morning with a little garden shovel and a kitchen knife (for breaking up dirt) Cesar and I moved the tomato plants to their new home. As we packed in the dirt Cesar noted that they already smelled liked tomatoes. We finished repotting them and added water and looked at each and realized that all we have to do now is wait and see if they take root and blossom.
After sweeping up the front porch and washing my hands, I start to think about how appropriate it was that we planted the tomatoes in their pots today, because just earlier this morning I was listening to a Speaking of Faith interview with Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister. At one point mentioned the saying “bloom where you are planted,” meaning do the most amount of good where you are. I was especially touched by this quote as I reflect on my past year in El Salvador and look forward towards the coming year. Sometimes I feel like I am helpless useless as a North American woman trying to work with Salvadoran youth whose language and culture I am still learning. At times I have found myself longing for Midwest cities where I know my way around and feel more competent in what I do. But this saying “bloom where you are planted” brings me back to the present moment and my life in El Salvador. I have chosen to relocate myself here and now its up to me to do the most good that I, Laura Hershberger, can do in my everyday life in El Salvador. This does not mean try to imitate the work and style of my co-workers or other foreigners in El Salvador, but rather “bloom” as myself. After a year of adjustments and learning, I feel like I am on my way there.

December pictures

2009-01-04T21:58:00.002-06:00

Happy New Years Everyone!!!

I sit here on my last night of vacation going through my photos to put them online and I realize how much has gone on in the past few weeks! I came back to El Salvador with only two weeks left until vacation and during that time I taught two English intensive classes at the Centro de Alcance and was able to participate in the Participacion Juvenil end of the year evaluation. Once on vacation, I travelled to the beach, the Lower Lempa region, a nature reserve in Nicaragua and Cesar's town, Tepecoyo. I also spent my first Christmas (and second New Years) in El Salvador. To be honest, even though I got to talk to most of my family members on the phone, it still didn't feel like Christmas. I guess when you do the same thing for Christmas your whole life, its hard to adjust to such a drastic change. It was a fun day though. I saw a nativity play and learned how to make chicken tamales which everyone eats on Christmas. We danced merengue and cumbia music and got to go swimming in the river. The swimming in the river was probably my favorite part as it was absolutely beautiful and I have never been able to go swimming on Christmas in Cincinnati. The nature reserve in Nicaragua was wonderful and I recommend it to anyone who wants to visit some community tourism projects. The trip to Nicaragua however was absolutely exhausting (13 hours on nine busses) and we decided that next time we have to go for more time for the trip to be worth it. We wanted to be back however, to spend New Years with Cesar's family in Tepecoyo. New Years here is like 4th of July in terms of fireworks, though a lot more dangerous. Children run wild in the street throwing fireworks left and right and its quite frightening. The next day the town festival started and there were a ton of events going on. We, instead of going to any planned events, hiked down to the river with some of Cesar's friends. Minus the garbage thrown mindlessly all over the path, it was really pretty and a good exersize.
Now I am back in the capital getting ready to head back to a new year of work at CFO. Its hard to believe that I have been living in El Salvador for a year because it has gone by so fast, but in retrospect I feel like I have done a lot and learned even more. Thanks to everyone who has supported me in my decision to come here a year ago. I will try to keep up the blog this year for anyone interested in reading about what 2009 has to bring me here in this country. Thank you!

Click here to see my December pictures

We Wish You a Merry Christmas

2008-12-18T20:06:00.001-06:00

Watch a video from my English class

December in El Salvador

2008-12-15T09:56:00.009-06:00

I just posted a reflection about the church women and I mentioned a movie called "Roses in December," there is one part in the movie when Jean Donovan talks about the beauty of El Salvador and says "where else would you find roses blooming in December?" I hadn't paid too much attention to this quote until now when I am spending December in El Salvador and have discovered the same thing that she did which is: December is one of the most beautiful months in El Salvador.

December in Cincinnati can be a pretty depressing month because the winter season officially kicks in and you know that you will be really cold until about March. This is either helped or aggravated (sometimes both) by the overwhelming season of Christmas. While I can get a little sick to my stomach from too much Christmas cookies, music and mall shopping, there can be something calming and peaceful about a room lit only by Christmas lights and a fire as Carol of the Bells plays softly in the background and snow falls outside. That is not what Christmas decorations are like in El Salvador. They are usually very tacky and out of place, and (in my opinion) completely drowned out by the beautifully blossoming flowers and bright blue skies.

El Salvador December days can turn hot but not too hot and the nights are breezy. The rainy season is over but things haven't dried up completely yet. As you walk through the streets or drive through the countryside, you see brilliant flowers that are colored bright red, magenta, yellow, orange and white. So, today I actually walked through the streets in my neighborhood with my camera to document some of December's finest blossoms. Here are some of my favorites:

The neighborhood around my El Salvador homeThis is the bus I take to work (the yellow flowers are my favorites)

There are flowers everywhere you lookA house by where I work

And to show that I also can appreciate the beauty of December in Ohio, here is one more:

My home in Ohio

Remembering the Churchwomen

2008-12-14T15:45:00.005-06:00

While I was at home, I watched the movie "Roses in December" with my mom. The movie tells the story of Jean Donovan, a Catholic lay missioner who was murdered along with three nuns by the Salvadoran army on December 2, 1980. I had seen the movie before when I was a student at the Casa but that was almost four years ago. The movie was made just a few years after the women were murdered so it is very dated but it was really good to watch it with my mom because it does a good job of putting the story into the context of the war. We watched it on December 1st which was the day before the anniversary of their death. I found a reflection written by a Sister on a delegation to El Salvador with the SHARE foundation and I want to share a part of it

"It was 23 years ago today that four churchwomen were found in a shallow grave in a farmer’s field, some raped, all dead-- each with a single bullet to their head.

The description of such violence was not at all uncommon in 1980 in El Salvador- a countryside desecrated by civil war, a people not at all defeated by the horrors they lived daily. A resurrection people, fed by the blood of the martyrs and the bread of daily struggle for a better life created the peace filled scene I witnessed today--a lovely pasture populated with a smart brick chapel, a beautiful white stone monument complete with a memorial plaque and a tree that is planted in the center of an area outlined with small white rocks. A lovely space- now filled with local folks and their living memory of war and peace accords; Latin American religious sisters revisiting the core of their passion, commitment and witness; and people from the North – standing in solidarity.

Aiding and abetting the enemy, the ‘subversive acts’ of the nuns and one lay missioner were caring for victims of war and war- orphaned children. Addressing the social, political and economic disparity between the rich and the poor, teaching methods of self-empowerment, and community development were direct threats to the power structure of the ruling class. In those times threats were eliminated. "

-http://www.share-elsalvador.org/reflections/usnuns.htm

As I read the reflection and as I watched the movie, I found myself tearing up at the images of the women´s bodies being pulled out of ditches, of people getting shot at while attending Archbishop Romero´s funeral mass, and of the children in the refugee camps. Sometimes I forget the horrorific history of this country during the civil war. This makes sense as I work with young people who were mostly born at the end of or after the war. But that does not mean that they are unaffected. A culture, a country, takes years and years to recover from such trauma.

As with the Jesuit vigil, I am reminded as to why I, a north american women, am in El Salvador. Jean Donovan gave up a very comfortable life in the states to work with refugees in El Salvador. I remember how inspired I was by this the first time that I heard of her. A woman who was inspired to walk alongside people who were being persecuted and ignored by the rest of the world. Granted, my life in El Salvador is very different than that of those lay missioners who came in the eighties. While still violent, El Salvador is not at war, and I don´t fear for my life much more than I did living in St. Louis (which is a little but not too much). But it is still good to remember who inspired me to be here, and that is all women and men from all over who gave up something comfortable and easy to fight for something that they believed was right. I will close with a quote from Ita Ford, one of the four women who was killed:

"I hope you come to find that which gives life a deep meaning for you. Something worth living for - maybe even worth dying for, something that energizes you, enthuses you, enables you to keep moving ahead."

Pictures from my Visit Home

2008-12-13T11:00:00.009-06:00

I just returned from a wonderful trip home where I was able to attend my friend Tina's wedding and our family Thanksgiving. Here are a few pictures.

Click for more pictures of Tina's wedding

The UCA Vigil

2008-12-13T09:50:00.005-06:00

Every year on November 15th, the University of Central America (UCA) celebrates the anniversary of the death of six Jesuits and two women who were killed on its grounds in 1989.
They were:
Ignacio Ellacuria
Amando Lopez
Ignacio Martin Baro
Juan Moreno
Segundo Montes
Joaquin Lopez y Lopez
Elba Ramos
Celina Ramos

Here is a brief description of what happened:

"On November 16, 1989, six Jesuit priests - Ignacio Ellacuria, Segundo Montes, Ignacio Martin-Baro, Joaquin Lopez y Lopez, Juan Ramon Moreno, and Amado Lopez - were murdered by the Salvadoran military on the campus of the University of Central America (UCA) in San Salvador, El Salvador. Their housekeeper, Elba Ramos, and her daughter Celia Marisela Ramos, were murdered there as well. The Jesuits were labeled subversives by the Salvadoran Government for speaking out against the oppressive socioeconomic structure of Salvadoran society. Their assassinations were ordered for their unwavering defense of the poor.

The Jesuits were six of over 70,000 victims who died in El Salvador’s civil war which raged in the 1980’s and early 1990’s. The vast majority of these victims were civilians killed by El Salvador’s armed forces and paramilitary death squads. The death of the Jesuits brought international outrage and condemnation upon the Salvadoran Government and pressured them to negotiate an end to their country’s civil war."

-http://www.spc.edu/pages/1814.asp

The Vigil is really incredible. During the day people spend hours hunched over the walkway of the UCA creating beautiful "alfombras" or sand art. Designs relating to their group and or the memory of the Jesuits. Then at six at night, when all of the alfombras are finished, there is a candle lighting ceremony in which every person at the vigil (which were a lot) recieved a candle to carry through the procession and than lit the candle of the lights of others. At around six thirty the procession begun in which the crowd formed left the University gates and walked the distance to the other entrance where they then walked over the beautiful alfombras that had been created for just this. It was a very moving experience to see so many people honoring the memory of those who gave their life for what they believed in. Here is the picture I took of the procession:

After the procession their was a very big mass which was followed by all night festivities. A number of artisans were selling their crafts and a number of UCA groups were selling food. People had come from all over El Salvador and all over the world to be here the entire night. Different music groups played a mix of traditional folk music and newer "world music." I am told that the festivities go on until six in the morning when the sun comes out and the busses are running again. I left at 12:30 so I didn't stay to find out. I was so glad I went though, these type of events remind me as to why I am in El Salvador and thats good to do every once in a while.

Cristiani and others charged with war crimes for the death of the UCA Jesuits

2008-11-13T08:36:00.003-06:00

Former El Salvador leader in war crimes case

Story Highlights
Case involves killing of 6 Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter
14 former Salvadoran military officers also accused of war crimes
Most of the slain Jesuits were born in Spain
One of the most notorious episodes of El Salvador's 12-year civil war

By Al Goodman CNN Madrid Bureau Chief

MADRID, Spain (CNN) -- Human rights groups from the United States and Spain filed a lawsuit in a Spanish court Thursday, charging El Salvador's former president, Alfredo Cristiani, with covering up crimes against humanity.

The case involves the killing of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her teenaged daughter nearly two decades ago during El Salvador's civil war.

In addition, 14 former Salvadoran military officers are accused of war crimes, murders and state terrorism in connection with the massacre dating back to November 1989.

Most of the slain Jesuits were born in Spain. They were killed at their residence at the prestigious Central American University, in El Salvador's capital, San Salvador. Reports at the time said they were tortured and then shot.

It has become one of the most notorious episodes of El Salvador's 12-year civil war that pitted leftist guerrillas against the U.S.-backed conservative government. Some 75,000 people died.

The case filed by two human rights groups in Madrid argues that justice was never done in El Salvador. Two military officers were convicted of murder in 1991 in the deaths of the Jesuits, but were pardoned in 1993 under an amnesty law approved by the national assembly.

The case was taken to Spain's National Court, because of its involvement in other high-profile human rights cases.

The same Spanish court issued an arrest warrant for former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1998, while he was in a London hospital. For the rest of his life he fought legal battles -- first in England and later in Chile -- to avoid convictions.

The Spanish court has also taken on human rights cases from other countries, including Argentina and Guatemala, testing a relatively new international legal principle known as Universal Jurisdiction.

It contends that if justice for human rights abuses is not served in the country where the crime occurred, then a court in another country can intervene.

The groups filing suits are the San Francisco-based Center for Justice and Accountability and the Spanish Association for Human Rights.

Family members from at least two of the slain Jesuits will join the lawsuit later, the groups said.

It could take the National Court weeks or even months to determine if it will accept the case.

Spain and El Salvador have an extradition treaty. But a lawyer for the Center for Justice and Accountability told CNN that the most immediate practical effect of the case might be an effective ban on Cristiani and the 14 former officers from leaving El Salvador, for fear of arrest.

If they were ever tried before a Spanish court and convicted on the charges, they could serve up to 30 years in prison.

In an interview with CNN a few months before he was killed, university rector Ignacio Ellecuria praised then-president Cristiani, whom the human rights groups now accuse of covering up the crime.

"We have to recognize that Cristiani is a man of his word, who keeps his promises," Ellecuria told CNN. "Personally I consider Cristiani an ethical, responsible person who will not offer to do what he can't or doesn't wish to do."

Ignacio Martin-Baro, another slain Jesuit, spoke at the time about the chilling effect of the long-running Salvadoran civil war.

"We have become used to violence," Martin-Baro said. "We have become used to living in a very dangerous world. We have learned to live, accepting death, extraordinary abnormal death into our lives."

For years, the extreme right in El Salvador had accused the Jesuits of siding with the leftist guerrillas, according to a CNN report shortly after the killings.

Uniformed troops were seen searching the living quarters of the priests at Central American University two days before they were killed, CNN reported.

Alfredo Cristiani in 1994 shortly after he voted during the country's second round presidential runoff.

The Gender and Sexuality Workshop

2008-10-27T11:53:00.005-06:00

Part of the work that we do at CFO is planning workshops around important issues for youth like human rights, nonviolent communication, self-esteem, leadership, sexuality, etc. Some of these topics interest the youth we work with more than others. Nonviolent communication, for example, seems to be a pretty hard concept for a lot of them to grasp, understandably so as these communities have a very violent history which has shaped the way people live and interact. Sexuality, however, seems to be one of the most popular themes and once the kids get past the initial embarrassment, they REALLY want to talk about it. Which is good, because not many other people are really talking about it with them. According to the kids that I have talked to, public health workers come into the schools about once a year and give a quick overview of basic sexual health. At home, it is often not talked about. But this lack of atention to something that is so much on the minds of teenagers is a big problem in a country where 1/3 of babies are born to teenage mothers and the number of new HIV cases is rising every year.

In talking about sexuality there are a lot of myths and taboos to break down, and not surprisingly, a lot of them relate to women. For that reason, gender workshops for men and for women have become very needed. In one community where we work, Community Raul Rivas Vasquez, all of last year was dedicated to learning about sexuality. This year, in trying to continue some with the theme, we have started a girls group to meet seperately from the guys and to have a space to talk about gender, among other things, in a space that is safe. About a month ago, we did a half day workshop on gender and then went on a field trip in the afternoon to Los Planes de Renderos, a famous scenic lookout about the city. We took twenty-girls as well as three kids who are children of the partipants, two little sisters who were being babysat and couldn't be left alone, a woman from the community who helped us organize the group, her grandson. It was quite an adventure.

The workshop agenda was to briefly touch on sexuality basics and then look at the gender roles in Salvadoran society. It was really interesting to listen to what they thought and ways they all thought alike and the things the disagreed on. The girls have a ton of energy which made the activites fun, though sometimes a little hard to get under control. Overall though, it went really well. Here are some of my observations about the day
1) Almost all of the girls felt that they were trapped in their homes to run the house while their parents worked while their brothers were free to roam the streets and live as they pleased
2) The situation for women in El Salvador, though still very poor, has changed a good deal in the past few decades, so for these girls some of the gender rules do not feel as strong as it does for older Salvadoran women
3) Though all from the same community, a few girls have higher levels of education (they have been able to attend high school or the university, something that is not very common for young people in their community). The ones with higher level of education were more critical of objectification of women.
4) Most of the girls (including the three mothers in the group) did not see men as reliable when it comes to helping support a family

I feel as if I am constantly learning more and more about Salvadoran society through what I see everyday. This workshop was fascinating for me and I really hope that the girls took something from it as well. The field trip to Los Planes was a lot of fun, despite some slight rain and the fact that we had to cram ourselves into a pickup to get there. We took a ton of pictures and you can check them out on my facebook account. Just click on the link below. The second half of the pictures are of a mural that we did in the same community a few days later.

Click to see pictures!!!

Hope you enjoy!

pic of some of the girls from the lookout at El Puerto del Diablo (the Devil's Door), the lookout point in Los Planes de Renderos

Food in El Salvador

2008-10-22T22:11:00.004-06:00

About two months ago I got inspired by my brother's Argentina blog and decided I was going to write a blog about food in El Salvador. This is me actually getting around to doing that.

So here it goes... food in El Salvador. There are somethings about the food here that I absolutely loved from the start, then there are some things that took me awhile to come around too. There are also those things about Salvadoran food that I really don't like. Seeing as I can't possibly touch on all of it, I will try to hit the highlights.

Comida Tipica
This is the term you to describe typical Salvadoran plates, or the food that Salvadorans most often eat, which would be: rice and beans, Salvadoran tortillas (made from corn, smaller and a lot thicker than Mexican tortillas), sour cream, avocado, Salvadoran cheese (fresco which is softer or duro which is harder, both VERY salty), fried or boiled plantains, scrambled eggs with vegetables and of course COFFEE!!! A few comments: 1) the coffee is served with a ton of sugar and everyone including children drink it, usually its very weak 2) it has taken me a really long time to be able to get used to the sour cream and cheese 3) when the rice and beans are mixed they are called casamiento which means marriage. Everything is seasoned with salt and lime.

Fruit
I've already written a whole blog entry about fruit in El Salvador so I won't elaborate too much, but its definitely one of my favorite things about the food here. Mangoes, oranges, jocotes, mamays, anonas, zapote, mamones, papaya, pineapple, coconut, arrayan, bananas, etc. The can all be bought from street vendors and in markets like the Mercado Zacamil close to my apartment. On street corners and family run cafeterias all of the city you can buy smoothies, called licuados which is any of these fruits mixed with milk, orange juice or carrot juice. It's one of my favorite things for breakfast. Another favorite fruity treat is natural ice cream that is sold mainly by men pushing carts through neighborhoods and parks.

Jocotes

Vegetables
This is mostly the same, but some special veggies found here are pipian-probably one of my favorite vegetables ever which is kind of like zuchinni and squash but sweeter. There is also guisquil, a big watery squash; ayote, another famous squash; and lorocco, which are tiny buds that grow on a vine. People also eat the national flower which is called Flor de Izote.

Pan Dulce (Sweet Bread)
Small bakeries can be found pretty much every couple of blocks in San Salvador though the quality of the bread sold at them differs greatly. For example the bakery closest to my house is not that great while the bakery by the Participacion Juvenil office is one of the best bakery's I've been too. At the bakery you can buy pan dulce which includes donuts, semita, maria luisa, empanadas, etc, etc. All different types of sweet bread that are oftened flavored with icing and filled with creme or pineapple jelly. My favorite and one of the more famous of Salvadoran pan dulce is quesadilla, which is NOT like a Mexican quesadilla. It's like a sweet cornbread that is made with cheese, its delicious.

Pupusas
This is its own category because its the most famous Salvadoran food. For those who don't know, a pupusa is a Salvadoran tortilla, which like I said is thicker and made with ground corn, that is stuffed usually with beans and cheese, porkrind and cheese, lorocco with cheese, cheese alone or my preference, beans alone. It is served with a watery tomato salsa and curtido which is like pickled cabbage and carrott relish. Pupusas are eaten primarily for breakfast or dinner and are EVERYWHERE is El Salvador. There is a pupuseria next too my house which we like to hit up at least once a week.

Maiz (Corn)
I am including this as a category because a large number of Salvadoran typical foods are made from corn. They say that corn was holy to the indigenous that lived around here and that it is understable why when you see how much food can come from it. I already mentioned pupusas and tortillas, but those are not the only things. Tamales are another popular food which is salty, soft, corn dough filled with veggies or chicken and cooked inside a corn stalk leaf rolled up. Tamales are also served sweetened instead of salty and fried. Atol is a thick creamy drink that is made from corn but is sweetened almost like pudding. Shuco is a salty thick drink made from blue corn and served with hot sauce and beans and eaten by dipping bread in it. Corn is also served toasted with lime and salt or as elote loco which is cooked corn on a stick slathered in ketchup, mustard, mayonaise, holaindaise sauce and sprinkled in cheese. I enjoy all of these foods except the last one which I think is disgusting.

Drinks that I have not mentioned
One type of drink I like is fresco which is juice that is usually served at lunch time and made by mixing fresh fruit juice, water, sugar and ice. Flavors include: Flor de Jamaica (made from a flower petal and also served as tea), tamarindo, arrayan, orange and pineapple. Horchata is also served at lunch time, this is sweetened rice milk. As for hot drinks, besides coffee, which is drinken by everyone at anytime regardless of age or temperature, the main other hot drink is chocolate, which is Mexican chocolate melted and mixed with hot water. I really like it a lot, though some people really don't (my friend dropped her camera down an outhouse toilet while trying to covertly dump out the chocolate that was given to her at an event).

Other highlights
Pasteles: veggies or meat cooked into fried dough and served with curtido (see pupusas)
Arroz con leche: hot rice with milk, cinnamon and sugar
Coconut milk: most often drinken by chopping off the top of a coconut and sticking a straw in it
Empanadas: stuffed pastry with veggies or meat
chocofruta: bananas, strawberries, pineapple or grapes on a stick dipped in chocolate
Poleada: vanilla custard
Churros españoles: fried dough covered in sugar and served at fairs (like funnel cake)
Dulces: coconut or tamarindo concentrate sweetened and served at fairs

Things I think don't like about Salvadoran food:
Sopa de pata: which is cow foot soup
Tortas: fried sandwiches with ham and massive amounts of mayo and ketchup
Lack of good salad (salad is lettuce with one tomato and salt on top)
The amount of oil used in everything
The fact that at lunch time EVERYTHING has meat in it
How often hot dogs are cut up and thrown in with pasta, eggs or beans

Those are my highlights and lowlights of Salvadoran food. There are other things that are okay that I have not covered but maybe for the next food blog. I hope anyone reading feels like they learned a little about food in El Salvador!

more than a statistic

2008-10-17T23:47:00.003-06:00

El Salvador can be a very dangerous place, so they say. When people give overviews of the country to foreigners, they usually quote some statistic saying its the second most or third most dangerous country in the world with the most homicides per capita in Latin America. When I was a student here I was always so blown away with these facts and in every encounter I had with Salvadorans I would be thinking about how they have been affected by the war or poverty or violence. But since moving here and starting a life in El Salvador, the shock statistics have slipped to the back of my mind and my attention has gone more daily concerns like what to teach in English class, or how out of control the kids in certain groups are or even where I am going to buy the vegetables and cat food. Sometimes when reading the paper or talking to people in the communities, the topic of violence will come up by I find that I am less shocked by these accounts partly because as I did not see it nor know the person, they seem so far away, even if they happened within a five minute walk from my house. But, in a place with a homicide rate as high as El Salvador, it is inevitable that eventually you will know someone who is killed in a very violent manner.

Two weeks ago tonight, on October 3rd, in the community Sierra Alta, two guys from our group in that community were shot and killed while playing cards on the steps in front of the park. At 6:30 at night in this community it was not at all uncommon for young people to hang out on the main corner in front of the little park where all of our group meetings are held. This night it had just started to rain as it so often does at nighttime in October, so most of the kids had headed back to their homes and only two stayed to finish their card game. They were doing exactly that when five young men with guns walked up from around the corner and shot them to death. Maico, his mother's only son, had just turned fifteen and died right there two blocks from his home. Noe, a twenty-one year old with a wife and a three year old son, was rushed to the hospital with nineteen bullets in his body and he died on the operating table. When I visited the following day with my coworkers to visit the stunned, grieving and terrified kids and families of Sierra Alta, there were bullet holes in the wall and blood still on the concrete. On the ground there were a few remaining bloodstained playing cards scattered on the ground.

That night I attended the "vela" along with a number of others from CFO. Traditionally, a vela is held in the homes of the deceased on the night before their burial. Friends and people from the community come to the house to sit with the family and the body all night until the funeral. There is usually coffee, food and praying. This vela was night held in the community due to the fear that the people who killed the boys would take advantage of everyone being in the same place and return. After all, no one knows why it was these specific boys in this specific community on that specific day, they don't know if there was a reason behind the killings or if it was just to instill fear, if it was gang related or not. Some even mentioned that they thought it could be political since these guys were more into the FMLN and soccer than anything else. But, as it was, not many of the young people showed up to the vela anyone due to that fear. The vela, held in a funeral home close to the Center of Mejicanos, was mostly attended by family members and older people. The bodies were laid out in coffins covered with flowers and the jerseys of the guy's newly formed soccer team. Looking into the coffin was a surreal experience as I don't think I have ever seen a dead body before, all the other funerals I have been to have been cremations. I could hardly recognize either of them. It was almost impossible to connect my memories of these two guys joking in meetings, playing soccer and talking about work or girls with the vision of these two lifeless bodies soon to be buried into the earth. impossible.

I didn't know Maico or Noe as well as I know some of the kids in our other groups but I did know them. Maico was quieter but always came to the meetings, he loved to play soccer and my last memory of him is at a soccer tournament they played at about a month ago. He was freaked out to leave to community and his mom was really protective. Noe was really outgoing and was always making jokes, but he was also opinionated and always participated in meetings. He was good a drawing and creative, the other guys looked up to him and it helped in getting them involved in meetings.

When I found out that they were killed I felt nauseous and my head hurt, I cried and couldn't cry. I couldn't stop thinking about their mothers, and family members, or about their friends, the other guys in the community. I couldn't stop thinking about what the last minutes of their life must have been like. I played through all of my memories of Sierra Alta and tried to make sense of the whole thing. As I babbled on to Cesar, half crying, half dazed, I asked him if he knew people who died violently. Of course he did, he grew up in El Salvador. What would it be like to grow up with some one, go to school with them, watch them have kids and then hear that they were stabbed, shot and yes, even decapitated, two blocks from your home? Or to have grown up with kids who became gang members? Or to lose a family member and know that their murderers were still alive and living in your same community? What kind of country is this that people have to get used to hearing about these kind of things. What kind of place is this that the death of these two boys didn't make the press because it is so common? That it most likely will not get investigated by the police. That Maico and Noe will just become another number in the statistics of violent deaths in El Salvador.

Life goes on. Though it will never be the same for those families and for those kids in that community. But it still goes on. For me, this tragedy brings the statistics closer to home. And I now see more clearly how fragil life is. Sierra Alta was a small community on top of a hill overlooking the Salvadoran countryside north of the city. On windy nights, young kids would fly kites. There is a family that sells empanadas, yuca frita and papas cooked over a wood stove. Who knows when it will be that again, right now they are too afraid to leave their homes. But, who knows when life will be snatched from any community in Mejicanos, in El Salvador, anywhere. In El Salvador, you just continue with the violence hanging over your head, never knowing when it will manifest. As I visit communities, and get to know more young people I try to stay conscious of the reality of the injust situations that exist in places like this while at the same time taking in the life and energy that young people can offer. As they would say here: seguimos luchando adelante. we continue to fight on.

Happy Birthday to David

2008-10-02T09:01:00.002-06:00

Check out this video: its the kids in my English class singing happy birthday to my Dad whose birthday is today!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhJaPl46PF0

Quick update and pictures!!!

2008-09-10T12:16:00.002-06:00

Hello! I realize that I have been absolutely horrible at updating my blog in the past few months. But I have been reading my brother's blog (he is in Argentina right now) and I felt inspired to do a quick update and post my pictures. So here are the highlights of the past few months

1) I got a cat named Momo.
2) I went home for two weeks!
3) My first two roommates Steve and Bethany have now moved out and I am living with two girls named Megan and Danielle
4) The Youth Program has changed some and I am now helping lead a girls group in the community Raul Rivas and I teach an English class. I have a new boss and two new co-workers. CFO also opened a youth house that offers classes, homework help and recreational activities (this is where I teach English).
5) My little sister visited me for a week!!
6) I found another kitten who we call Chispi, but we are looking for a home for her
7) Cesar and I went on a backpacking trip over August vacations to a number of small mountain towns, it was great

Those are the big highlights. I will try to post more about life here and my reflections, etc., sometime soon. In the meantime, here are my pictures that document most of the things that I mentioned in the list. I'm sorry but they are completely out of order, but I hope you enjoy!!

http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2109789&l=d0ed4&id=33307557

Fathers Day

2008-06-24T18:12:00.002-06:00

So last week was Father's Day in El Salvador. It is on the 17th every year and so it fell on a Tuesday. CFO had a lunch to celebrate and to give little presents to all the Fathers who work at CFO.

Before I go into details of the lunch let me say, its hard to find good fathers in this country. A third of babies born in El Salvador are born to teenage mothers. That should give you an idea. Between violence, immigration and the machismo attitude that caring for children is something women do, good fathers are hard to find. However, that is not to say that they don't exist.

Most of the employees who work at CFO are women, but there are a number of men who work there as well. One of them being my co-youth team worker Marcos. So I was looking forward to the lunch, but I really wasn't prepared for how moving it would be.

CFO had purchased a little present and they asked each father to get up and talk about one of the most meaningful things about being a father. Marcos talked about how much he loves when his two year old daughter wakes him up in the morning, the clinic doctor talked about being present at the birth of his two children, the tech guy talked about having his daughter in a class he took. One man who is very, very outgoing and gregorious broke down crying as he talked about how his father abandoned him and he knew he would never do that to his children.

However my two favorite Father's were Manuel, the driver for CFO and Don Cruz, the man who runs the copy room and supplies store. Manuel is two years older than me and I probably know him better because he drives us to the communities and everywhere else we go. Exactly a month earlier, his wife Johanna who is a teacher in the Kindergarten here, gave birth to their first child, Elsy Paola. EVERYONE at CFO and at the Parish showed up for the baby shower and were thrilled when she was born. Manuel talked about how everything changed when she was born and now its all about her. He talked about coming home late from work everynight after dropping us all off at home and talking to her and telling her stories.

Don Cruz's story was different. He is a few years older than my parents and grew up in Mejicanos and has been active in the parish his whole life, including all throughout the war when Mejicanos was a pretty bad place to live. He talked about when his first child was born in the most violent years of the war and he had to take him to a clinic on the other side of town and it was dangerous but he went, and the nurse was shocked to see a father carrying and caring for the baby. He went on to say that this child, his oldest, is disabled, but he is the most caring and loving of all of them. He started to cry as he talked about how his son, now 28, woke him up in the morning to tell him he was the best father in the world.

Needless to say, we were all pretty choked up. But it was a really cool experience, to see the Father side of my co-workers who I see everyday.

Lastly, I want to mention something else with all this in mine. Yesterday, I helped facilitate a retreat for some of the guys who we work with who are about to start a job with a big leadership project through CFO. We were talking about sexism and one of the guys mentioned that the problem really is how fathers treat their daughters. Later in the morning, we had to write about a good leader we knew. With that comment in mind, I wrote down my dad for the leader I know. As a kid, he never treated me different as my brother. Girls here are often closed in the house doing jobs and helping their moms while boys are free to run and play. I feel lucky that I was brought up by a dad who taught me that I was as capable as doing anything my brother could do. So thanks Dad.

Anyway, I know this is late, but HAPPY Fathers Day to all the Dad's out there!

artisan crafts for sale!

2008-06-14T13:34:00.002-06:00

Hey Family and Friends, as some of you may know, I will be coming home to Cincinnati from July 7-21. I am posting pictures of some of the crafts that the artisans sell. Sorry the pictures aren`t that good, there are a lot of products! Let me know on this or email me at hershble@gmail.com if you would like to order anything. I can place the order and you can pay for the product when I am home. I look forward to seeing you all!

Here is the site with the pictures and prices:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2100315&l=164f4&id=33307557

Youth in El Salvador

2008-06-09T18:34:00.002-06:00

This is an article that another CRISPAZ volunteer, Megan, wrote about youth in San Salvador . Though we don't work at the same site (she works at Fe y Alegria and I work at CFO), we work with some of the same kids. One of the communities that I work in is directly across from the school where Megan works. The description she gives of the neighborhood is exactly what I see when I go into this community every Wednesday night.

Here it is:

Against the Odds: Working with High Risk Youth to Build Peaceful Communities in El Salvador
By Megan Horton, CRISPAZ Volunteer

Esmeralda is a typical 16 year old Salvadoran teenager. She goes to school, has a boyfriend, and loves to listen to reggaeton music. Her living situation is also exceedingly common for Salvadoran youth: Esmeralda and her three siblings live with their aunt and cousins in a small two room concrete and aluminum house in a crowded neighborhood in Zacamil, Mejicanos, an impoverished urban city in the north of San Salvador. Her aunt, Rosa, mends clothes for a living and while she is able to provide for them, supporting a family of eight costs more than sewing brings in.

The community where they live in Zacamil is one of the problematic in San Salvador. Hundreds of houses, just like Esmeralda’s, all grouped together, in a very small area, each with about five to seven people per house. Here narrow alleyways spotted with cockroaches double as a front yards and a garbage disposal for residents. This is not the place for an idyllic childhood. Couple poor living conditions with high population density and problems are bound to emerge. Children are often neglected or used by caretakers as an escape valve; domestic violence is prevalent in these communities.

Esmeralda’s father is an undocumented immigrant in the United States, and her mother left the family behind to make her own living in the north of El Salvador. Many other parents have chosen similar paths, leaving their children with grandmothers, aunts, cousins, or neighbors in search of a better future. Unfortunately, family disintegration is the norm among urban poor in El Salvador. From this break down of the family unit coupled with poverty, lack of opportunities, and domestic violence, a new kind of war has emerged, a gang war.

In El Salvador today, there are two main rival gangs that thrive in poorer areas of the country; the MS-13 and the 18th Street gang. Both began in Los Angeles, increased in number thanks to the marginalization of immigrants and their children, many of whom were refugees from the war. These youths never found the path to a productive life in the US. As young adults many of them were deported back to El Salvador due to their involvement in gangs and crime. Once in El Salvador, a very different country, some youth found familiarity in the gangs, and they proliferated.

From the 1990s through today, gang violence has continued to grow. Today, gangs are just one of the many factors making El Salvador one of the most violent countries in the Americas and in the world. For many young people gangs continue to be attractive. Many youth join due to lack of a family structure (the gang becomes like their family), domestic violence, need for belonging, lack of opportunity, or simply, economic need. Other times they are left no other option.

In Zacamil, the gangs have a huge influence in the daily lives of the communities. The children and youth of these communities, like Esmeralda, are living in the middle of this new war zone. On one side of the street, the MS-13 gang is in control, while across the street, it’s the 18th Street gang that reigns. It is the families who live in these communities who end up suffering the consequences when the two gangs clash. Many of Esmeralda’s childhood friends joined the gangs at a young age, some as young as 7 or 8 years old, and have since been killed.

The Salvadoran government’s response to the gang problem has been repression. They have responded with “iron fist policies”- responding to violence with more violence. There are more and more military patrols. I have seen military tanks rolling down the streets and soldiers outside where I work with high-powered machine guns. The police have begun to arrest young people simply because they think they might be in a gang- “Illicit association”. A youth can be arrested simply for being with “suspicious looking” friends on the street. More and more youth are being associated with gangs, and young, poor Salvadorans are being demonized and dehumanized. This demonization and lack of opportunities has left most young people with two choices- they can either join a gang and become involved in delinquency or leave the country- migrate to the US.

Because of the government’s lack of constructive alternatives to the violence, a few non-governmental organizations are now working in the country to try and give youth like Esmeralda a third choice- become constructive members of society and to try to build more peaceful community life. One such NGO is Fe y Alegría (literally, Faith and Happiness), where I have been doing my accompaniment work as a CRISPAZ volunteer here in El Salvador. Fe y Alegría is a popular education and social promotion organization that works throughout the Americas.

Fe y Alegria’s center in Zacamil is a unique one, completely dedicated to providing peaceful and beneficial alternatives for the children and youth in the communities. The Fe y Alegría [Educational Center for All] in Zacamil effectively serves as a before and after-school program. Here, we give the children and youth help with their homework and offer artistic workshops such as dance, painting, and carpentry. But most importantly, we let the kids just be kids; they can run around, jump rope, play tag, and of course, there are always soccer games. Instead of being cooped up in their houses or out on the streets getting into trouble, they have a place to be, a place to learn, and a place to receive positive reinforcement that people do care about them and want them to succeed.

In addition to the Fe y Alegria Center, a number of staff also dedicate time to issues in the streets. I have recently joined this group. We focus on building relationships with the community. We go to the homes of the more troubled kids to listen and talk to their mothers, or, in majority of cases, their guardians. We work toward building trust and understanding in hopes that some healing can take place. More than anything, it is giving an ear to these families and letting them know that people care about their problems.

Working with Fe y Alegría in Zacamil has opened my eyes to the troubles of youth in El Salvador. It has given me the opportunity to get to know young people such as Esmeralda, who have gotten a poor lot in life, but are now trying and improve their situation. Fe y Alegría is respected within the communities and seems to have a positive effect on the students. One youth, Eduhuey, has described it as “my second home. But I prefer to be at Fe y Alegría than my actual home.” While the situation of violence and delinquency begs for better policies all around, a better way to deal with crime, youth development, economic policies that allow Salvadorans to make an honest living in their own country and parent their children, Fe y Alegría is taking small steps to make changes in the community. It is helping these youth to break the cycle of violence that has gripped their country . Having youth who refuse to fall into a life of violence sets an example for the rest, and hopefully fewer young people will see gang life and violence as better than their own.

La Palma

2008-05-21T12:24:00.004-06:00

La Palma, Chalatenango, El Salvador

About five weeks ago, I went up to the town of La Palma in the northern part of El Salvador to do an interview with the artisans in the Semilla de Dios Cooperative. If you have ever bought any wood carvings from 10,000 Villages that comes from El Salvador then it most likely was made at Semilla de Dios. The Cooperative was started in the late seventies by famous Salvadoran artisan Fernando Llort. Llort is credited for creating the style of art that has made La Palma famous. It is characterized by brightly colored paintings of nature, people and homes to represent Salvadoran campesino culture. He began to train people from La Palma in this style of painting. Now, over half the population of La Palma are artisans and travellers often pass through the town to buy the art. A few years ago, the European Union helped finance the painting of walls, houses and phone poles in the La Palma style to promote tourism. The people who don´t create art, run businesses fueled by tourism.

Though there are a number of artisan workshops in La Palma, Semilla de Dios is the most famous one and it has been run for years successfully as a cooperative by all the people who work there. I took a number of pictures of the people at work in the Cooperative. It especially interests me because I have seen these wooden crosses and other painted woodwork sold in Cincinnati, St. Louis and other parts of the Unites States. It was pretty cool to see where all this art was coming from.

Here is the link to see the pictures that I took in La Palma and at la Semilla de Dios:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2098096&l=dfd39&id=33307557

Burmese Cyclone

2008-05-16T12:03:00.002-06:00

This is not about El Salvador but I really recommend anyone to watch it. The cyclone in Burma has been devasting and this gives you a visual of what things are like.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7402944.stm

When I lived with my family here in El Salvador they told me about when the Earthquake hit here in 2001 and their home was completely destroyed. For a week they lived in the ruins of their old house with one bed, shelted by a sheet draped from a remaing post of their former house. The government came and took their names and account and then did nothing. After a week they got in touch with the Red Cross who was able to give them a plastic tarp so they could construct a shelter with posts in the ground. Finally after months of living like this, an organization helped them build a concrete house. In Burma the governing Generals claim to be giving aid to victims but won´t let Aid Workers visit certain parts of the country.

Read more about the Cyclone in Burma or Earthquake in China. There are links to donate:
http://www.redcross.org/news/in/profiles/Intl_profile_MyanmarCyclone.html
http://www.redcross.org/news/in/profiles/Intl_profile_ChinaEarthquake.html

An article about the environment in El Salvador

2008-05-14T09:54:00.001-06:00

This is an article from La Prensa Latina about Deforestation in Central America.

Forests Disappearing in Central America

San Salvador, May 13 (Prensa Latina) The absence of combined Central American policies to protect forests is alarming some governments there.

The vice presidents of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras met in the Montecristo Park, a forest reserve shared by the three countries to boost a joint conservation plan.

In Honduras, for example, in spite of government measures implemented by President Manuel Zelaya, such as the presence of troops in the forests for protection, forest fires and wood trafficking continue.

Such a situation endangers flora and fauna in affected areas, particularly in the north, but also reduces drinking water reserves that supply dozens of communities.

In addition, the soils have been degraded, provoking a reduction of food crops. To date there have been 580 forest fires that have consumed 18,000 hectares of Honduran forests, according to the country's State Forests Administration.

Guatemala has suffered 2,500 forest files that destroyed about 100,000 hectares of forests. Estimates show that 95 percent of those fires were caused by arson.

Illegal felling of trees is another factor that jeopardizes forest diversity, according to institutions such as the Olanch Environment Movement.

El Salvador is considered the nation with most deforestation problems in the Latin American continent. Official studies indicate a 90 percent loss of vegetation and barely two percent of the original forest vegetation.

Open air mining, expansion of agriculture, and use of forest mass for fire and indiscriminate felling are among the lists that is leading this country to desertification.

Now there is a new problem with the destination of huge crop areas to produce biofuels.

Guatemala isn't far behind. Every year it loses 73,148 hectares of forests for different reasons but particularly through human activity.

According to statistics revealed by the environmental profile of that country, 11 percent of natural resources have been lost in the past 10 years, nationwide.

The United Nations Environment Program has repeatedly warned that the region is facing disaster through the increased rhythm of deforestation. It also warned of the need to interrelate conservation, economy and trade to improve the quality of life of their people and the sustainability of natural resources.

The S.O.S. is beginning to be heard. The Monday meeting marks the beginning of joint action of the governments in favor of actions for conservation at least in the region shared by the three that has a population of 750,000 inhabitants in 45 municipalities.

Roque Dalton

2008-05-12T16:16:00.002-06:00

Besides being Mothers Day on May 10th, it was also the 33rd anniversay of the death of Salvadoran poet Roque Dalton. I went to a concert in the Centro to commemorate the day and listened to music ranging from Hip Hop to Reggae to Heavy Metal. Not surprisingly, my favorite by far was the Reggae Groups. While sitting there in the park, a street kid came up to us and asked for money to buy food. I bought him a sandwich instead and he sat with us and ate it. A bee started to attack him and he freaked out and started thrashing and ducking from it. A number of people close by started laughing and pointing it made me sad. A few weeks ago I was at a home for street kids who are recovering from drug addictions as most kids who live on the street are addicted to sniffing glue. The kids at this house seemed like normal little boys! I think the kid who ate his sandwich with us had some addictions and he was really dirty and didn´t wear shoes. Its amazing how easy it is to look at a kid differently who is dirty and begging than a kid who is clean and playing soccer with you. When he got up and left he shook our hands and said "Gracias." Ironically, one of the later reggae groups sang a song they had written about street kids and it talked about how easy it is to ignore them and refuse to give them money because you don´t know if it will go to buy drugs.

Relating this back to Roque Dalton...all the groups had pretty cool social messages like this one and it was inspiring to think about how art is used in so many different ways to express beliefs and inspire societies. I will close with my favorite poem by Dalton called "Como tu" or "Like You"

Como Tú (1975)
Por Roque Dalton

Yo como tú
amo el amor,
la vida,
el dulce encanto de las cosas
el paisaje celeste de los días de enero.

También mi sangre bulle
y río por los ojos
que han conocido el brote de las lágrimas.
Creo que el mundo es bello,
que la poesía es como el pan,
de todos.

Y que mis venas no terminan en mí,
sino en la sangre unánime
de los que luchan por la vida,
el amor,
las cosas,
el paisaje y el pan,
la poesía de todos.

Like You
By Roque Dalton
(Translated by Jack Hirschman)

Like you I
love love, life, the sweet smell
of things, the sky-
blue landscape of January days.

And my blood boils up
and I laugh through eyes
that have known the buds of tears.
I believe the world is beautiful
and that poetry, like bread, is for everyone.

And that my veins don’t end in me
but in the unanimous blood
of those who struggle for life,
love,
little things,
landscape and bread,
the poetry of everyone.

Happy Mothers Day!

2008-05-12T16:03:00.002-06:00

Happy Mothers Day everyone! (a few days late)

Mothers Day is a very big deal here and I was lucky enough to go to a real live Mothers Day Celebration at a school by my house. One of my roomates is taking ballet classes for fun while she is here and there was a performance for Mothers Day that I went to. It was so cute! All the little ballerinas were in pink tutus and had crowns. Then the little boys did a presentation in English for their moms. As it is El Salvador, of course it was hectic and tons of kids were running around and shouting, but it was fun.

Mothers Day in El Salvador is always on May 10th, so this year it was on a Saturday. Everyone spends the day with their mom and buys huge flower arrangements or cakes that are sold everywhere on the street. Fathers Day is not celebrated in El Salvador, which I think says a lot about who usually ends up taking on the parenting role here. Though I feel like it should be celebrated for all the Dads who are dedicated parents despite being a culture of machismo where all the work goes to the Moms. Maybe in a few years...

Anyway, the next day was Mothers Day in the US and I got to talk to my mom, but I wanted to wish all my aunts and my grandma a Happy Mothers Day as well. Les Quiero Mucho!!!! (I love you all very much!!!)

Life on the Salvadoran Bus

2008-04-15T17:56:00.002-06:00

I take bus to get most places in El Salvador. Sometimes I am lucky to get a ride from someone with a car or in the CRISPAZ or CFO truck. But mostly, I bus it, or I walk. I feel like you are faced with a lot of reality of the bus in El Salvador.

To give some background, there are two main types of busses. Big busses and little busses (microbusses). The big ones are mostly used school busses like I remember from grade school. The micros can be anything from smaller versions of the big bus or big vans. The micros are crazier and go faster. There is usually a driver and a person who jumps off at everystop and yells "CENTRO, CENTRO, SUBA SUBA, UNA CORDA, UNA CORDA" (Downtown, Downtown, get on, get on, a quarter, a quarter). The drivers tend to race each other and chase down customers, especially if they are the same number. Most are decorated with stickers or paint about God and Jesus or with women´s names. There are usually safety warnings and rules written in English. Sometimes there are bullet holes in the windows and they are usually dirty. Music on the busses can range from Ranchero to Reggaeton to American 80´s music. Sometimes they are so crowded that everyone is standing and some people are almost hanging out the door. Sometimes they are almost empty.

Bus passengers can be anyone. Men and women in business suits, mothers with small children, elderly people, students, mothers, fathers, children. Pretty much anyone who can´t afford to have a car, which is most people. Usually strangers don´t talk to each other. But it is not uncommon for a stranger to offer to hold your bag if there is no seating and you are standing and they are sitting next to you. Nor is it strange for strangers to give a hand to people who trip or drop something. Passengers can be anyone who pays the 25 cents.

Then there are the vendors. The people who make a living by selling things on the bus. They climb on the bus and the drivers never charge them. There are the common men, women and children yelling "CHICLE, CHICLE, CARAMELOS, CAREMELOS, AGUA, AGUA, PUPUUUUUSAS, PUPUUUUUSAS, MANGOS, MANGOS, CAPUCHINO, CAPUCHINOS" (Gum, Gum, Candy, Candy, Water, Water, Pupusas, Pupusas, Mango, Mango, Ice cream cone, ice cream cone). Then there are the newspaper vendors who stand up front and read sections of the paper in a loud voice to get people interested. Or the the people who pass out Mickey Mouse sticker, ballpoint pens and religious postcards and then stand in front of you and give you a big sales pitch before recollecting what they past out in hopes that some people will want to keep these treasures now that they have held them in their hands. Or the people who stand up in front and try to sell you a natural medicine that cures everything from obesity to cancer. These people can be anyone from small children, young women, old women, old men, young men, anyone, anyone. And people always buy from them. Even the guys selling the cancer medicine. Who knows if its to support the 8 year old kid trying to sell gum or if they really wanted that special pen. Both I think. I know I have bought from the vendors for both reasons.

They other category of people I will call the performers. This category includes my favorite people to see on the bus and some of my least favorite people. The least favorite is the people who stand up front and start to scream loudly about what will happen to all of us if we don´t accept God. Sometimes this includes a personal account. Sometimes the person is also selling cards with God phrases. They will stand up, yell for twenty minutes about sin, then sit down and wait quietly for the bus stop. Most people don´t even really seem to notice them. My favorite category is the musicians. Like the guys who play the guitar and the Andean music. I ALWAYS give them money because I enjoy it so much that I feel like I would be stealing if I didn´t. The other day I heard by far the best street performers I have seen here, two young guys playing guitar and singing Led Zepellin.

The last category is the beggars. Like the vendors and the performers, they are allowed on the bus without paying. Usually it is obvious they are homeless or living in very poor conditions. Sometimes they are disabled, or missing limbs. Sometimes they are children or parents with children. Sometimes they give a testimony about what has happened to them. The children don´t usually give a talk. A lot of them are addicted to sniffing glue, a habit common among the homeless here as it dulls pain and hunger. The really moving thing is how many people give money. I guess in a country where so many people struggle to get buy, its harder to place blame on the beggars and the homeless, its easier to see oneself in their shoes.

Salvadoran busses can be dangerous. I know so many people who have been robbed or pickpocketed on busses. Sometimes silently, sometimes violently. I have heard horror stories about acts of violence happening on busses that I sometimes take. I try to avoid taking the bus at night with this in mind. Or at least taking the bus alone at night.

Why am I writing all of this? Because I feel like I am constantly confronted with the Salvadoran reality on busses. Whether its the drivers, the passengers, the vendors, the performers or the beggars. Sometimes I imagine where these people will go when they get off the bus. Will the candy vendors make enough money to buy dinner for their family? Especially with the rising price of basic foods like beans or flour? How does the man preaching God feed himself? Where will that child sleep tonight? Sometimes I say a quiet prayer as these people step off the bus I´m on and onto a new one, a prayer that what they earn will be enough. Or I wonder about the bus driver. Have the gangs threatened him? What has he seen? Where does he live? I wonder, I wonder.

I read in the paper on Sunday that the bus fare was going up from 25 cents a ride to 30 cents to to a hike in gasoline prices. I can only imagine what that will bring...

Recent pictures!

2008-04-10T12:57:00.001-06:00

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2094134&l=e39da&id=33307557

The Veracruz Breakers

2008-04-07T18:10:00.002-06:00

I've realized I haven't written to much about the actual youth that I am working with, besides the intro to CFO that I gave in the middle of February. So I'm going to write a little bit about one of the groups that CFO works with that calls themselves "The Veracruz Breakers." As in the break dancing boys from Veracruz (a neighborhood in Mejicanos).

The guys started working with CFO last year when the Parish began to allow them to use one of the community center spaces to practice breakdancing three times a week. On Thursdays they meet in CFO with Ada, Marcos and I to do workshops around themes like leadership, human rights or self-identity. They practice break on Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 2-5 and they are GOOD. That is probably what happens from practicing as often as they do, added to the fact that they are very dedicated to the Hip Hop Movement. Today I went to see them dance as I had never been to the actual community where they live (the Parish itself is further down the hill closer to the Center of Mejicanos). At one point I asked Maicol (prounounced like Michael) where they got their songs. He told me that they get all their stuff off the internet at ciber cafe's. That's also how they learned all their moves, by looking it up on YouTube. What a crazy globalized world we live in where Salvadoran boys are using the internet to teach themselves to breakdance and to learn about hip hop culture. Maybe someday they will put their own video on YouTube and you can all see how good they are. Last year through CFO and a music group they know, they were able to produce a song about their lives in El Salvador. It's also very impressive.

Now I know a lot of people who relate Hip Hop to crime and delinquency, which is too bad since there is a lot of culture and history in the whole movement. Here in El Salvador, breakdancing and hip hop music has actually helped to keep these guys out of violence. You see, Veracruz or more specifically the colonia Montreal, where they live, has a lot of gang problems. There is a lot of violence and there is also a lot of police oppression directed towards young Salvadoran men. Especially anyone with a tattoo, or anyone who dresses a certain way. Most of these guys have had run ins with the police or with gangs. Almost all of them could't afford to go to high school. Almost all of them are unable to find work. A lot of them were raised by single mothers and have family in the United States. Today after I had English class with one of the guys, Saul, he told me about how the Earthquake in 2001 devastated this community, destroying homes and killing people. Many of them were not able to rebuild their homes for a few years as they recieved no governmental assistance.

Despite all of this, the guys are pretty normal teenage guys. Most of them are the age of my little sister (18), give or take a few years. So its very different from working with some of our other groups who are younger and have more girls. Sometimes its harder to get to know them because of this and I feel frustrated that culture, language and gender can be such barriers. But today was a good day. Seeing the neighborhood where they lived helped me understand a little more where they come from. Most of my time with them is spent at CFO where they all congregate on Thursdays and often drop by other times during the week. Right now, four of them are waiting to hear back from a scholarship that we helped them apply for to do a research project on youth in El Salvador. We'll see how it goes, though I think their application was pretty impressive. Maybe I'm biased though.

Anyway, thats a closer work at who I'm working with. Someday maybe I'll try to figure out YouTube and how to put a video of them on it. Until then, I hope my description was enough.

peace and love, -Laura

Romero quotes

2008-03-31T15:31:00.002-06:00

Oscar Romero (1917-1980)

We must not seek the child Jesus in the pretty figures of ourChristmas ribs. We must seek him among the undernourishedchildren who have gone to bed tonight with nothing to eat, amongthe poor newsboys who will sleep covered with newspapers indoorways. December 24, 1979

When we say "for the poor," we do not take sides with one socialclass, please note. What we do, according to Puebla, is inviteall social classes, rich and poor without distinction, saying toeveryone: Let us take seriously the cause of the poor as thoughit were our own -- indeed, as what it really is, the cause ofJesus Christ, who on the final judgment day will call tosalvation those who treated the poor with faith in him. "Whateveryou did to one of these poor ones -- the neglected, blind, lame,deaf, mute -- you did to me." September 9, 1979

Everyone who struggles for justice, everyone who makes justclaims in unjust surroundings, is working for God's reign, eventhough not a Christian. The church does not comprise all of God'sreign, God's reign goes beyond the church's boundaries. Thechurch values everything that is in tune with its struggle to setup God's reign. A church that tries only to keep itself pure anduncontaminated would not be a church of God's service to people.The authentic church is one that does not mind conversing withprostitutes and publicans and sinners, as Christ did -- and withMarxists and those of various political movements -- in order tobring them salvation's true message. December 2, 1978

What good are beautiful highways and airports, beautifulbuildings full of spacious apartments, if they are only puttogether with the blood of the poor, who are not going to enjoythem? July 15, 1979

The church in Latin America has much to say about humanity. Itlooks at the sad picture portrayed by the Puebla conference:faces of landless peasants, mistreated and killed by the forcesof power, faces of laborers arbitrarily dismissed and without aliving wage for their families, faces of the elderly, faces ofoutcasts, faces of slum dwellers, faces of poor children who frominfancy begin to feel the cruel sting of social injustice. Forthem, it seems, there is no future -- no school, no high school,no university. By what right have we cataloged persons asfirst-class persons or second-class persons? In the theology ofhuman nature there is only one class: children of God. March 2,1980

Many would like the poor to keep on saying that it is God's willfor them to live that way. But it is not God's will for some tohave everything and others to have nothing. That cannot be ofGod. God's will is that all his children be happy. September 10,1978

The great need today is for Christians who are active andcritical, who don't accept situations without analyzing theminwardly and deeply. We no longer want masses of people likethose who have been trifled with for so long. We want personslike fruitful fig trees, who can say yes to justice and no toinjustice and can make use of the precious gift of life,regardless of the circumstances. March 9, 1980

Peace is not the product of terror or fear. Peace is not thesilence of cemeteries. Peace is not the silent result of violentrepression. Peace is the generous, tranquil contribution of allto the good of all. Peace is dynamism. Peace is generosity. It isright and it is duty. In it each one has a place in thisbeautiful family, which the Epiphany brightens for us with God'slight. January 7, 1978

God in Christ dwells near at hand to us. Christ has given us aguideline: "I was hungry and you gave me to eat." Where someoneis hungry, there is Christ near at hand. "I was thirsty and yougave me to drink." When someone comes to your house to ask forwater, it is Christ, if you look with faith.In the sick person longing for a visit Christ tells you, "I wassick and you came to visit me." Or in prison.How many today are ashamed to testify for the innocent! Whatterror has been sown among our people that friends betray friendswhom they see in trouble! If we could see that Christ is theneedy one, the torture victim, the prisoner, the murder victim,and in each human figure so shamefully thrown by our roadsidescould see Christ himself cast aside, we would pick him up like amedal of gold to be kissed lovingly. We would never be ashamedof him.How far people are today -- especially those who torture andkill and value their investments more than human beings -- fromrealizing that all the earth's millions are good for nothing, areworthless, compared to a human being. The person is Christ, andin the person viewed and treated with faith we look on Christ theLord. March 16, 1980

Quotes taken from http://www.justpeace.org/romero.htm

Remembering

2008-03-31T14:08:00.004-06:00

I realize that I have not updated my blog in the past month and I apologize for that. The month of March has been eventful. I think partly I have been putting off writing because there is so much I have wanted to write about such as: visiting artisans workshops in Chalatenango, a trip to a small remote town called Amatitan to celebrate International Women's Day, Holy Week, my work at CFO and the anniversary of Romero's death. On top of that, I have recently moved into an apartment which I have been working on setting up and organizing with my two roommates. I'll try to hit some of the highlights of all of these with my theme being REMEMBERING.

Women Remembering Women
I have never heard of International Women's Day until I came to El Salvador, which is too bad for the women of the United States since the day is March 8 to commemorate the deaths of women factory workers who died in New York City about 100 years ago. Here, all over the country there were a number of celebrations going on. I had planned on going to the big march downtown with some of the women from CFO. Though a few days before I was invited to celebrate women's day in the tiny remote town of Amatitan in the department San Vincente. Cesar and his two classmates are working on a community organizing project there through. The event was supposed to start at 6:00 pm. As it was on El Salvador time, we (who were running the event) showed up at 6:15 to set up. An hour later people started showing up. Pretty soon there were about 60 or seventy people, mostly women. It was a cool night and what struck me was that they were all using towels as shawls. The ingenuity of people here often impresses me, in a place like San Vincente which is fairly hot, one wouldnt normally invest in a jacket, but towels are quite common. Anyway, I digress. The event started out with a short clip about the war and then songs about Salvadoran women and El Salvador. Then came the time to talk about and remember important women from their community who had died, many during the war. This went on for a while. Soon a few women showed up with sweet bread and coffee to distribute. Erick, my friend who was helping organize, pointed out that since it was women's day then maybe the men could serve the drinks and bread. This was a hoot since it completely challenged established gender roles. However about 5 men wanting to prove their support for women jumped up and started passing out the food. The highlight of the evening was when at the very end, the Women's Association of Amititan acted out the fight for rights and then the deaths of the women who had died in New York City so long ago. The oldest actress was probably in her sixties and the youngest looked to be about 8 and she reminded me so much of my cousin Sarah. It was quite an exprerience and it helped make up for the fact that until last year (also in El Salvador) I had never celebrated International Women's Day.

Remembering Home
Sometimes I get homesick. Everyone says this is normal for people living abroad but still I didn't really expect it. It hits me at various times: the grocery store when I can't find any food I like or listening to music that reminds me off my friends back at home. Easter was harder than I thought it would be. I had a wonderful week of vacations visiting the Bajo Lempa, the beach and Cesar's town Tepecoyo. But around the middle of the week when we went to the beach, I started to think about my Grandma and Grandpa Hersh and Palm Island. This is probably because I was on an island. Then on Good Friday while making alfrombras, or salt murals, on the streets of Tepecoyo for the Way of the Cross, I thought about the Way of the Cross in Cincinnati with all the Social Justice Groups. Later as I tried to explain the Easter Bunny and was given the look of "you gringos are absurd" I realized I would not be eating any chocolate eggs this year. When I was woken up Easter morning by the 6am procession and singing, I wondered if back at home my mom was blasting the Sandy Patty version of "Was it a morning like this." Experiencing Holy Week in El Salvador was really great, but I was surprised by how much I missed being at home.
Sometimes people remind me of people at home. I already mentioned the girl who reminded me of my cousin. There is a another boy in one of the groups at CFO who reminds me so much of my other cousin Stephen. And a girl in the Bajo Lempa who reminds me of one of the girls who I knew from the Center for Survivors in Saint Louis. She is ten and she has a cousin who is the same age as her, together, they remind me of my cousin Kristin and I. This type of remembering doesn't make me sad though. Mostly it makes me smile.
I mentioned that I visited Chalatenango a few weeks ago. It was a wonderful visit. I was able to meet the artisan groups for Las Flores and La Ceiba. It was inspiring to see them doing their work. While in Chalatenango we also stopped briefly in the town of Guarjila to plan the delegation visit to the Jon Cortina museum. Jon Cortina was an amazing Jesuit priest who dedicated his life to walking alongside the Salvadoran people. He helped with the rebuilding of Guarjila when the refugees came after the war. Before his death in 2005, he visited SLU and recieved a sword from the Jesuits to commemorate his life working for peace (kind of ironic). I remember shaking his hand. The sword is in the museum (his former house) along with other remnants of his life in El Salvador. One picture especially got me. It was of Jon Cortina with a Loretto Sister from Saint Louis named Ann Manganaro. She was nurse who lived in the community during the war. In 1994 she died of cancer and now the clinic is named after her. She is known among social justice groups in Saint Louis as well as in Guarjila. Saint Louis has a long lasting relationship with the town of Guarjila and looking through all the photos of the rebuilding of Guarjila, I couldn't help but think about all the people back in Saint Louis who I know who care so passionately about this place.

Remembering Romero
Archbishop Oscar Romero is probably one of the most renowned Salvadorans of all time. If you don't know who is is then I encourage you to read more about him because I won't be able to describe completely who he was. But in simple words: he was the Archbishop of El Salvador during a time of horrible violence and oppression and he was completely dedicated to walking with the people of El Salvador. As an archbishop he had power and he used it to defend the rights of people who were suffering under horrible oppression. He appealed to Jimmy Carter to stop funding the oppressive government, with no avial. Nor did the Vatican pay much attention to his pleas. In March of 1980, he gave a powerful homily asking Salvadoran soldiers to please put down their guns and stop killing their fellow Salvadoran brothers. The next day, he was shot and killed during mass.
28 years later he is still loved and revered. The people call him San Romero de las Americas. Saint Romero of the Americas, even though he has yet to been made a saint. His face and his words are painted all over poor communities all throughout El Salvador. The alfombra (salt mural on the street) that I helped make during Holy Week was a picture of him reaching out to a fallen campesino (Salvadoran peasant). Signs and shirts read: Romero vive! In a country that is as religious and impoverished as this one, an archbishop who talks about a God of love for the poor and a God of justice is up there with Jesus.
This past Saturday was the march and vigil to commemorate the life and death of Romero. The streets were closed off and we marched from the Salvador del Mundo statue to the Cathedral where Romero was buried. It was inspiring to see so many young people like myself who were born after the death of Romero but still so inspired by his life. There was then a giant mass in front of the Cathedral. The people camped out in the square all night listening to music and eating pupusas. It amazing to see how in death, Romero continued to live. He has a quote that says "If they kill me, I will rise again in the Salvadoran people." And he has.

Pictures are finally up!

2008-03-02T17:34:00.002-06:00

Here are some of my pictures from the past two months!

Click here for pictures!!!

My house where I am living

2008-02-28T12:06:00.004-06:00

Dedicated to Aunt B, who asked for a picture of my house.

Since I can't put up all my pics, here are a few more.

The house where I am living

The bathroom and where I do laundry

The garden in the back

The jocotes are here!

2008-02-28T11:45:00.002-06:00

Happy Birthday Kerry and late birthday Kristin!!!

I had to put that out there.

Well February 28th is a beautiful day in San Salvador. A cold front blew in which means that they weather is wonderful and this morning I felt like it was September. This is something to be savored as it will soon be very very hot.

The one good thing about the heat is that it means.....(drum roll) the mangoes are coming! I'm so excited. Last week when I was taking the bus home from Mejicanos I walked by the market (which is incredibly crowded) and saw another one of my favorite Salvadoran fruits: jocotes. How to describe them? When they are ripe they are kind of like a citrus version of a plum but smaller with a bigger pit. When they aren't as ripe they are more sour but can still be good. I love them. I went home and was talking to my family about all the great native fruits here that I had never heard of until I came to Central America. They asked what fruits grew where I live and then I started going on about apples which are amazing in Ohio in September and never as good in El Salvador because they don't grow here. Then we started talking about all the wonderful desserts you can make from apples and they asked if I knew a good recipe for apple cake. I do. But like I said, apples aren't as good here so I told them that when the mangoes come then we can try and make mango crisp, like my Aunt Janice makes.

Besides fruit, things are going well here. Work is picking up and I have more responsibility. The kids are fun though sometimes tiring. Sometimes I get frustrated with my Spanish since they tend to be less patient than adults. Yesterday I got made fun of for how I said "jueves" which is Thursday. I still don't understand what I said wrong. But it made me start thinking about accents. I can probably count on one hand the number of times I have been ridiculed here for my accent in all the time I have spent here. But when I think about the immigrants I have known in the United States and how mean and impatient Americans can be with foreigners who have trouble speaking the language, it makes me sad and kind of angry. It also encourages me to suck it up when a fifteen year old kid makes fun of how I say "thursday."

Sadly, my pictures aren't up. I have been trying to upload them as I wrote this but the upload failed and now I have to head home for lunch before going to CFO. Maybe Saturday...

Thanks to updates, emails and letters from friends and family back at home. I'll try to get back to people, even though sometimes I might take a little while. I hope all is well.

peace, laura

Jeffrey

2008-02-22T11:14:00.000-06:00

This is Jeffrey, the three year old that I live with.

Living with a family

2008-02-22T10:38:00.002-06:00

This past Monday I made the big move out of CRISPAZ and in with a Salvadoran family. I'll be living with them for one month, until Semana Santa (Holy Week) and I'm very excited. They are incredibly hospitable and kind. There are seven of them in the house, so it is kind of full. Aurelie and Rene are the parents and they have three kids, Silvia-21, Wendy-18 and Gerson-14. Silvia's three year old son Jeffrey and a nineteen year old cousin named Chepe also live in the house.

I think I have definitely lucked out with this family. They love to joke and laugh and they all really care about each other. They all go out of their way to assist me with anything I might need and make me feel at home. Jeffrey has overcome his shyness and came into my room yesterday morning as I had slept in waaaaay to late for his taste (8:30). Aurelie is a good cook and has made some good typical Salvadoran food. The one thing that stressed me a little is that they are very insistant that I eat a lot and eat everything, which is had since I really don't like to eat beef. They also give me more food then everyone else in the family, which sometimes makes me uncomfortable. I've experienced this before in El Salvador when visiting families. Ramon explained that it is a form of hospitality and that they think that I am embarrassed to ask for more so they give a lot and that I just need to be really insistant if there is something I don't want to eat.

The home is located partway up the San Salvador volcano, which is nice because that means its not as hot. They actually live right near the neighborhood San Ramon, where I worked as a student in the Casa. The family participates in the Base Community, El Pueblo de Dios en Camino, where I spent a lot of time as student. Their home consists of a concrete building with two rooms, one where the family eats, cooks and hangs out and the other which in front is a small store and in back (behind a divider) is where the parents sleep. Behind this building is a building made out of tin with three rooms where all the kids sleep. I share a room with Wendy. Their home was destroyed in the earthquake in 2001. They were able to rebuild this one with the help of an organization called Landmine Survivor. Rene lost part of his leg from a landmine during the war and afterwards came into contact with this organization that works in a number of countries. After the earthquake, they helped the family rebuild their home and set up the store as a way to help sustain them. Aurelie is in the home during the day and she is the one who sells things such as snacks, drinks and household supplies to customers. Rene works all day. Silvia also works in order to help support Jeffrey. Today she told me that her job pays the minimum of $80 every two weeks, for eleven eight hour days. Do the math, that is less than a dollar an hour. Prices are rising in El Salvador, so that amount is not covering costs. She wants to find another job but most places offer about the same. The other two kids are still in school. Wendy is a really good student and hopes to go onto the University next year, I hope she is able to also as she is a really bright girl. College is hard to pay for too though, so they have to wait and see.

Besides family life, things are going well. I'm adjusting to work at CFO and I really enjoy it. Last weekend we went on an outing with the kids from both groups and it was a lot of fun. I took lots of pictures that I hope to put up soon (I know I keep saying that, but this time I mean it!). I'll update more on work sometime soon.

I hope everyone at home in surviving the cold. I have been seeing in the news that there has been snow. While part of me misses the snow, I really don't miss the cold. Its going to get very very hot here soon and then maybe I'll be pining for the Midwest springtime.

Peace and love to everyone, Laura

Working at CFO

2008-02-14T19:10:00.002-06:00

Well, I´ve started work!! Though I´m not where I originally thought I would be. During the process of choosing an organization, Ramon and I narrowed it down two organizations, ACISAM and CFO. I chose ACISAM because of the focus on mental health. We visited them and it seems like they do wonderful work. The problem is that they are in a process of transition and restructuring and I got tired of waiting to start with them. On Tuesday morning, I met with Ramon and Antonio and we decided to contact CFO about working with them. The following afternoon I showed up for an orientation and ended up staying all afternoon, meeting lots of people and attending a group session with youth that live in a community called Raul Rivas. It was a very action packed yet exciting afternoon. I returned today for another group session with kids from another neighborhood. I will probably be spending most of my afternoons and some Saturdays working with the Youth Program at CFO, which will leave me the mornings to work some at CRISPAZ on research and support for the artisans. I´m very happy to now have a more structured work plan laid out for me. yay!

CFO
I guess I´ll explain a little bit about CFO. It stands for Center for Formation and Orientation. The work with youth is just one small aspect of the whole organization. Officially they are the community center for the Saint Francis of Assisi Parish in the neighborhood of Mejicanos, San Salvador. The projects that they do range from a kindergarten to women´s groups, art and English classes, technical classes, a legal center, community participation and the youth group, among other things. Everyone who works at CFO is incredibly friendly and I received a very warm welcome. The youth program team consists of Ada, Marcos and Barbara, though sadly, Barbara is leaving in March to return to her native Belgium. Therefore the team was very excited to have the extra help in all the work that they do. Marcos and Ada painted me a giant "Bienvenida Laura" sign and gave me a candle as a welcome present. They seem like wonderful people and I look forward to working with them. The work they do is very important in Mejicanos as youth in this part of the city are very marginalized. Gangs have been a problem in El Salvador and police have cracked down hard. The media portrays the youth very negatively and thus they are very discriminated against. Gang violence AND police harassment are things that these kids deal with on a daily basis. CFO started working with youth about two years ago. They hold youth groups in various communities around Mejicanos and talk to the kids about their interests for focus areas. The kids in Raul Rivas expressed interest in theater, and have since developed a short play focusing on their reality. It explores the poverty, violence and abuse against women that is part of their lives. The other youth group, from the Veracruz neighborhood, showed lots of interest in dance, particularly breakdance. They started a dance group that meets three times a week and actually won a prize at the Youth Festival last summer. They also meet weekly to talk about weightier issues. Last year they wrote rap song about life in their neighborhood. Right now they are planning to give classes at the Casa Dolores Medina, a house for street kids who are addicted to sniffing glue (this is common among homeless children here as it lessens the pain of being hungry). They group talked about how dance and hip hop has influenced them and the desire to share that with other kids who have faced a lot of adversity as well. CFO is also looking to start up two more youth groups in nearby neighborhoods. This Saturday we are going on a big, all day trip with both groups for reflection and recreation. I´m really looking forward to it.

Other than work with CFO, things are going well. Last Saturday we had an all day meeting with artisans from all the cooperatives. They elected a smaller group to be a planning committee that CRISPAZ and the intermediary, Salvador Craft will work with. Our next meeting is here on March 1st. Right now we at CRISPAZ are starting to work more on an assessment on the whole situation for the artisans and for the organization.

Also, I´m moving out of CRISPAZ in a few days! I was going to move in with a family on Saturday but with the CFO excursion happening then, we changed it until Monday. I´ll be living with them for a month, which I am looking forward to. I´ll update more on that once I move.

I hope everyone has a FELIZ DIA DE AMISTAD Y AMOR!!! or HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!!!

much LOVE,
laura

Bajo Lempa

2008-02-05T12:52:00.000-06:00

What is the Bajo Lempa?
This past weekend I traveled to a part of the country called the Bajo Lempa (Lower Region of the Lempa River). I have been wanting to visit this part of the country for a really long time ever since I heard about how well organized the communities are there. The reason for this is that most of the communities in that part of the country were resettled after the war by people who had been living in refugee camps or who were ex-combatants from the guerrilla force. Apparently the land which makes up multiple communities was previously owned by two families in the form of large haciendas, or plantations. The owners lived in San Salvador and hadn´t returned during the war due to the fighting. At the beginning of the 1990´s before the Peace Accords had been signed but while they were in the process of negotiations, a number of communities began to return from refugee camps in Honduras. Most of these communities were from a part of the country called Morazan where there was still fighting. Due to the fertility of the land and its proximity to Morazan, they began to migrate to the Bajo Lempa as part of a land take over. At first they were confronted by soldiers who would harass them and try to kick them out, but the persisted and as part of the Peace Accords, this land was granted to resettled communities. Due to the fact that so many people had spend the duration of the war fighting in the guerrilla or fighting for their lives, they continued to fight for their land and for their rights. Today they are still really well organized as they fight forces such as mining companies, immigration of youth and economic injustice.

Amando Lopez
The community I visited was called Amando Lopez, named after one of the Jesuits who was murdered at the UCA. Its one of many communities located off the main road that runs parallel to the Rio Lempa. This is a road where bikes, cows, and people walking are a much more common site then cars. Often a pickup full of people will drive by or someone on a motorcycle (I rode one!). Some of the kids from Amando Lopez lent us their bikes and I was able to bike again! It was wonderful. People are friendlier in the campo and people greet each other when they pass in the street. In Amando Lopez, everyone knows everyone. Dogs and chickens freely roam the yards (I can´t think of a better example of "free range chicken"). Needless to say, it was a refreshing change of pace from San Salvador.

Community Projects
There is an organization that words in Amando Lopez called ADIBAL, I´m pretty sure most of their funding comes from Europe. Anyway, ADIBAL serves as a place for the community groups to plan projects and work together. Right now they are working of promotion of organic farming so people aren´t completely dependent on outside markets to eat. They find plants and seeds that are indigenous to the Bajo Lempa and grow them in a big community garden. Something I was very impressed by was a system of storing cow manure a pit to extract nitrogen fumes into pipes to use as fuel. An alternative to gasoline. They have youth groups, and political meetings, classes, a library and a seed bank. Most the work is done by people in the community. On Saturday, I spent from lunch on at the home of a family who was digging a well to provide fresh water to their plants (access to water is a problem in this part of the country). About 12-15 spent from one in the afternoon to 11:30 at night digging 15 meters into the ground to find water. Needless to say there was lots and lots of mud. (I gave my moral support by watching and playing baseball with the kids, I´m sure it was very needed, haha.) Though what amazed me was that until the end, people were laughing and joking though they must have been exhausted. I thought of how in the past in El Salvador this slave labor would have been done in the same land for an owner who lived in the city. The people would have worked and received a little money but not much fruit from their labor. But now, this hard work they were doing was for themselves. To water their own plants, to feed their own families. I think that probably played a big part in everyones attitude. The more amazing thing was that despite all the work, they were up the next morning at 6am to start the day again!

Vilma and Tino
The last thing I want to mention is the people I met. I spent most of my time with the same family who was digging the well, Vilma and Tino and their two kids Michel and Dalila. Up on the wall in their living room, right underneath Tino´s teaching diploma and a big, shiny picture of Jesus is an 8X10 of two teenagers dressed in guerrilla garb and holding giant guns. That was the two of them in 1990. Vilma was 15 when she left the refugee camp to join the guerrilla. The army had killed her parents when she was six and she had been living with family in the refugiado that abused her. "When I went to fight, I went to die," she said. But she didn´t. She met Tino and after the war they came to the Bajo Lempa. She is now one of the leaders of the women´s cooperative and I just want to say that this woman amazed me. The day we dug the well, she spent the whole day helping with the digging part or making dinner for all the workers and the various kids hanging out. When everyone came in from work at 11:30 that night, she had already put water on the wood stove to heat up for people to bathe with hot water instead of cold. When we showed up the next day, she had completely scrubbed down and cleaned Cesar´s mud covered shoes. She taught me how to roast coffee beans and make quesadilla cookies. Before I left she gave me an embroidery of flowers she had made, as a birthday gift. I promised that I would return soon so that she could teach me how to make tamales.

I returned to the city with the feeling that one gets after going on a really great trip then having to go back to work. Though being back hasn´t been so bad. I went to ACISAM and we are going to start next week visiting all their communities and sites so I can get orientated with their projects. Then today at the CRISPAZ team meeting, everyone sang Happy Birthday to me and we ate cake. It was really nice.

I plan to put up pictures of the Bajo Lempa sometime soon. so keep an eye out for the next post!
-laura

Update: Beach, Birthday, Hospital, Earthquake

2008-01-31T17:41:00.000-06:00

I wanted to post a quick update on how things have been going for the past two weeks. Last week, I spent most of my time in the office researching fair trade info for the artisans or visiting potential work sites with Ramon. I think I will probably be working with an organization called ACISAM that works with mental health issues. One of their big projects is using communications such as video or radio to work with groups and communities. I will post more once I meet with them and confirm work possibilities.

Last weekend I celebrated my birthday early by going to the beach which was great. We went to El Zonte which is known for being a very good surfing beach and sure enough we saw a number of people surfing. There were also a bunch of little kids surfing on their boogie boards which was really cute. The bad news is that I think I ate something at the beach that made me very sick to my stomach. So much so that I ended up spending my REAL birthday in the Hospital Diagnostico. No cake for me. I left yesterday after lunch and have been recuperating at CRISPAZ for the past two days. While resting, I´ve been reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, and I definitely recommend it to anyone. Its about her family and their attempts to eat locally grown food for one year. I feel inspired to go buy some seeds from the Festival de Semilla that a number of environmental groups (CRISPAZ included) put on every May and plant a garden in my room.

Something interesting: there was an earthquake while I was in the hospital. I felt it actually and thought to myself, hmmm I bet that was an earthquake. That night while watching the news (on my hospital room TV that got 100 channels) I realized that it was an earthquake that reached a 3. on the Richter in San Salvador. I don´t think it was very big and as far as I know there wasn´t much damage. Earthquakes are pretty common here so it was not a very big deal. Coming from Cincinnati though, I don´t remember ever sitting through one.

Besides being sick, things are going well. I´m shifting from the initial thrill of being back in El Salvador to actually living in El Salvador which hasn´t been too bad. I´m looking forward to the possible work with ACISAM and my homestay (once I start work). I was invited last week to go this weekend to the Bajo Lempa, which is a rural part of the country, to visit a community there. I was on the fence all day since I´m recovering, but then I just got a call from a girl who offered me a ride in a car instead of taking the bus and so I´ve decided to go. Don´t worry family, I´ll drink lots of water. Anyway, I will try to remember to bring my camera and take pictures that I can post when I return.

Peace to all. -Laura

From the Roof of CRISPAZ

2008-01-22T11:11:00.001-06:00

CRISPAZ in Cincinnati

2008-01-18T17:36:00.000-06:00

Here is an article about the U.S. CRISPAZ office being moved to Cincinnati:

http://www.catholiccincinnati.org/tct/jan1808/011808christians.html

Mission Blog/2

2008-01-18T14:16:00.000-06:00

Here is the second piece that I wrote for the Archdiocese of St. Louis Mission blog. It will probably be up on the site in a few days, but for convenience, I´m posting it here as well.

My First Few Weeks in El Salvador

Here I am in El Salvador again! As I wrap up my second week of work at CRISPAZ, I go through everything I have learned and all the people I have met within the past two weeks. As part of my orientation I have met with other CRISPAZ team members to learn about the organization, visited other organizations that CRISPAZ works with and spent a few days with a delegation here from the University of San Diego. While on the delegation I was able to hear a number of speakers talk about their lives and opinions on the current situation in El Salvador. Through all of this I have been plunged back into the world of Spanish where I have to focus twice as much during meeting to understand everything. My stomach has also been adjusting to the food and to the water: no major problems…yet. Despite the fact that I have felt slightly overwhelmed at times, I am very glad to be back in El Salvador. The next week will be focused on writing up my work plan and meeting with and eventually deciding upon a work site for while I am here. As I told my mom when I called her the day I arrived: “I´m just really excited that I get to live here.”

The Salvadoran reality can be very intense. Everyday I read the newspaper about teenagers being arrested for being in gangs, recent murders in neighborhoods or towns, homes being destroyed due to some natural cause, communities being displaced for a highway, lack of water, political corruption etc. On one bus ride I´ll go past a new ritzy shopping setting, located next to an impoverished neighborhood of shacks and polluted rivers. This is all seen, mind you, from a bus window with a bullet hole through it.

With all of that said, the reader is probably wondering why I would ever be excited that I get to live here. Well, there are a lot of good things about El Salvador as well, probably the main one being the people. Though I obviously can not make a complete generalization about all Salvadorans, I have found that a lot of Salvadorans I have met are very considerate and caring of others. On the same bus ride that I mentioned before, one will also see 10 strangers give change to a beggar, or see someone who is sitting offer to hold the bag of someone who is standing. Those are just minor examples. I will give a bigger one.

On Wednesday I heard that a friend of mine´s mother had died of cancer. The funeral was the following day but there was a vigil at her home that night. Her family lives in a small town about an hour and a half (by car) north of the city. I rode up there with a number of her fellow students and housemates. We arrived at 10:30 p.m. to a house and a yard full of neighbors, family and friends. Inside her house, the coffin was laid out and the room was packed with people singing and praying. At around 1:00 a.m. I realized that people were going to stay through the night to be and to pray with the family until the mass and funeral the following day. I was amazed by how caring and supportive this community was. I feel like a learned a lot about being present to others that night.

With all of that said I continue to try to be present and open to everything that I see and learn during my first few months here. Look for another update once I start volunteering at my site!

Pictures!!!

2008-01-17T21:20:00.000-06:00

Me with Crispaz volunteers Tom and Melissa in Ciudadela Hungo where they live and work.

Mural painted by teenages in Mejicanos, San Salvador

"Yes to the youth, no to the violence" -picture taken at Equipo Nahual, an organization that works with youth in gangs.

Dignity

2008-01-15T13:12:00.000-06:00

I´ve been in El Salvador for a few weeks now and I would like to write a little bit about human dignity. As part of my orientation I have been travelling around and visiting various organizations, communities and individuals that CRISPAZ works with. I have been able to see what people are doing to fight for human, social and environmental rights. In all of this, the theme that has come up for me is human dignity. Almost all of the people I have met are Salvadorans who though they may live much more humbly that most people in the United States, they are passionate about for fighting for human dignity. Dignity is something very big to fight for in a country where garbage is dumped in the middle of poor communities and sweatshops are seen as the great solution to national poverty.

In talking to everyone back at home, I have encountered a number of people who congratulate me for wanting to help the poor, as if I am a savior or saint of some sorts. A coworker of mine once told me that he envisioned me in El Salvador with all the native people fanning me and giving me grapes for helping them. I had to laugh, partly because this image was absurd to me, but also because I didn´t want to get angry at someone who didn´t mean to offend anyone but really had no idea what he was talking about. I didn´t come here to help the needy or to save anyone. I think so many good intended North Americans come to places like El Salvador with this attitude and want to set up development programs or build schools. This creates dependency or failed programs because they change didn´t come from within. The best thing that North Americans can do is to look inside and try to change themselves and then our own country and its foreign and domestice policies and the best thing that Salvadorans can do is the same thing. Then we can work together. I came here with the knowledge that I have a lot to learn before I can start to "help." I also came here knowing that I wanted to work with and support Salvadorans who are already working for justice, not try to "save" anyone. For this reason I chose to work with CRISPAZ.

I´ll end this piece with a story of something that happened last week. I went back to the Soy Project where I worked as a student in the neighborhood of San Ramon last Thursday afternoon. I was so excited to see the four women I worked with before and we all hugged and laughed and talked about the funny things that happened when I was there. I updated them on myself and Caitlin and Joanna (the two girls who were with me) and then Juanita proceeded to tell me about all the financial problems they have been having. Basically they lost their funding and they are overworked because they are trying to sell other products to the community to stay open as a kitchen that can distribute soy projects to poorer families in the community. Juanita was doubtful that they could stay open another year. She talked about how she wasn´t sure if she would be able to pay tuition for her son´s Jesuit education ($50 a month). I was overwhelmed with sadness for these amazing women who I respect so much. I really wanted to pull out the $10 that was in my purse and give it to them. But I didn´t. I´m sure they could have used it, but I didn´t want to insult people I respected so much. Instead I paid the standard price of $1 for 4 lbs. of rice and $.65 for two pupusas for dinner. Then I hung out for a while and helped dry dishes while we talked and sang and such. When I left I thought about that desire of mine to save the Soy Project. That is not saying that there is not a time and a place to talk about donations and grants for such a project to stay open. But this was not the time and place, casually handing out $10 to these women would have insulted their dignity and created a very different dynamic in my relation with them. That is not something that I was willing to sacrifice.

Welcome to El Salvador

2008-01-09T18:38:00.000-06:00

Hello from El Salvador! I am now officially back in El Salvador and working with CRISPAZ. I arrived here on December 30th to spend New Year´s and a week of relaxing in El Salvador before starting my orientation this past Monday morning. These past few days have been full of lots of new information and new people. The next few weeks will be similar. Before defining what my role will be for the next 15 months, I need to first become familiar with the organization and the work they do. I also need to become familiar with the groups and organizations doing work with the youth and with the artisans since those are my two main focuses. As I visit sites and meet people, I will begin to work with Ramon (my supervisor) to clarify what my role will be as a volunteer. Needless to say I have been pretty exhausted over the past few days.

Being back in El Salvador is so exciting for me though. As I rode from the airport into the city I soaked in everything:
the smells of burning stoves, bus exhaust, pollo campero, something being fried
the sites of green mountains and volcanoes, new factories, tin houses on the side of the roads, people walking along the highway and selling fruit or candy, torn advertisements, political slogans painted onto hills, mangy dogs running everywhere
the sounds of cars, busses, people and since this past week was New Years, lots and lots of fireworks
At times it is overwhelming but I´m really happy that I get to be back here and that I get to spend an extended amount of time here.

Tomorrow I am going to a meeting with a number of organizations to talk about the negative impacts of using Salvadoran land to produce biodiesal. This way I will get to meet with a number of organizations that Crispaz works with. Friday I will be going around with one of Crispaz´s delegations and on Saturday we are going up to the town of Ciudadela Hundo where two Crispaz volunteers currently live and work to see what they do. I hope to write again sometime this weekend or next week.

I hope everyone had a wonderful New Years.

mucho paz,
Laura

Remembering Rufina Amaya

2007-12-11T22:49:00.000-06:00

Tonight, 12/11/07---
I went to Xavier University to watch a documentary titled: "I am not afraid." It was about a Salvadoran woman named Rufina Amaya who was the lone survivor of a massacre that left around 1,000 people dead. Exhumations show that most of these people were women and children. The massacre of El Mozote took place on this day, December 11, 1981. Rufina lost her husband and four children. She hid in the bushes as she listened to soldiers kill her family and neighbors. She hid in the forest for six days until she made her way to shelter. Her older daughter, living in a town nearby survived the massacre. Her daughter Marta, who is my age, was born after it happened. Marta was present for the showing at Xavier tonight.

For years Rufina told and retold
the story of what happened in El Mozote. She spoke in front of Congress and the British House of Parliament, at churches and schools, at the SOA protest, and in El Mozote itself. In 2005, while studying in El Salvador, I met her and listened to her testimony as she walked us through the burnt remains and brought us the newly constructed church and monument built over what was a mass grave. The previous church had been burnt to the ground while filled with what the exhumations showed to be, mostly children.

Here is the most appalling part:
the soldiers who committed this atrocity were trained by the United States military at the School of the Americas. And despite an outcry from human rights groups everywhere, neither the United States or Salvadoran government would acknowledge the massacre until last year. Despite the fact that in 1991, bodies were exhumed by an Argentinian team who specialized in just that due to the thousands of disappeared people in their own country.

On March 6, 2007,
shortly after telling her story for this documentary that was just released, Rufina died of a heart attack and multiple strokes. Now there are no living survivors of the massacre.

As I reflect
on tonights event, I'm grateful that I went. I feel like the remembering is the best way to honor Rufina. That is what she was fighting for all those years, that what happened in her town be remembered. As the only survivor, she carried that burden. Now that she is gone, its up to the rest of us to remember El Mozote.

Last words:
I close with the words written on the monument built to remember those who died at El Mozote.

Ellos no han muerto Estan con nosotros, ustedes y humanidad entera.

They haven't died. They are with us, with all of you and with all of humanity.

The memorial at El Mozote.

Saint Louis Mission Blog

2007-11-28T22:26:00.000-06:00

In my attempts to fundraise and inform for my time in El Salvador, I was able to connect with the Archdiocese of Saint Louis Mission Office. They were very gracious in offering to allow me to contribute to their mission blog. I figured that it would be a good way to get the word out about what I'll be doing with CRISPAZ to people that I might not reach otherwise. Sooo, my first post was put up last week and for a few days I was actually one of the features on the archdiocese homepage. This blog will be exclusively about what I am doing in El Salvador, but you can also look for my blog updates along with some others on that webpage at:

http://www.stlmissions.org/mission-blog/

To save you the trouble this time, I'll post my most recent reflection here:

Volunteering in El Salvador (for the Archdiocese of Saint Louis Mission Blog)

For the first time since I left for college I have spent an autumn at home with my parents. While I miss biking through Forest Park on a cool October day, it has been nice to enjoy the changing leaves without the stress of classes. I keep thinking how I won’t be here for a Midwest autumn next year. In January, I will leave for El Salvador to begin volunteering with an organization called CRISPAZ: Christians for Peace in El Salvador. A few months ago I moved from Saint Louis where I recently graduated from SLU to Cincinnati to spend my last few months in the states at home with my family. As January comes closer with every falling leaf, I think about how I arrived at this decision and how to best prepare myself to live in a place like El Salvador.

My freshman year I chose to major in social work and international studies with hopes of someday doing social work in developing countries. Therefore when I learned of a study abroad program that SLU offered in El Salvador I quickly applied and was accepted for the spring of my sophomore year. My first experience in El Salvador completely transformed me. I had never been exposed to such poverty and social injustice. Yet, the people that I met in the communities where I worked, completely amazed me with their resilience and their strong faith. Ultimately, I fell in love with the country and with the people.

I remember on my first day spent in the community I worked (students accompanied and volunteered in communities on days we didn’t have class). Juanita, a Salvadoran women who helped run a local nutrition project, took us to visit the home of some of the students who would be in the English class. The yard was full of broken car parts and barbed wire and the two-year hold was running around carrying a hammer. Flies and mosquitoes buzzed around their sink of potable water. The mother was sick and had spent the day in bed but got up to speak with us. Her daughter brought out plastic chairs and we sat and listened to her talk about how hard it had been since her husband left. I was shocked to see people living in such conditions but Juanita continued the conversation and spoke encouraging words to the mother. When we left I remember feeling a new level of respect for Juanita and all the other women in the community who despite their own difficulties continued to devote themselves to the wellbeing of their less fortunate neighbors.

What I saw on that first day at my community site in El Salvador is an everyday reality for most Salvadorans. Sometimes it is hard for me to comprehend that places like my backyard in autumn and Salvadoran slums exist in the same universe. I have been back to visit El Salvador multiple times since I first studied there and I have grown more accustomed to going back and forth between the two worlds. Building connections between people in Latin America and the people in the United States became a big part of my focus as a student at SLU. My senior year as a social work student, I interned with an organization that served immigrant and refugee youth. Most of the kids had experienced intense violence in their lives and the program focused on the healing of that trauma. I though of the violence in El Salvador and how I would really like to do this type of social work there. I chose to return to El Salvador as a CRISPAZ volunteer because one of their key focuses is alternatives to violence for high-risk youth. I would begin work in January 2008.

Now as I sit on my front porch and watch two deer run across our yard, I begin to mentally prepare myself to live in El Salvador for an extended period of time. I think more and more about crowded city busses, sweltering heat, beans and rice, poverty, coffee plants, dusty paths, elevated violence between the gangs and the police, and abundance of tropical fruit and love and strength and faith. Because amidst everything in El Salvador I must remember to love and to do that I will need strength and faith.

A reflection on fundraising

2007-11-11T11:23:00.000-06:00

Ready to hear this? To be completely honest: I was not looking forward to fundraising. shhhh.

I think there is something about asking people for money and putting yourself out there that makes you feel very vulnerable. The worry that people would want to know why I'm asking them for money and not just finding a job. That people wouldn't support what I am doing. That I would fail miserable. etc. etc. Barb, the U.S. Country Coordinator at the CRISPAZ Boston office, kept telling me that I would be surprised by the generosity of people. I was.

I started sending out letters at the end of the summer and have hosted some get togethers, appealed to bigger organizations or groups, etc. As donations started coming in I was really touched by the people who donated to support by work. Some I have not seen in years. Some are women from my mom's Women's Spirituality Groups that I have never met. I was really touched by how supportive people can be. I guess that is that payback for making yourself vulnerable and putting yourself out there.

Yesterday I was reading through my orientation material that I received in the mail and the term "reverse mission" showed up. The idea is that by my going and working in El Salvador, I will be able to bring El Salvador issues and reality to the attention of people in my life back at home. By asking for monetary support and following up with emails and this blog, people will feel more connected to El Salvador than they probably would otherwise. It's perfectly understandable. My going, puts a personal spin on El Salvador for so many people in my life who have never met a Salvadoran. I kind of like that idea.

So for everyone who donated, thank you so much and I promise to do my part by staying in touch and keeping you informed. I really appreciate the support also since by living and working depends on the generosity of others. Thank you Thank you Thank you. Also, if anyone would like to donate I am still fundraising and a quick easy way is to make a online donation which you can do by clicking on the link on the right hand side of this page. Just mention that it is a donation in the name of Laura Hershberger.

Gracias again! ~Laura

Getting Ready

2007-11-11T10:51:00.000-06:00

So now its November and in less then two months I will be back in El Salvador. ah!

It's funny how fast time passes. In April, January seemed really far away. In August, four months in Cincinnati seemed like a really long time. Yet as I settled into the routine of life at home with my parents and at work with the Tew's, it is crazy how quickly the weeks went by. Things that I had been anticipating for a long time like Kerry and Alex's wedding, my visits to Chicago, Penn State and St. Louis and the fundraiser we had at my home came and passed. Next weekend I will go to the School of the Americas protest then spend a few days with my family in Atlanta then its Thanksgiving! how time flies. I guess that is how it goes when you fall into a routine. But the routine will be broken soon by the arrival of my younger sister for a six week school vacation. I'm really excited to spend time with her and enter into the craziness of the holiday season.

So with all the passage of time, I have been thinking more and more about my departure. On Friday I talked with Ramon, the Human Resources Staff at CRISPAZ about my arrival. Then yesterday I received an orientation packet and other logistical information. I'm reminded of the day when my SLU orientation information came in the mail, or when I got the CASA acceptance letter and info in the mail. It makes arriving so much more of a reality. As I pour over the new information I begin to contemplate what this experience will be like.

Now time for a check in: but how am I feeling about leaving for El Salvador?

A crazy mezcla of emotions I guess.

Excitement to be back in Central America doing something I care about and am passionate about.
Curiosity about what my day to day life will be life.
Worry about the stress that comes with major life changes.
Sadness about leaving my family and friends here.
A little bit overwhelmed about all that I have to do before leaving!
Hope that I build new relationships, foster old ones and that I find a place for myself in this exciting journey.

So I'll keep writing and please keep reading as I move forward.

Next week I'll be back at the vigil at the SOA so expect a post-Ft. Benning reflection.

mucho peace to all of you. thanks for reading!

Our Backyard Realities of War

2007-09-03T22:45:00.000-06:00

Our Backyard: Realities of War, offers a glimpse into the lives of
survivors of war, debuts December 2, 2006 in the Anheuser Busch
Auditorium in the Cook School of Business, on the campus of Saint
Louis University, at 7:00 pm. A production of the Otro Mar Project,
co-producers of the highly successful 2005 Sleeping Under the Arch
film festival, and last year's documentary Nightwork, Our Backyard
tells the stories of two Nicaraguan families and one El Salvadoran
family who survived the Nicaraguan and El Salvadoran civil wars in the
1980s.

This past summer, two recent Saint Louis University graduates and one
current senior went to the hills of Central America. They brought
with them two cameras and a desire to tell a story as yet untold above
the border. Without any formal training in film-making, they brought
their passion and their footage to the Otro Mar Project with the hopes
of finding a refined eye and a skilled hand for the final process of
story-telling.

Offering a close-up view of personal experiences of the violence,
suffering, loss, and refugeeism that resulted from raising families in
the turbulence of civil war, Our Backyard focuses on three families
who were caught between internationally financed armed forces and the
local guerrilla resistance. Moving between the green mountains of of
both countries, and the sultry urban landscape of Managua, Nicaragua,
the film recounts the air raids, fragmentation of families,
kidnappings, massacres, refugee camps, and disruption of everyday
realities that transpired during the decade-long wars. Told in an
intimate manner of one confidant to another, Our Backyard remembers
history in a way rarely presented--listening without interrupting,
acknowledging without evaluating.

The Otro Mar Project, a non-profit organization promoting awareness of
social justice issues through film, produced This Is The Blues Man's
Home for the Sleeping Under The Arch film festival in March-April
2005, which drew over 500 attendees. Putting the camera in the hands
of Saint Louis University students and community filmmakers, Otro Mar
builds bridges to marginalized communities, giving voice to
underrepresented people and issues with the goal of inspiring
awareness, conversation and ultimately, justice for the
disenfranchised and oppressed.

For copies of the documentary, please contact: hershble@gmail.com

Previous Trips to El Salvador: Shooting the Documentary

2007-09-03T22:18:00.000-06:00

I already talked about how I studied in El Salvador at the Casa de la Solidaridad and also how I have returned twice to visit. Now I'm going to talk about the project that I worked on for most of 2006. Like my semester at the Casa, this endeavor was very formative in my college experience. It started out as a cool idea among friend in January of 2006 and ended up as a forty-eight minute documentary about war and its affects.

When I returned to SLU my junior year, I started to think about returning to Latin America when I graduated. I had heard of language schools in Guatemala and that language school would be a very beneficial experience as my Spanish skills left much to be desired. I also really wanted to travel more in Central America. I proposed the idea to my good friend Tina who also wanted to return to Central America. Tina had studied with me at the Casa but a year earlier had spent the summer in Nicaragua doing a similar program. Our friend James had also studied in Nicaragua and also wanted to return to visit. Around this time, an organization at SLU called Otro Mar was gaining lots of attention. Otro Mar created documentaries about social justice issues such as: homelessness, third-shift nightworkers and immigration. We approached them about the possibility of creating a documentary about the long term affects of war in Central America. They were able to help us, but not fund us. So we fundraised money for cameras and operating expenses and spent most of the Spring preparing for our trip.

In May, Tina and James left for Nicaragua to begin interviewing people about their experiences during the war. I was taking a class at SLU and then going on a family vacation so I did not leave with them. I also had decided to attend language school to improve my Spanish before meeting up with them. So in June, I left for Guatemala. I spent three weeks in Guatemala with some friends, studying Spanish and travelling, before I returned to El Salvador where Tina was waiting for me (James had already left). With the help of friends, she and I did some more interviews and collected information. During this time I was able to travel to Nicaragua to meet the families that James and Tina had lived with. In total, I was in Central America for seven weeks.

Between the three of us, we did about twenty-five interviews. Some talked about the politics of the war, some gave us history, some talked about personal stories. Everyone was open and hospitable. We could not have done any of it without help from friends in both Nicaragua and El Salvador. A large part of the fall of 2006 was spent creating the documentary with the people from Otro Mar. We premiered the film on December 2nd. We have showed it around St. Louis and are still selling copies.

By participating in this project, I gave even more time and energy into the people and the history of El Salvador. Returning for such an extended period of time on my own was a lot different from being a student and a lot more challenging. The time spent in peoples homes and the hours spent watching the interviews, researching the history, going through photos and war footage, all invested me in the country even more than before. Though it was more challenging, I am grateful for this experience because I think it better prepared me to return.

Check out the following post for information about the documentary.

Previous Trips to El Salvador: Picture from Visiting

2007-09-03T22:16:00.000-06:00

Dinner at the Casa when I visited this past March (2007).

Previous Trips to El Salvador: Visiting

2007-09-03T22:05:00.000-06:00

Five months after I studied at the Casa I returned for a week long visit with my Casa mate and good friend from SLU, Dan. One other Casa mate, Jillian, met us there. Though it was strange to see new students living in the houses where I had lived and going to my praxis site, everyone was really nice and it was really great to be back. I felt as though little had changed. It was the raining season and a hurricane had hit El Salvador two weeks earlier. In some places it was devastating and flying in, I could see where the land had flooded. Most of the people I knew had not been too affected though. Before leaving, some other students from SLU and myself had organized a small fundraiser on campus to donate to the relief effort. Dan and I brought it with us when we visited. The week went by very fast and soon I was back at SLU.

In the next blog I will go into detail of my trip in the Summer of 2006, but that was the next time that I visited. My last visit to El Salvador was last March, when I went for my Spring Break. It was during this trip that I interviewed with CRISPAZ and was able to see the office. Some of my friends were working at the Casa this past year and I was able to see them. This trip was similar to the one mentioned above in that I mostly just visited friends and hung out and ate pupusas. I did get sick, but luckily I was only bedridden for one day. This time when I left I thought a lot about how it was very possible that my next return to El Salvador would be long term. It made leaving a little easier.

Previous Trips to El Salvador: Pictures from the Casa

2007-09-03T21:58:00.001-06:00

With one of the little girls from Centro Hogar, the nursery school where we worked.
My praxis partners Caitlin, Joanna and myself with the women from the Soy Project.
With Tere, one of the girls I lived with in Casa Silvia.

Previous Trips to El Salvador: Casa de la Solidaridad

2007-09-03T21:08:00.000-06:00

I have been interested in Latin America for a long time, so when I first started at Saint Louis University I was excited to see that they offered a study abroad program in El Salvador. In the Spring of 2005, my sophomore year, I was accepted into the Casa de la Solidaridad program based out of San Salvador, El Salvador. The Casa is a four month program where students from Jesuit Universities in the United States study at the University of Central America (UCA), the Jesuit University of El Salvador. (For info about the Casa, go to www.scu.edu/casa).

Living
Casa students live in community with the other American and Salvadoran students. At the time there were three houses for all the students, I lived in a house named Casa Silvia, with a community facilitator and seven other students: two Salvadorans, five Americans. I loved my house and my housemates as well as all the other program participants and workers. Still today, people I met as a Casa student are really important to me.

Praxis
We were all assigned praxis sites with one or two other students where we would go twice a week for eight hours to learn and to help out. My praxis site was the community of San Ramon in the municipal of Mejicanos. My praxis partners Joanna, Caitlin and I spent our mornings in a nursery school where we assisted the teachers and visisted families with the social worker. My first day with those children was incredibly challenging and I dreading returning. My last day with them was heartbreaking and I dreaded leaving. I loved those kids so much and count them as some of my greatest Salvadoran teachers along with Gloria, the social worker.
At noon, we would leave for the Soy Project, an endeavor started to combat malnutrition. We ate lunch with the four Salvadoran women who ran the project and then helped distribute soy milk and bread. The women were really fun and have since opened a lunch restaurant to help fund the project, I plan on eating there a lot upon my return in January.
In the afternoons we worked with a Christian Base Community called El Pueblo de Dios en Camino. Once a week we taught and English class and once a week we visited homes. The community is really inspiring and has gone through a lot in the name of their faith and their committment to justice.
Though I took classes at the UCA on the days that I was not at praxis, I think most of my learning in El Salvador happened in San Ramon. Nothing I could have ever learned in a classroom could have changed me as much as my time in that community changed me.

Life in El Salvador
I mentioned that I took classes three days a week, so between my praxis site, community life and going to class, I was pretty busy. Yet there was so many other things that I did during my semester that shaped my experience. I can't go into detail of everything but some highlights include:
A week spent living with a family in the countryside (campo)
The vigil for the twenty-fifth anniversary of the death of Archbishop Oscar Romero
Climbing a volcano
Visits to the homes of some of my Salvadoran friends whom I was living with
Trips to the beach
Holy Week when my family visited
A silent retreat in Guatemala
Buying pupusas, juice and chocolate bananas off the street
lots and lots more

It has now been over two and a half years since I studied at the Casa de la Solidaridad, and I have since visited to El Salvador a few times and returned to SLU for two years to finish my degree. Yet, it was a very transformative experience in my life and I'm incredibly grateful that I had that opportunity.

Where is El Salvador?

2007-07-30T20:56:00.000-06:00

In case you were wondering, El Salvador is in Central America. It's south of Guatemala and Honduras and is located on the Pacific side of the continent. It is one of the smallest nations in Latin America and is roughly the size of the state of Massachusetts.

My fundraising letter

2007-07-30T20:41:00.000-06:00

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world” –Anne Frank

August, 2007

Dear Friends,

I am writing to you to ask for your support in a life-changing journey I am about to embark on. As you may know, I have spent time in El Salvador, working with communities whom I have come to befriend. This January, I will return to El Salvador for a year and a half to work with a Christians for Peace in El Salvador (CRISPAZ), a wonderful organization that strives to accompany impoverished Salvadoran communities as they work for peace and social justice. As a CRISPAZ volunteer, I will be partnered up with a Salvadoran organization that works with high-risk Salvadoran youth.

While living in El Salvador, I will live simply in solidarity with the majority of Salvadorans. Unfortunately, although this work is very important, most Salvadoran organizations in need of volunteers cannot afford to pay for basic needs. Therefore, I am asking your help in fundraising $8,000 for a year and a half. The money that I fundraise will cover the basics of food, housing and health insurance and to support CRISPAZ in their work.

To make an online donation go to: https://www.communityroom.net/donate.asp?id=245 and write: Donation for Laura Hershberger, in the Special instructions.

Building connections between Salvadorans and North Americans is an important focus of CRISPAZ and I would love to keep you updated on the work that I am doing and the people that I am meeting. Therefore, please send me your email if you would like to receive updates from me while I am in El Salvador. Feel free to contact me with any questions about the work I will be doing or about making a donation.

Thank you!

Sincerely,

Laura Hershberger

CRISPAZ website

2007-07-30T20:37:00.000-06:00

To learn more about CRISPAZ, the organization that I will be volunteering with, check out their website:

www.crispaz.org

Welcome to my blog!

2007-07-30T20:35:00.000-06:00

Welcome to my El Salvador blog! Seeing as I am not going to be in El Salvador until January, it will be a little while before I start posting reflections, however keep checking and I will try to post information about CRISPAZ and El Salvador before I leave. I'll also post some stuff from previous trips to El Salvador.

Gracias y disfruta!

-Laura