You can choose to make everything new. Right now.
19 Oct 2011 Leave a Comment
Before we could reach the apartment, the door swung open to reveal the bright and smiling face of a young lady who drastically resembled my friend Emily. This would be strange, except that she happened to be Emily’s older sister, who happened to be living in El Salvador, which is where we happened to be spending the next few rainy days (in order to break up the ridiculously long bus journey to Costa Rica). Due to the similarities between the sisters, a double-take would often be necessary to remind me that it was Andrea sitting across from me and not my pal back in Michigan. This was nice; a familiar face always makes you feel closer to home.
The bus ride from Guatemala City to El Salvador took longer than expected due to the tropical depression that Central America is currently dealing with. Around dinnertime we rolled into a dark city that did not appear to be horribly different from the last. A trip to the market revealed that the country’s capital had all the accommodations of your standard developed city: McDonalds and Walmart, malls and museums. There was, of course, the added accommodations of high walls lined with razor wire and armed guards holding guns of various sizes standing at the gates, ATMs, and almost every other location. We were instructed to always take a taxi from point A to B, regardless of the distance. That is, if we wished to remain alive and in possession of our things. We graciously followed these words of wisdom which would bring us to eventually depart the city unharmed and unrobed.
The capital of this Central American nation still bears the scars of the Salvadoran Civil War. From 1980 until 1992, it is said that some 75,000 people were killed. And, like any war, the lasting effects of power, poverty and oppression have left behind their lingering stench. There is an energy in this place that I would imagine most visitors can feel even without an understanding of the history.
“Six prominent Jesuit priests, including the rector and vice rector of El Salvador’s most prestigious university, were killed early today along with two other persons at the house where they slept in the capital. The priests were the most prominent victims of Salvadoran violence since 1980, when eight leftist politicians were gunned down by the military, three American nuns and a lay worker were shot dead and archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero was assassinated as he said mass. Today’s execution-style slayings, which may have been preceded by torture, took place as the government armed forces unleashed heavy air and artillery attacks on strongholds established by leftist guerrillas in the massive offensive they launched last Saturday.”
I found this old article online and felt that it did a good job of providing some sad and real insight. Oscar Romero is an El Salvadorian man best remembered for having spoken out against poverty, social injustice, and torture before he faced an assassination in 1980. Just outside of San Salvador any curious traveler can visit Divina Providencia, the church where Oscar Romero was murdered. Just across the street, his former living quarters are also open to the public; his bed, his car, his bible, and many of his other belongings are out on display. The atmosphere of the building is heavy when you walk in and I found it thickening when the eerie blood stained cloths came into view. They hang behind glass in one of the small rooms and are what he wore when standing in front of the congregation during his final moments. The place is not exactly a barrel of fun, but it is an important one that more people should know and understand.
We continued our cultural and historical afternoon by next making our way to Universidad Centroamericana, the subject of the article clipping I posted above. The six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter were shot to death in 1989 at this location. Needless to say the mood didn’t lighten up here. Pictures of the bodies were available for viewing, which I quickly opted out of. The war and the murders are a lasting point of contention in the country of El Salvador today. I will refrain from giving you my personal political opinion and will simply encourage you to dive a bit deeper into the issue if you wish to find your own.
The country is small, the elites are few and many presidents have come out of the educational institution, Escuela Americana, where Andrea works as a teacher of U.S. history. It is a true reality that she and her colleagues have an opportunity to help direct this nation by how and what they teach these children, who will most likely lead this nation–with its massive stratification between the rich and poor–someday. This is a pretty thick responsibility yet they all seem to take it in stride with their laid back demeanors and primarily free-spirited nature.
Our last night in San Salvador was spent in a church sorting clothing and putting together relief baskets for those effected by the storm that I mentioned at the beginning of this post. The flooding has hit El Salvador harder than most. Around one to two hundred people worked together with voices yelling “Men’s pants here and women’s shirts there.” “Hey Andrea! Do you have the nino cloths?!” I yelled across piles of people and clothing while mixing my English and Spanish. A Young Salvadorian girl sat down next to me. “Where are you from?” she asked, ready to practice her English. We chatted for a bit (and laughed at our difficulty in communicating) while we haphazardly piled the musty clothes. Around us assembly lines put together bags of food, chains of people passed kilos of sugar from one end of the room to the other, and cheerful shouting continued. “Over there for rice! Sugar is here! Two bags of beans each please.” It was a happy scene of laughter and work that nicely offset the somber historical visit that consumed the bulk of our day. The truth is, I had a lot of fun and it brought me to a pondering of how disaster has a way of bringing people together.
What you need to know about the past is that no matter what has happened, it has all worked together to bring you to this very moment. And this is the moment you can choose to make everything new. Right now. ~Author Unknown
