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The First Week...
Jun. 6th, 2005 | 05:24 pm
Hello All...So I´ve been here for a week - wow, I don't believe it, we have done so much in so little time...We have been traveling around a lot, yesterday we returned from a night at La Playa de Espino (for those who don´t know Spanish, it’s a beach here). I spent the night in a hammock almost directly on the beach. The starlight was amazing because we were so far from any major light polution. The water was so warm; it is something that I will miss when I return to the beaches in California.
But let me begin with what we have done these past few days, because I feel like I’ve been here for more than the 6 days that I have. One of the most thought provoking days was the other day when we went to all the Romero sites. We went to the Cathedral and saw the new tomb where Romero is buried; it has a beautiful wooden depiction of Romero with angels holding the four gospels around him, however it is now behind the altar in the bottom part of the Cathedral. Which makes it interesting to think about what that symbolizes. We then went to La Iglesia del Rosario – which was this amazing church that was completely made out of stone and it looked like a cave, it also had a depiction of the Stations of the Cross done in metal and stone that was very powerful, I hope to go back and get pictures of it to share with everyone. After that, we went to the church where Romero was assassinated and to his casa. Walking around there made Romero so real, I mean, I have always known that Romero was real, but there is a difference in reading about his assassination, reading about his life and reading about the people he affected; and it is a totally different thing to actually be in the presence of his spirit, his legacy, his life as it was when he was alive. It was eery and enthralling. It made the reality of Romero’s life much more meaningful to me, especially how much he wanted people to know the love and Justice of God. This can be paralleled with what we just saw. We just returened from UCA (Universidad de Centro America), where the 6 Jesuit priests were assassinated by the national army in 1989. We saw where they were killed and the pictures from the actual massacre, it was really gut wrenching. It was crazy to think about how much I didn't know about what happened and is happening down here. (P.S. For those who took Liberation Theology with me, our Systematic Theology book was on sale there because it was written by Ellacuría, who was assassinated, and Sobrino, who was gone when the assassins came.) So, all this torture and massacres and death was happening in El Salvador and throughout Latin America and out comes this amazing Theology based in the Truth that Jesus was and is a Liberator. WOW! There are no words to describe the emotions when faced the reality of what was and what is El Salvador and the faith here.
I guess that leads into what we were talking about last night, we spent half of the night talking about the UN Peace Accords of 1992. Javier told us about what they covered and what has happened since then, it is so interesting, and I wish that I had written it all down. But something that struck me last night was the reality that I am sitting in right now. I am sitting in a reality that knows the profit comes before people and I donnot understand that, and I cannot even want to understand that. I say this because the last president of El Salvador promised to make El Salvador a country of maquilas (or factories). He said this because maquilas are the way that countries life El Salvador see money coming into the country without people leaving (one of the top incomes for the nation are from immigrants who are sending money back to their families). So, even though El Salvador is an agricultural country, the government, mainly the president, is trying to change it into a maquila-based country. I donnot understand this because I donnot understand why I – as a product of a developed nation – tend to see those jobs based in agriculture as less than jobs elsewhere. If we – as people – did not have others to work in agriculture then where would we be, we would have no food. Why can we not dignify the lives of those who work with their hands; those who break their backs to allow us to consume, to live. I cannot understand the reasons that lead some to dehumanize others so that they can make a pretty penny. I cannot comprehend how persons can put money before people. We – as a nation – talk about ‘Freedom’ and ‘Human Rights’ and I think that both of those lie in our understanding of persons, we must treat one another with the basics of human dignity to realize that we are all human, we are all trying to live our lives to the best we can, and we are all inherently equal, although the societies we grow up in make us unequal in material ways.
All this, although it leaves me baffled and frustrated, is met here with love. Although the entanglement of the US government in El Salvador has contruibuted to many massacres and oppression, I am met with love. I have a family who is waiting to meet me, who is allowing me (a gringa who will barely be able to communicate with them) to live with them for a summer, a family who has close to nothing in material ways, but is full of love and compassion to merely take me in for the summer so that I can understand their way of life. With the community I will be in I will work, side by side, and it is through this that I pray I will continue to work side-by-side when I return to the States, to be a sign of solidarity in my actions.
So, that’s where I am at as I sit and write this, perhaps it is not fully thought through, and perhaps it makes little to no sense, but it is the thoughts and the emotions that are going through me as I sit miles from my ‘home’ and look into a different reality than what I grew up with.
Yet, I stick with these word that trail all of my emails:
Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer...
-Rainer Maria Rilke
But let me begin with what we have done these past few days, because I feel like I’ve been here for more than the 6 days that I have. One of the most thought provoking days was the other day when we went to all the Romero sites. We went to the Cathedral and saw the new tomb where Romero is buried; it has a beautiful wooden depiction of Romero with angels holding the four gospels around him, however it is now behind the altar in the bottom part of the Cathedral. Which makes it interesting to think about what that symbolizes. We then went to La Iglesia del Rosario – which was this amazing church that was completely made out of stone and it looked like a cave, it also had a depiction of the Stations of the Cross done in metal and stone that was very powerful, I hope to go back and get pictures of it to share with everyone. After that, we went to the church where Romero was assassinated and to his casa. Walking around there made Romero so real, I mean, I have always known that Romero was real, but there is a difference in reading about his assassination, reading about his life and reading about the people he affected; and it is a totally different thing to actually be in the presence of his spirit, his legacy, his life as it was when he was alive. It was eery and enthralling. It made the reality of Romero’s life much more meaningful to me, especially how much he wanted people to know the love and Justice of God. This can be paralleled with what we just saw. We just returened from UCA (Universidad de Centro America), where the 6 Jesuit priests were assassinated by the national army in 1989. We saw where they were killed and the pictures from the actual massacre, it was really gut wrenching. It was crazy to think about how much I didn't know about what happened and is happening down here. (P.S. For those who took Liberation Theology with me, our Systematic Theology book was on sale there because it was written by Ellacuría, who was assassinated, and Sobrino, who was gone when the assassins came.) So, all this torture and massacres and death was happening in El Salvador and throughout Latin America and out comes this amazing Theology based in the Truth that Jesus was and is a Liberator. WOW! There are no words to describe the emotions when faced the reality of what was and what is El Salvador and the faith here.
I guess that leads into what we were talking about last night, we spent half of the night talking about the UN Peace Accords of 1992. Javier told us about what they covered and what has happened since then, it is so interesting, and I wish that I had written it all down. But something that struck me last night was the reality that I am sitting in right now. I am sitting in a reality that knows the profit comes before people and I donnot understand that, and I cannot even want to understand that. I say this because the last president of El Salvador promised to make El Salvador a country of maquilas (or factories). He said this because maquilas are the way that countries life El Salvador see money coming into the country without people leaving (one of the top incomes for the nation are from immigrants who are sending money back to their families). So, even though El Salvador is an agricultural country, the government, mainly the president, is trying to change it into a maquila-based country. I donnot understand this because I donnot understand why I – as a product of a developed nation – tend to see those jobs based in agriculture as less than jobs elsewhere. If we – as people – did not have others to work in agriculture then where would we be, we would have no food. Why can we not dignify the lives of those who work with their hands; those who break their backs to allow us to consume, to live. I cannot understand the reasons that lead some to dehumanize others so that they can make a pretty penny. I cannot comprehend how persons can put money before people. We – as a nation – talk about ‘Freedom’ and ‘Human Rights’ and I think that both of those lie in our understanding of persons, we must treat one another with the basics of human dignity to realize that we are all human, we are all trying to live our lives to the best we can, and we are all inherently equal, although the societies we grow up in make us unequal in material ways.
All this, although it leaves me baffled and frustrated, is met here with love. Although the entanglement of the US government in El Salvador has contruibuted to many massacres and oppression, I am met with love. I have a family who is waiting to meet me, who is allowing me (a gringa who will barely be able to communicate with them) to live with them for a summer, a family who has close to nothing in material ways, but is full of love and compassion to merely take me in for the summer so that I can understand their way of life. With the community I will be in I will work, side by side, and it is through this that I pray I will continue to work side-by-side when I return to the States, to be a sign of solidarity in my actions.
So, that’s where I am at as I sit and write this, perhaps it is not fully thought through, and perhaps it makes little to no sense, but it is the thoughts and the emotions that are going through me as I sit miles from my ‘home’ and look into a different reality than what I grew up with.
Yet, I stick with these word that trail all of my emails:
Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer...
-Rainer Maria Rilke