An El Salvador weekend

Our great mission team got on the plane very early this morning - at least most of them did: a few are relaxing at the beach or with family, Zach Pedersen is on the way to Panama, and Cathy MacKay has started a three-month language-learning stay in El Salvador. Kathy Garcia and I drove back to the base house in Suchitoto and well-deserved naps.

Between the end of clinics on Friday and the plane ride this morning, our team members expanded their understanding of this beautiful country. We spent Saturday in the capital, San Salvador, visiting the Hospital de Divina Providencia where Monseñor Romero lived and was assassinated in 1980; we heard the story from Sister Bernadita, a Honduran nun and the only person who makes Kathy Garcia look like a basketball player. At the University of Central America (UCA) we learned about the assassination of six Jesuits, their housekeeper and her daughter nine years later. And we took a little time for shopping and sightseeing.

Saturday evening we had the traditional pizza-beer-and-coconut-ice-cream dinner, this time at the home of Leslie Schuld, Director of the CIS (Center for Interchange and Solidarity), and got to hear Leslie's take on politics, economics, crime and development in El Salvador, knowledge borne of 16 years in the country.

Sunday was our Suchitoto day, beginning with an inspiring conversation with Sister Peggy O'Neill at the Centro Arte para la Paz. Peggy reminded our team that the medicines and glasses we offered mattered less than the attention, respect and dignity we gave our patients; and that our consciousness of the limitation of what we could give was also a grace.

After a few hours to walk and shop in Suchitoto, the team headed for our new Base House and lunch and time to sit under the lemon tree and relax. Then it was back to the Novo Hotel, our elegant weekend lodging, to debrief and pack and get to bed early for the long trip home.

A visit to El Bario

Yesterday Alexine, Margaret Jane and I visited El Bario, a village that is part of the Suchitoto municipality. Many people from El Bario lived in the Calle Real refugee camp in the mid-1980s when Margaret Jane and Andrea Nenzel worked there - walking in with Margaret Jane is a bit like being an escort for a star! Lita, who once travelled to a Geneva conference on refugees with Margaret Jane, showed us around her beautiful and well-organized village. In the top photo, Lita (in pink) stands with her mother, Margaret Jane and Alexine. Other photos show the village chapel, Alexine with two very delightful young girls, an older girl with a hen on the way to market, and a mother watching over her daughters who are embroidering panels for baby dresses. The panels end up on clothes in the United States; the girls get two dollars for each panel, which is pretty good pay in El Salvador, especially for work that can be done in a friendly group of girls.

El Bario was organized as a cooperative in the 1970s. They were forced off their land during the Civil War, but were one of the first communities to return in the late 1980s - in part because they feared that if they did not return they would lose their land. This is a very well organized farming community, with a school, a community center, a corn mill, a small store and the chapel; it feels to someone from the United States like an extended family, and so it is. Lita sent us home with embroidered handkerchiefs and a recently published study of El Bario's history and present life - great memories of a very special day.

Honoring the Jesuits of the UCA

Yesterday Pat and I drove in to San Salvador for a memorial Mass in the crypt of the Cathedral, honoring the six Jesuits and their companions, assassinated twenty years ago on November 16th. It was a beautiful Mass, and the huge crypt - chosen because it is the burial place of Monseñor Romero and a sacred place for Salvadorans - was packed with people. The Jesuit Provincial, Father Jesús Salguero, said the Mass, with the current rector of the UCA, Fr. José María Tojeira, and several priests assisting. Cardinal Keith Patrick O’Brien of St. Andrews and Edinburgh talked at the end of the Mass, calling for the rapid canonization of Monseñor Romero, which drew a huge round of applause.

Today the murdered Jesuits were honored by Mauricio Funes, President of El Salvador, who presented them posthumously with the "José Matías Delgado" order of the golden cross - El Salvador's highest honor - which was accepted by their families and their Jesuit colleagues. This honor was an important symbol of the changing times in El Salvador, and perhaps a beginning of a process of truth-telling and reconciliation that has never yet happened publicly.

Photo by Jane Halsey from the rose garden at the UCA marking the place where the Jesuits were assassinated.

A time of terrible memories

Today the Jesuit community of the UCA (University of Central America) is remembering the Jesuits assassinated 20 years ago on their campus. Last night the community of El Sitio Cenizero, a village settled by survivors of the 1983 massacre of the people of Copapayo, remembered those who died during the three terrible days of killing. Margaret Jane and I heard the story of the Copapayo massacre two years ago, when the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace sponsored a week of study and reflection in El Salvador. I turned the story into a poem, and in memory of all those lives squandered so terribly during the Civil War, here it is:


Copapayo

He stands staring into his hands
moving them back and forth
talking to the ghosts that live there.

He cannot lift his eyes to look at us
because we are the ones who were not there
and so are still living.

He is compelled to tell the story
again and again, talking into his hands
to the ones who are not here,

Mamá. Papá. Tia. Hermana. Sobrino.
How they came down into the canyon to the lake
looking to go home again, was it safe? Was the Army
somewhere else? Looking to go home to plant the fields
with corn and beans, to harvest oranges. Peasants, paisanos,
thought to be ripe for communism, wanting rights
they shouldn’t have. He was just ten,
old enough to help. They sent out scouts,
the army came back after them, there was no time
to run, no where to hide, they started shooting,
bodies fell, beloved ones fell, blood fell into the lake.
After a while the army rounded up the survivors
and marched them away. The officer told some of the men
they could take the young girls, do as they liked with them.
He heard the girls screaming as they marched the others up
the hill away, he hears them still.

They were thirsty, hungry, so afraid. The soldiers said
they’d take them to a camp. After a while. First they were marched
to another village, not their own, He found his aunt and sister on the march,
still living, walking, and they walked together, kept together,
They were divided into three groups, sent to different corners
of the village, his group in tall grass when he heard the shots begin
and dived back, a small, thin boy, into the tall grass, trying to tell
his aunt, his sister to come hide with him, but then he was alone
alive holding silence while the world erupted into gunfire
and the soldiers joked and reloaded and shot some more
and tossed some branches over the dead and went away
and only he and Pedro were left, and Pedro, older boy, was
wounded so he couldn’t walk and he tended him for a night
and a day, fetched water for him, but he couldn’t carry Pedro
and he had to leave and the weight of what still feels like betrayal still
hides in the lines of his hands.

But he left and walked back to the canyon, past the bodies of the girls
now torn and dismembered by dogs, past the bodies of the ones
who had died in the canyon, no one left, no one alive to break
the silence, and he walked back to the village where the corn fields
were still unplanted and the orange tree hung heavy with fruit
and he hid in a hole in the earth like a dead boy until he heard
voices and it was the guerrillas gathering oranges and he came out,
and there was his uncle, the only one left, who put down the oranges
and gathered him up, cipote, precioso, and then the story
is over.

He stands staring into his hands
moving them back and forth
talking to the ghosts that live there.

He cannot lift his eyes to look at us
because we are the ones who were not there
and so are still living.

He is compelled to tell the story
again and again, talking into his hands
to the ones who are not here.

Travelling with Hermana Margarita

Travelling anywhere around Suchitoto - probably anywhere around El Salvador - with Margaret Jane Kling - is glorious. Many, many people in this area remember Margaret Jane well from the Civil War years when she and Andrea Nenzel were the North American presence that kept the refugee population in the Calle Real camp safe, and they are so delighted to see her again, to give her news of their families, to ask where Sister Andrea is, to exchange un abrazo fuerte (a big hug).

Yesterday Margaret Jane and I went with Lita, one of the strong women from Calle Real who now lives near Suchitoto, to visit Fausto and his family in Tenancingo (that's Margaret Jane, Fausto and Lita in the top photo). Fausto became a refugee in Canada after his days in Calle Real, and spent 8 years in the Edmonton area; his two older daughters, now teenagers, are Canadian/Salvadoran citizens, and one of them, Andrea Elizabeth, is named after Andrea Nenzel. The two younger children, a girl and a boy, were born in El Salvador.

Fausto brought out his photo album to show us photos of Margaret Jane and Andrea 20-plus years ago, and the stories about life at Calle Real came thick and fast - the time a depressed young man tried to kill himself with rat poison (they found the antidote), the time the Army came wanting to get the names of everyone there and Andrea and Margaret Jane, who had very little Spanish at that time, had to hold them off, stories of births and deaths and living with daily fear.

Since he came back to El Salvador, Fausto has created a little paradise around his house - many fruit trees (lime, orange, marañon - that's cashew - mango, banana) with orchids and flowering plants beneath them. It's a beautiful place that witnesses his love of life and the artistic touch of his wife, Transito - who also makes the best pupusas I've ever eaten. Though both the older girls want to return to Canada - no doubt for better schooling and better opportunities - and Fausto is working to get papers for the whole family, I wonder if the many positive they'll find in life there can compensate for the loss of this beautiful home.

Check-ups with Dr. Bob

Dr. Bob Rea, who was one of our ophthalmologists for the April surgery mission, was back in El Salvador this past weekend, taking part in a seminar organized by FUDEM - a local non-profit - to teach Salvadoran ophthalmologists a new technique for cataract surgery. Bob also wanted to visit a couple of the patients he had been most concerned about, to see how they were doing post-surgery, so I picked him up at his hotel on Monday and we (Bob, me, and my guest, Patti Moore) went driving out to Sonsonate where we connected with Armando and his son Fidel. Bob had brought Armando some medications, and in turn the family showered us with gifts - I took home a huge bottle of organic honey, which will give us and our guests much delight. Fidel came to lunch with us in Juayua, high up in the mountains above Sonsonate, and showed us some spectacular viewpoints.

Then we drove out to El Paisnal, about two hours away, where we connected with Emilio, another patient who'd had a complicated case. Emilio was surrounded by family and by a varied group of fowl that included chicken, geese, and turkeys. After the successful check-up, Emilio's daughter-in-law told us the painful story of what it had been like in El Paisnal during the war years, when almost everyone left, for Honduras or for the mountains. "I cried for a year," she said "after it was over," crying for the family and friends who had died, and for the guitar player who once made music for their Christian base community.

For me, as for Bob, it was a special joy to see these two men in their own homes. Earlier in the year, they had been the patients and we had been the providers of care. Now they were the hosts, we the guests.

This morning I took my two guests, Patti Moore and Dr. Bob Rea, to the airport for their flights home. It's been lovely having Patti here for two weeks, and Bob's day of check-ups was grand. It's good, too, to return to ordinary work and to build community with Margaret Jane.

Una despedida dulce y triste

A sweet and sad farewell - Peggy O'Neill and I hosted a luncheon for Eleanor's many Salvadoran friends today - we had about 40 people somehow fitting in to our house, and all of them had something special to say about Eleanor. Some, like Doctor Jorge Cabezas and Estela Garcia, remembered the days during the war at Jesuit Refugee Service, when Eleanor (first with Margaret Jane Kling and then with Margaret Byrne) got up long before dawn to get patients to the hospitals, when she faced being twice arrested with courage. Others, like Margarita, Gloria and Clelia from the Pastoral de Salud of the Archdiocese, talked about what she has done for the people of El Salvador by bringing PazSalud and the medical missions here. Peggy talked about how important it was to have a Sister-friend, and how important it is in the United States that this mission and presence continues.

A note from Guadalupe says beautifully what all were saying: Para mi es un regalo de Dios conocerle. Siempre estara dentro de mi corazon - For me it is a gift of God to know you. You will always be in my heart.

Thank you, Eleanor, for the way you have kept faith with the people of El Salvador these many years. You will always be in their hearts.

Francisco

This is Francisco, one of our two vigilantes (guards) and the one who rescued me when I was trapped between the locked front gate and the locked front door. The gun is part of his working uniform. I don't know whether it's loaded or not, though I suppose it is. I do know that when Francisco thinks a situation could be dangerous, he does what I'd do - he calls the police.

After he rescued me, we had a couple of great conversations (en español) about life. Francisco's brothers and sisters mostly went to the United States 30 years ago, and they've prospered and raised families there. People think he should have lots of money because he has all these relatives in the U.S., but they don't come home any more, and all he's ever gotten from any of them was a pair of snakeskin boots and a fancy watch one brother gave him.

Francisco doesn't want to live in the U.S. His life here is not rich, but it's full and real. When he's not protecting us, he goes down to the Alcaldia (City Hall) where his wife has a food stand, and he helps her. They have two teenage children and love them. He's involved with his church and he's part of a group for lisiados, wounded veterans from the civil war - both sides, he says, because no importa which side you were on when you got wounded. He just managed to buy a little bit of land in Apopa that has a ramshackle house on it, so it sounds like he will be spending his precious few hours of time off beginning to build his new house. Buen hombre. A good man.

At Calle Real

Today was a day for memories and visits. In the morning, we went to the offices of the Archdiocese of San Salvador where Andrea visited with Dina, her friend here from the mid-1980s when Sisters Andrea and Margaret Jane Kling worked together at Calle Real, the Archdiocesan refugee camp outside the city. Sister Eleanor worked there for a month at the beginning of her first time in El Salvador, and shared the memories of what it had been. I've heard several stories about Calle Real, especially on this visit. There was the time Andrea and Margaret Jane were pistol-whipped and had their car stolen by the police (a very effective priest in the Archdiocesan offices persuaded the police to return the vehicle). There were memories of eating beans and rice and the necessary tortilla, nothing more, with a plastic spoon and a bowl, and in the rainy season when water trucks and food trucks couldn't get up the very steep dirt road to Calle Real, even those simple foods weren't to be found. There was the time when the women of the camp would not let the police take men away from the refuge - and the women prevailed.

In the afternoon we visited Calle Real itself, now a retreat center. Little remains that Andrea and Eleanor could identify except the look of the land itself, but we found one ramshackle building with a concrete floor, plywood walls and a tin roof that was probably one of the communal houses. Trees had grown where once there was a clear vista to the north. No one except a gardener seemed to be there, but we felt the presence of all those refugees who had passed through Calle Real and found help and food and friendship there.