Nicaragua--Spring Break

Well, here we are nine weeks into our program. I cannot believe that we are on the last leg of our journey here in Central America with only six weeks remaining. In the wee hours of Sunday morning we started our journey to Nicaragua. We boarded a bus at three a.m. for a ten hour journey through Honduras and back down to Nicaragua to arrive in Managua in the late afternoon. As warned we were greeted by the sweltering heat here, with highs in the mid ninety degree range every day.  We have spent our first two days living in our student center that is also a hostel, and this afternoon we head out to the community that will be our home for the next six weeks: Batola. Batola is a very typical middle class barrio here in Managua, Nicaragua. Batola was actually one of the first housing projects erected after the FSLN Revolution; these houses were built to house the women who played role in aiding the revolution.  These are only things that we have been told; I am very excited get there this afternoon and find out for myself! We have been told that this is often the student’s favorite part of the semester, which is hard to believe because up until now it has been absolutely wonderful! I am really looking forward to being in a family-stay again, and have that aspect of family and Spanish in my life again. We have had a slow start here with our classes because after this week we all go our separate ways for spring break next week. We have just only started to touch on the topics and issues here in Nicaragua but I am really excited to fully delve in once we get back from break. Here in Nicaragua we will be taking two classes: Cultural Conflict and Change (In Latin America/ Women Context) and Citizen Participation in a Globalized Economy. Like Guatemala and El Salvador our classes will consist of a mixture of in class lectures from our professors, site visits, rural home-stays, and guest lectures from: government officials, non-governmental agencies and guerilla officers. Today was our first real class; but from what I’ve seen and learned so far the political situation here is a very unique and will be interesting to study. I cannot wait to get started on the last leg of this journey!

As excited as I am about getting started in our classes, I must admit I am just as excited to have a break next week. It has been a very busy nine weeks here, with only a few days of real down time. Spring Break plans were left up to each person to make. Myself and four other girls are heading to Leon, one of the old capital cities of Nicaragua. We will spend a few nights in Leon which has a lot of hiking opportunities and also a lot of historical sites and museums to take in, then we are heading for the second half of the week to a beach on the Pacific Coast. I plan to do some leisurely reading and lying in the sun all week! 

Suchitoto

We spent this weekend in Suchitoto. Suchitoto is situated about an hour away from the city of San Salvador; it is a little city with a lot of history. I would describe Suchi as a non-tourist version of Guatemala’s Antigua; all over you can see the remnants of its colonial past. It also sits right next to Lago Suchitlan, which makes it the Salvadoran get away destination. Suchi happens to be where our wonderful professor Sister Peggy lives and has created a cultural center and hostile. Post-war Peggy came here to aid the returning refugees; so twenty years of living in solidarity with the community has brought her a great deal of respect for her throughout the community. In her twenty years here Peggy has aided in numerous community building projects and helped (through her many connections) to fund many more.

While our weekend there was a beautiful get-away from the city life, it also served as a learning experience. Just a boat ride away from Suchitoto lays a massacre site; what was once like any other Salvadoran community, now 30 years later still remains abandon. A man by the Rogelio who was only nine years old at the time, was one of the only survivors of that lived to tell the tale of happened that horrible day. The community had been living in fear of attacks from the Salvadoran army for months before the massacre actually happened, and had actually fled their homes in the weeks prior. They were only returning because that had gotten word that the army had left.

Rogelio told his story to us, standing on the very ground in which the massacre of his entire family and community happened. It was like no testimony I have ever heard. If you can imagine the death camps in Germany; people lined up and executed, hanged, burned in their homes and starved to death. Rogelio merely escaped the same fate as his family, only by the smoke of the gun shots that took the lives of his sister and mother in front of him. He spent the next two days injured and trying to survive in what used to be his town; now a ghost town, abandon and half burnt to the ground. Later simply by pure fate, he would find his uncle who was a guerrilla soldier. From that point on his uncle took care of him and would reconnect him with his grandparents (who had fled the country).

Rogelio now lives with his wife and children in the newly created El Citio. All of the people who managed to survive these horrible events in the community of (most because they fled the country to Honduras) Copapayo, have created a community similar to Nueva Esperanza. Through organization in the community they have created a school, health care center and a library. They were proud to report that their community has Zero gang action; which is a huge accomplishment in a country that is the second most violent in the entire world (Yes--more violent that any current warring country in the world). They try to keep a proactive mentality within the youth in the community to keep drugs and gangs from entering the community.

Listening to Rogelio’s story and the feeling of standing on the ground where so many innocent people lost their lives is a feeling that will stick with me for the rest of my life. It is one thing to learn about the things that have happened, but it is whole different ball game to take action to stop future atrocities. As if this whole experience wasn’t enough, hearing his testimony concreted in my mind how and what war really does to communities. People can’t just be statistics and collateral in war.  

                                                                                                                                         

Resilience

I don’t even know how to begin to articulate my experience in the community of Nueva Esperanza – which I think is worth mentioning literally means New Hope. We arrived on Thursday afternoon and stayed until Sunday. All 15 of us lived in pairs with host families throughout the community. Nueva Esperanza is a community like I have never experienced, and certainly unlike anything I have had the opportunity to taken part in. The current community was formed after the war (1 year before the Peace Accords were signed). However, the people in the community have deeper connections to each other than I can even begin to understand.

                Before the war began the community that is now called Nueva Esperanza lived together in San Migalito. Before the years of the war’s actual beginning the community was faced with such violence and death they were forced to relocate (literally in the midst of gun fire) to a refugee camp.  Because of the war, there were ample refugees and not nearly enough space to house them all.  This community of about 20 families (so about 100 people) lived in the basement of a church. All 100 of them lived in a church basement with one sink and one toilet for over a year (afterwards reports would be made that it was one of the refugee camps with the most deplorable conditions).  The church in which they lived was always surrounded by the Salvadoran military; if anyone left the basement they would become “disappeared”. The only food they had was food that priests (the ones I mentioned were murdered in my last blog) and sisters of the church snuck in for them.  One can only imagine your children crying out from hunger pains, and having nothing to give them.

                Finally after that year the community was given refuge in Nicaragua, under the newly revolutionized Sandinista government. It would be there in Nicaragua where the community would really begin to organize its self and decide that they were going to learn how to read, write and learn agriculture. For 10 years in Nicaragua the community lived and learned, but they also knew that they wanted to return to their homeland; they were not going to live in exile for the rest of their lives. However, they had decided collectively because of the danger of going back (because their country was still in war time) that they had to return as a community.  At first the Salvadoran government would not let them; they said they could only allow one family at a time to return. After much resistance and advocacy from the community in 1990 they were able to return as a community to El Salvador. As expected upon return they had nothing: no homes, no food or means to provide for themselves. That’s not even to mention the fact that they had no place to educated their children or health care. What they did have however was their new found agricultural skills and knowledge, a plan, but most importantly they were in it together. They knew that their lively hood depended on one and other.

                Now to fast-forward 21 years later, they are flourishing. That’s not to say there are not things that they need or are working towards, but comparatively they are doing better.  The community has schools K-12, homes, multiple churches and a community arts center. How did all of these things come about you ask? Through unbelievable organization the community created an agricultural cooperative. The community works together to grow and sell; sugar cane, corn, coconuts, cows and dairy products. Primarily they use their crops to sustain themselves, but the surplus earnings are broken up into different funds and recycled back into the cooperative to continue its growth.  I also think it is worth mentioning that foreign aid (mostly Germany, Canada) has played a part in the community’s development. Not just from government aid, but outsiders coming to the community and being so impressed with the level of proactivity and organization, that individuals and organizations have donated money to help them.

                Just this past October this community and many others surrounding it were hit by record breaking floods. The houses were 4 foot deep in water. Water that was filled with debris from destroyed homes and deceased animals; they lost everything. Now here we are not even 4 months later and they are still there, starting over, rebuilding. That is resilience if I have ever seen it.  

Liberation Theology - San Salvador

We arrived here in San Salvador, El Salvador only four days ago. The 15 of us live under one roof in a bed and breakfast, which for the time being is home. We have a beautiful backyard/courtyard area, along with many other cozy living areas around the house. Though we have only been here for 4 days, it feels like we have learned so much and there is still a wealth of information to be taken in.

            In our few days here we have had a couple different meetings with professors from the University of Central America (UCA), first to get the history of the country, then to get the more recent events and current issues. The class that coincides with El Salvador is Liberation Theologies. In order to understand the current political, economic and social situation, we have to learn about the past. El Salvador, like Guatemala is now just 20 years out of a very brutal civil war. Also very similar to Guatemala, now 20 years after the peace accords have been signed, nothing much has really changed. The oppressive economic, political and social structures that sparked the brutal war are still in place. Though the military may not outright be slaughtering its people it kills them economically and politically.          

            While the war here “officially” started 1980 the situation here was a very brutal hostile one leading up to its beginning. Liberation Theology Started in Central America during the 1970’s. The whole idea behind the movement was the people (the lower class/impoverished peoples) rising up and deciding that simply praying, and waiting for “God” to save them wasn’t going to fix their situation, they needed to be proactive in changing their government. Throughout Latin America there were many different movements of Liberation Theology, but El Salvador has one of the richest histories (We met with Oscar Romero’s secretary at the time of his assassination!! How cool!). There was this large movement of the people joining together to fight for their rights against their greatly oppressive government. It mostly started out as small pockets of people forming groups around the country, but would later form together to become the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front aka the FMLN. This group of people fought against the brutal Salvadorian Army, an army who was responsible for some hundreds and hundreds of massacres all around the country.  

            As I mention before we have been speaking with professors from the UCA and we had to opportunity on one of those two occasions to go on campus for a lecture. Which was cool to get to see a college campus here, but the most powerful of all, is the fact that one of those massacres happened on the campus of UCA.  Six Jesuit Priests were brutally slaughtered one morning, along with two other innocent bystanders, “No one was to be left to testify”.  We were able to take a tour of the museum there on campus, and tour the sight where the murders occurred. Having that opportunity to be there tour the campus was moving to say the least.  Among other things, the museum contained the clothes the priests were murdered in, photographs of the scene of the crime and part of the tour is even the room the two by standards (a mother and her daughter; of the lands-keeper to UCA) were murdered in.  

            Obviously all of this was very hard to take in, and very gruesome. However, I think what sickened me the most is the fact that my own country U.S.A funded every bit of that war. The U.S funded the Salvadorian military (along with other L.A countries) to fights its own people who were accused of becoming communist.  It’s a big game of chest, with just a few million lives at stake.  The idea of this makes me ill, knowing that here and all over the world we have funded and are funding wars were we don’t fully understand the whole impact of our choices.