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.