Shifting Gears

Our group of 23 students arrived this past Tuesday.  Thankfully, they were ready to hit the ground running on Wednesday morning.  Champs.  By  Thursday afternoon, we had toured three hospitals and done a full day’s worth of orientation, and by Friday it hardly seemed they had arrived only three days ago. We toured our last hospital and clinic over the weekend, and on Friday were able to spend an amazing evening with a Salvadoran family who are friends of the Casa.  The Quintanilla family (as any alum will vividly remember!) has thirteen children, and an incredible story.  Their family fled from the countryside during the civil war here (1980-1992), spent time in a refugee camp and now lives in San Salvador.  Their sons and daughters (aged 12-30ish) sang for us, played guitar, and generally shared a really great evening.  I am always grateful for Salvadoran's endless well of hospitality.  Why do we find it so hard to open our doors to strangers?  (My camera is unfortunately out of batteries, so no pictures for now!)

On another note, I remembered how much I love accompanying students while they are here.  On the whole, the group is bright, motivated and thoughtful about social justice issues.  They have thought-provoking questions (such as: How does the machista culture of El Salvador affect funding for the women’s hospital?) and insights about the reality of El Salvador.  I really appreciate the ways they challenge the status quo, and perhaps more importantly, the ways in which they are willing to challenge themselves.  They are, in many ways, a community of accountability for me, seeing always with fresh, new eyes.

It’s just started to rain here, so I think I’ll write a little more.  These past couple of days, I have been thinking about beliefs (now it’s really starting to come down) and how a belief finds its way into our heart and mind, and shapes how we think about the world.  (Dina and Joanna...thank you for sharing this!)  This has challenged me to think:  What do I believe is important?  What really matters?  What can I neglect?  Normally, I think, I am not as prone to change my beliefs so much as add new information into my current belief system in a way that builds on what is already there.  How often, really, do we change what we believe in our heart of hearts, challenge that?  My beliefs are so often taken for granted, yet they inform who I am, how I see of and make sense of the world, and what I believe to be possible.  What do I really believe about who people are, and who I am in relation to them?  Can I let people and the world change me, and teach me new, better truths?  Not just in a way that adds on to what I already believe to be true, but in a deep-down way that pushes me to grow in new directions.  I hope so.  Maybe this is part of what it means to open up and let people in.  Thankfully, I have a number of wonderful models, past and present, who have shown me how to do this… (whether or not they knew it ;)

Again changing gears... (This entry has been patched together over the past few days...)  I realized the other day though that it is here: the desire to stay.  Being here is in a way, a weight off my shoulders.  I feel like what I am doing matters; that my gifts are being put to use.  Not that I didn't find that fulfillment in bits and pieces before, but this is a more holistic sense of purpose.  Part of that is sharing El Salvador with new people, walking with them through their struggles with language, culture and self that hopefully will turn their world upside down.  I am a little farther along on that journey, and even though the beginning is rocky, I can say with confidence that it will be okay.  As Annie and I decided tonight, if they've ade it this far, they will make it through to the end.  With those initial challenges behind me, I am able to support our community in other ways like working on our home community and praxis sites and hopefully, being a friend and mentor to students who are immersed in El Salvador for the first time.  In other words, I feel like the struggles I went through as a student are not put to waste here, but rather are part of an important foundation for who I am able to be here now.  And also, hopefully, my work here is something that I am good at.  Undoubtedly, it is something I find meaningful.

I am also freed by the knowledge that I am here with Salvadorans, learning more intimately about their reality, walking with people... whatever that means.  I don't know how to describe that "work," if that's what it is, but I know that it is important.  It is important to sit and listen, to ask questions, to learn from, to validate; to help people remember, help them bear, and carry with you a bit of whatever it was that they were carrying without you at first.  To the best of my ability, I try not to be disillusioned with a "save the world" complex.  On the contrary, I am quite aware of what we can each do as individuals.  Knowing that I am doing that to the best of my abilities is freeing.

I find it freeing also to know that I am pushing myself to my limit, living comfortably with just enough discomfort.  From a variety of different angles I am invited to be less afraid here, live with more integrity, more authenticity, more faith and fewer falsehoods.  I am always walking a little bit in the dark, reaching for the light switch I believe to be just around the corner.  The give and take of stress and growth is freeing. 

Of course the exchange for freedom is the acquisition of new weights, but for some reason the weights of El Salvador are easier to bear (at the moment) than was life without their corresponding graces.  I guess that is always the balancing act we pursue :) 

At the moment, therefore, I want to imagine myself staying here beyond August, living in the newfound (or refound) freedoms of growth, security and purpose.  (Allegra - this was yours!)  For some reason, the three always seem to come together here for me.  The question then is what about my environment here leads to that ... which is another blog entry all-together.  When I let you know, I will figure it out.  (<--- that was originally a typo, but I decided not an error.)

Hopefully next time I will have some photos to share... I know I've missed some great opportunities these past few days!  Thanks for reading :)

With much love and gratitude to all of you; thank you for reading along, writing and sharing your thoughts!  The are so very valued!

goodnight for now,

love,

elizabeth

P.S. Thank you to C.J. who taught me how to drive stick shift; and gave me a deeper appreciation for the metaphor of changing gears, if not the ability to drive from North Campus to South :)

   

Glaciers

On Saturday, I was able to spend most of the day visiting with friends in a community named Mariona.  I think that it is such a grace to suddenly find yourself in a new phase of an old relationship, and realize that you, the other person, and what you share have all grown. 

Griselda, her mom and Davidsito (!)

The economic crisis has hit El Salvador (like most vulnerable countries, I imagine) pretty hard. These friends run a women's cooperative in their community, which makes and ships artisan products -- mostly to clients in the US.  Over the past year, however, they have had little to no orders which means little to no work.  I would like to look for a way to create a sustainable business partner for them, so let me know if you or anyone you know would be interested.  In the mean time, belt-tightening, despair and the search for piece-meal work have settled in in equal measures.  I really don't know how they do it..  Nonetheless, we shared a dinner together (vegetables, beans, eggs, cheese and tortillas), and I left full of gratitude for many different reasons, but also weighed down by this shift in their already hard reality.

Oti and Roberto

During the visit, we talked a little bit about immigration, and the pro's and con's to one's immigrating to the US.  Of El Salvador's 6 million citizens, approximately 20-25% currently reside in the United States.  Hundreds leave the country every day to journey north, on foot or by train, and cross the Mexican desert to enter the US and look for work.  I have yet to meet a Salvadoran family who does not have at least one family member living in the US.  Remittances (money sent back to El Salvador from the US) totaled $3.8 billion in 2008, somewhere between 10% and 15% of El Salvador's total GDP for the year (U.S. Department of State, 2009).  Yet despite the significant amount of dollars coming into the country (and they are in US dollars), the majority of individuals still live in poverty.  The need for better economic opportunities in the country is clear, but where to find them?  

When I was a student here in 2004, the family member of a close friend left suddenly for the United States.  She had to leave behind her two children, then aged 9 and 4, and as of 2009, she has yet to be able to journey back.  Without a passport, leaving the US could mean that she may never return, or have to risk another journey (costing upwards of $7,000) across the desert (an entry for another day, perhaps).  Her family depends on the remittances she sends home.  Coincidentally this woman now lives near Boston, and I was able to visit her on occasion during the last two years.  

This bright, kind and otherwise vibrant woman lives between a rock and a hard space.  Visiting her house sort of reminded me of the Anne Frank annex, where shades are constantly drawn, and most of life is lived indoors.  Sporadic immigration raids -- such as those that happened in various US communities in 2007 and 2008 -- feed a constant and underlying fear and anxiety about one's security.  I think, frankly, many of her roommates (all of whom had also immigrated to the US) were surprised that a young Anglo-Saxon woman would come to visit.  Eventually, they granted me some confianza (trust) and I learned their stories.  

Most of the people living in this house, including my friend's sister, had left their home countries of Latin America (Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras) due to economic conditions.  Simply, there was no work to be found that they could sustain a family on.  Most were women, and at least two that I know of left small children behind with other family members.  Some had papers to be working legally in the US, while others did not.  They worked in grocery stores, dry cleaners, and other generally low-paying jobs, and after rent and bills, sent any remaining money home to their families.  The little money the sent was still more than what most believed the would have been able to make at home.  One woman had left her developmentally-challenged daughter with a close neighbor, and was sending money home for her son to go to high school.  Some had started new families in the US (in which husbands/fathers were almost always conspicuously absent...as they had been in Latin America; also an entry for another day), while others were holding out to return home.   All of their situations were precarious.  (Not to mention that the last time I visited, their hot water heater had been broken for months--  a chilly component to the Boston winter!)  

La familia: Breneley, Kevin, Denis y Sarai

On the other end of the line, children in El Salvador are growing up without parents.   How much is that worth?  In the same family that I was mentioning above, it is the grandmother who is raising five grandchildren under the age of 15, doing most of the day-to-day parenting on her own.  Gang violence is now wide-spread (also an entry for another day), with major selling points being security and camaraderie.  Teen pregnancy, also abundant, may bear similar resemblance to the needs of young girls it is able to meet.  Babies in high school or grammer school though inevitably means less education for girls and women, and the cycle starts over again..  Despite the abstract phenomena, the truths themselves are very real.  

The family I mentioned above is not an exception to the rule, but much closer to the rule itself.  How does this happen? Under what conditions does leaving one's children become the best option, the most feasible approach to life?  These are questions that have been with me for a long time, the answers to which are still taking root.   

A passage I read the other day said, "Pain we feel instantly, but truth slides into the heart like a glacier."  El Salvador's many truths - unjust, hard, kind, sad, generous and hopeful - are still slowly sliding in, and they are all welcome. 

Meeting baby David!

How big to be a real jungle?

Dear family and friends:

First off, I have to say that I am like, really excited by the fact that some of you read this, and even commented at the end!  I don't know exactly what I was expecting, but it is so affirming to know that you cared enough to read and even wanted to know more.  I am grateful for your presence (albeit via cyber space) and find it very comforting to know you are there.  Thank you!  I will do my best to make reading this blog worth your time :)

Since I last wrote, I have basically been working pretty consistently with Annie (my co-coordinator, and true to her reputation, an amazing woman) on preparing for the students' arrival.  We've visited four of our five praxis sites -- excellent!  The pace and working style of El Salvador in general, I feel, suit me very much.  Their rhythm is like a breeze off the lake, or a slow, constant summer rainfall that lasts all afternoon.  People come and go, and come back again, in and out, touching base, moving on.  Internet isn't always a surefire way to get a hold of the people you need to get a hold of (though this is slowly changing), so communication generally moves at the speed of call backs and voice messages.  All of this, for right now, is just fine by me.  Compared to the hectic, high-strung communication expectations in the United States, which I completely fall into, this feels like a welcomed and healthy change.

Adaptation in other ways is not as easy, I'm afraid (which, in many instances, is exactly the problem).  Take for example the house where I am staying.  "The Peace House," as it's named, is a guest house right next door to our program Co-Directors, and is for Casa alum and guests to stay, most often free of charge.  It is a wonderful blessing and a privilege to be here.  And, I have two wonderful roommates for the time being - Salvadoran men (Julio and Neto, for those of you who know them!) that I have known for a number of years, and trust dearly.  (One of them actually accompanied me to the store tonight for an emergency purchase of feminine products, as it was too late to go alone -- so grateful!)  Basically, it's a great place to be.  Nonetheless, I live in a state of constant distress due to the fact that the house is surrounded by what I have termed "the jungle."  Now, I am not actually in the jungle, I am in the middle of urban San Salvador.  What I mean to say is that the yard that surrounds the house might as well be the jungle.  Giant trees with roots hanging down from them like veins, leaves the size of my torso, unknown nooks and crannies, and an aura of tropicalness about it.  Given the back yard is fenced in and maybe 1/2 the size of a soccer field, but I'm sure you can see what I mean. When you're afraid, what does scope matter anyway? 

To illustrate this, I live in constant fear of spiders, snakes, giant cockroaches, flying beetles and mostly the unknown crawling out of the jungle and into my bed with me in the middle of the night.  Now to be fair, this fear is not totally unfounded: I have, since arriving, killed two giant cockroaches and found two more floating in the bathroom water of our tiny house, avoided a flying beetle dive-bomb by three seconds (and later found said beetle dying in my closet) and once, two years ago, discovered a snake taking shelter from the rain in my living room.  (Casa Romero students from Spring '07 should remember the latter, vividly)  My challenge is how to coexist harmoniously with the environment of El Salvador, which I was once at least semi-adjusted to and now feel like is full of shadows and anxiety-provoking things. 

I think that this is what pushes me to grow though, always, is the need to move beyond my fear.  I am someone that is paralyzed by fear when I am afraid (which is often) and in those moments the fear just grows and grows.  I am grateful to El Salvador for that: always pushing me beyond my fear.  The fear does subside with time, I think, but only by constantly engaging the courage needed to walk through it.  It's as if there is a finite space towards any given thing, and as as the light around it grows the darkness shrinks. 

The practical application of this?  I am turning on all of the lights in the house when I go to the bathroom tonight :)

Bueno pues, as we say here in El Salvador, I think I am calling it a day for now.  Another thing I love about El Salvador?  10:00pm is late here.  There is something akin to gravity (social gravity, maybe) that pulls you down with the sun which is completely set by 7:30.  The Salvadorans are early to bed and early to rise, and my body is adjusting to the same; another welcomed change.  And plus, the rain just started to fall.  Our second tropical downpour of the day, and an invitation to perfect sleeping weather.  (And also to critters indoors, but we'll leave that in the margins of my conscience.  Remember: Lights!!)

Many blessings and welcomed moments to each of you, wherever you may be!  More soon...

with love,

elizabeth

    

Welcome

Dear family and friends,

Welcome to my blog!  For those of you I had talked with earlier about this idea (thank you, Shannon and Denise!) it has come to fruition.  While this may not seem like a huge commitment, or anything requiring serious discernment, it’s actually something I’ve been turning over for awhile.  I have a somewhat chronic aversion to journaling despite my clear and recurrent understanding of why it’s valuable.  So, making a commitment to journal not just privately but publicly is a bit of a leap!  However, since arriving in the country this past Wednesday, my desire to do so has only grown.  There are so many little moments, insights and anecdotes to be experienced here that to not share them would be a loss.  Additionally, there are always new levels of richness and texture to be discovered by writing things down, and Dios sabe (God knows) that in the jungle of El Salvador, there is no shortage of things to unearth.  I feel like I have let the opportunity to engage writing here slip by too many times before, and for some reason, have been granted another chance to try. 

For those of you who don't know, I am in ES this summer helping to run the Casa de la Solidaridad's (House of Solidarity) Summer Medical Program.  The Casa started as a study-abroad program based out of Santa Clara University, and offered students an opportunity to spend a semester learning about the reality of El Salvador.  Typically the Casa hosts around 22-24 students/semester, and now includes 31 becarios, or Salvadoran scholarship students, as well!  In a typical semester, students spend three days a week taking classes at the Jesuit Universidad Centroamericana, and two days a week in a marginalized community of San Salvador.  The latter is referred to as their praxis site, and is really meant as a segue into understanding lives and realities of most Salvadoran people.  Students aren't there to work or provide a service, though some communities do ask students to teach an English class, but really just to learn from the people who live there.  (I was a student here in the Fall of 2004, with a praxis site at the Martin-Baro Cooperative in the community of Jayaque/Los Sitios). The summer medical program I am working on now is somewhat similar to the semester program, just condensed into five weeks and focusing health issues.  Our students (who arrive in just over a week now -- yikes!) are nursing, pre-medical and pre-dentistry students from all over the United States.  Once here, they will be taking classes in Spanish and Public Health at the UCA, and attending their own praxis sites in the public hospitals and clinics of San Salvador.  Their praxis sites, as are any immersion experiences, are (hopefully) the core of their time here.  The students will be spending four mornings a week in one of five sites, then switching to a second site during the second half of the program.  Currently, the Casa works with four major public hospitals (one adult, one pediatric, one maternity and one general hospital) and one public clinic.  As these students are not yet medical professionals, their roles in the hospitals are simply as volunteers -- to spend time with patients, entertain children, and help with tasks such as feeding and bathing as needed.  For a lot of students Spanish is a major obstacle, and really calls on them to be creative communicators :)  It is an intense five weeks, but one that students really seem to get a lot out of.  

As a program coordinator for the summer med program, my role is varied, and depends mostly on what is needed in the moment.  This could range from taking in diarrhea samples to attending meetings with hospital directors ... both of which are just par for the course!  In a nutshell, the other program coordinator (also a Casa alum, and wonderful!) and myself will live with the students, arrange and visit students in their praxis sites, facilitate community living, plan health-related field trips, accompany students during their time here as listening ears and supportive shoulders, and basically try to hold tight to the big picture mission of the Casa in the little moments and decisions of our days.  I appreciate this job for the mental, physical, emotional and spiritual presence it requires.   None of this could happen of course without the great team which I am a part of, and includes our two wonderful co-directors, a Salvadoran doctor who helps coordinate the sites, five women who cook and help maintain the Casas, and a slew of other people without whom this program would not be possible.  All of these people, hopefully, I will talk about in turn as they are some of the most valued and committed individuals that I know.  

I counted while in the shower last night (something to take my mind off the buckets of water I was pouring over my head) and I have spent at least part of the year in El Salvador every year since 2003, minus 2008.  I wondered at this fact: Am I one of those strange ex-patriots that just can’t seem to move on with her life, so I stay?  There seem to be many floating around, and this is certainly one possibility.  But the last time I was here, at the end of the 2007 school year after working on staff with the Casa for the year (including that year's summer med program!), I was certain that it was time to leave.  I didn't really have any intention at that point of returning to work in El Salvador in a long-term capacity, but when this opportunity came up about a year ago, I was eager to say yes.  My reasons for coming back had changed some, which I will hopefully get to later on, but on a fundamental level it was easy to return to a place that has been so life-giving to me.  I was and continue to be overwhelmed with gratitude for the opportunity to do so.  

In conversations the past two days with other Casa students who have remained in the country, wherein they are discerning their own timelines abroad, I have quickly come to see the wisdom in knowing when your time somewhere is finished.  A supervisor of mine at the Lowell Community Health Center referred to this as “outgrowing one’s goodness” in a place.  I felt like I had outgrown my goodness the last time I left here, but am surprised to be discovering how much of that still remains, and perhaps more importantly, new ways to be good.  I think that blogging this summer is going to be one of those ways, so I hope you will check back from time to time and read along.  Any questions, comments or thoughts to share are more than welcome!  I look forward to sharing my time here with each of you in this way :)

En paz y solidaridad,

elizabeth