News 8 -- Jan. 13, 1990

“North Americans, for example, who go to El Salvador for a relatively short period of time in no way go to save, to change, to bring hope, etc. We go to be changed and to discover what survival and faith and hope and resurrection are really about from those living it out day after day.”

[In some of his letters Larry used the word womyn as his way of expressing the equality of women and men.
campo = farm field or farm region. Campesino(a) = peasant farmer]

Newsletter # 8.

January 13, 1990
El Salvador

Dear Friends:

On Thursday July 12th I boarded a bus in San Salvador for Talisman, Guatemala, a border city of Guatemala and Mexico. On Saturday July 14, 2 days later, I arrived at noon in San Antonio, Texas.

The trip was without serious problems, even though a few memorable incidents generally occur. On Thursday evening I was told by the man selling bus tickets at the Guatemalan Mexican border that I would have to wait until Monday before a bus seat would be available. A few minutes later and I was in the state of despair, a religious sister from Mexico who knew the ropes well said, "he wants you to offer him a bribe of $10 and you will get your ticket. I did and I was on the bus for Mexico City the same evening.

I give thanks that these trips back to the States have gone well. The 2 1/2 days of travel up and down the beautiful mountainsides and through the valleys have served as a time to unwind and recall the many happenings of the past year; A sort of retreat before reaching home and meeting family and friends again.

When I arrived in San Antonio I was told of an old friend who had recently been in a serious auto accident and after 9 days was still in a coma.

Pio Celestino is a Peruvian who had come to the U.S, to pursue his career as a diplomat. During those initial years he began to meet other Peruvians and people from most every Latin American country. These people had to flee their countries because of war, poverty, and a general state of grave oppression.

Pio's natural instinct was to invite these families or individuals in need to pay him a visit at his home. Soon afterwards, he found himself dedicating his life to the service of these newly acquired friends.

In the last few years Pio has lived in the Rio Grande valley of Texas. There he and a lawyer friend established a community made up mostly of Salvadorans who on crossing the border find themselves without documents, food, housing or work. Pio and Lisa, along with friends, acquired a piece of tillable land - little by little - which has served to build a community. Working together on the land gives the former campesino a sense of family and security.

In early July, Pio had decided to go to Nicaragua on a peace march in commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the Sandinista government. He and others participating in the march had taken a day off after 3 days of walking and had decided to go by truck into the capital --Managua.

En route, their pick-up struck a horse, sending the vehicle rolling down an embankment. All were thrown free except Pio who was left crushed from head to foot.

It appeared at first he wouldn't survive. However, those at the hospital in Managua worked diligently to save his life. They mended his broken ankles and ribs, doing a remarkable job with the little resources available. Then they decided to send Pio to the States where he could receive better medical treatment.

Pio and I coincidentally arrived in San Antonio on the same day. It was on his hospital bed and in a state of coma that I discovered my friend.

Why do I include this account of Pio in a reflection of my past years in El Salvador? A few more thoughts about Pio might help this to become clear.

It's been over fifteen years since I first met Pio. What stands out most to me about him is his great zest for life. Whenever I have met him, he has been bubbling over with enthusiasm. People seemed to turn him on as did the possibility of a better future for the oppressed of the world.

I first met Pio in Dayton, Ohio where he had a house for refugees and other homeless people. He would put the responsibility of this house into the hands of the people themselves. If it were to function it would be because they would share the work and the needs of the house.

I remember walking through the streets of Dayton at night with Pio listening to his story. He had an uncanny sense of how to get rich and poor alike to solve their mutual problems. I faintly recall a womyn's clothing co-op he had helped to get off the ground. I also met a lawyer friend of Pio's working on behalf of the poor in this house of hospitality.

As I looked down at Pio on the hospital bed in San Antonio, I recalled the Spirit that seemed to drive this person. I was strongly inclined to believe that Pio would recover.

It is at moments like this in Pio's life as well as in the lives of thousands of Salvadorans whose hope for a tomorrow seems bleak, that a ray of hope flashes forth.

In the last few hours before I left San Antonio, Pio had begun to squeeze his visitor's hands in recognition of their presence. No words, no eye contact, but yes, a squeeze of the hand. At this point, his doctor told friends that Pio had a chance of making it.

This to me is the key to survival anywhere among a people. When word gets out - travels forth - or is whispered behind closed doors, "We are going to make it, have you heard?"

In Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala... the people are making it. That's what counts.

North Americans, for example, who go to El Salvador for a relatively short period of time in no way go to save, to change, to bring hope, etc. We go to be changed and to discover what survival and faith and hope and resurrection are really about from those living it out day after day.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to see Pio before returning to El Salvador. I was told, however, that he had regained full consciousness, had begun to walk and was once again with his Salvadoran friends in the Valley.

Maria and Dora arrived at our front door about 9 months ago. They were preceded by a government worker on the president's commission for returning refugees. She told us that a bus load of 25 refugees had just come into town. They needed a place to spend the night before setting out for the place where they would resettle - could we help them out?

This is how we made our acquaintance with Maria and Dora and the 20 children they claimed as their own.

What happens to people whose families have been torn apart by the war; disappearances, death of a father or mother, or 2 to 3 children of the same family? What happens to people like Maria and Dora who flee the country to spend 6 or 7 years in a camp for refugees?

Maria and Dora were in a refugee camp with 2000 other people, the greater percentage being womyn with young children. Elderly persons too, made up a good portion of this community.

An important factor within these refugee camps was the presence of international volunteers who in turn informed their respective countries when abuses against the human rights of the refugees were committed. The volunteers were persons who generally possessed important skills conducive to the needs of those in the camps. Skills and competency in medicine, agriculture, carpentry and other areas. But more important and essential than all else was the deep desire of the Salvadoran people to take advantage of every opportunity offered to them. And this they did with an indescribable intensity.

These years proved to be a time of growth, of learning and community all in one. The children and adults who never had a chance to learn to read and write would now have the opportunity. Campesino families would learn to work the fields collectively and to share the fruit of their labor according to each family's needs. The kitchen was run communally and with patience acquired so as to solve the problems that arose.

In effect, the years of collective living and sharing developed whole and integral persons, persons who would return to El Salvador determined and prepared to make the future a better place to live for themselves and their children.

Central and basic to all this was the building of Christian base communities. The forming into small groups to listen to the Word of God within the context of reality in which the people found themselves. Usually native Salvadoran sisters or priests lived within the camps and taught the elements of forming Christian community. The people came to experience that the Word of God like a two-edged sword penetrates every aspect of life, giving it the breadth and width and depth necessary to meet life with all of its demands.

From out of such a profound experience - such as this - Maria and Dora came to us. On this first night, we did what we could to provide space to sleep, food to eat and listened without intruding. We accepted what they offered to say, marvelled at their genuine goodness, love and the exceptionally good behavior of their children.

The following morning they set out by foot with everything they owned balanced on the top of their heads.

On the day Maria and Dora and their children arrived at our door, it seemed that the whole town had gathered in the plaza across the street from our house. Who were these newly arrived sisters and brothers? Where have they come from and where do they intend to settle? And all those children ranging from 19 down to 4 years of age... Who and where are their parents? Questions they hoped would soon be answered.

The National Guard of the town also came demanding information and documents from Maria and Dora. The soldiers took their personal belongings from the many cardboard boxes and spread them on the ground. A humiliating process, not new to them and other Salvadorans during these 10 years of unending war.

Salvadorans who fled into Honduras, Guatemala or to countries North or South of them fled because of the heavy aerial bombings and ground war carried out in the areas where they lived.

There is not a family amongst the refugee population who has not lost 2, 3, or more family members to the war.

Maria and Dora and their children have resettled in a small village two and a half hours by foot from our town. It is evident to the people of their community the gifts these 2 families have shared in the short time they have been there.

They share the Word of God with conviction and a vast amount of past experience. They have spoken within their community too, of the value and dignity and role of the womyn. Dora has become a leader of the local farming cooperative and responsible for calling the workers together to learn the value of working collectively.

Wednesday January 3, 1990.

My first New Year's resolution is to finish this newsletter to you (which I started writing in July while I was in the States).

The most recent outburst of the war here in El Salvador began on November 11th and continued until a truce was called for on the day before Christmas and terminated on the day after New Years.

When the two sides at war talk on and on about ending the war and it proves to be only a prolongation of empty promises and fruitless accusations, something has to give. And it did. Weeks of fighting in the streets, bombings in poor residential areas - killing an untold number of innocent people - leaving more than 70,000 homeless.

Living two and a half hours by bus from the Capital, with no means of travelling due to an ordinance by the guerrilla forces prohibiting all motor vehicles to operate until further notice; having all public radio stations taken over by the government, transmitting only what it wished the people to hear; telephone lines and the electrical plants dynamited and put out of use throughout the country for over a month, made life a nightmare for all.

Families from the countryside almost without exception had sons and daughters, parents or relatives in the capital or in one of the other larger cities under attack. They were frantic.

Daily Mass during this time brought more and more folks to church. The sharing of the Word was powerful, profound and deeply personal. At times like these, quarrels, and divisions among neighbors are often forgotten and the concern for family, friends and relatives becomes a common bond.

The guerrilla forces, by the way, operate their own radio station, moving its basic equipment for operating from place to place in the mountainside. This station remained functional too during this period of fighting, the result being that we the listeners had two sources of information or propaganda as one cares to interpret it to decipher from.

The government reported from the first day of the guerrilla attack that its troops had everything under control. This was quickly disproved as the war continued day after day, breaking out anew in most every major city of El Salvador.

On November 16, in the early morning hours, thirty to forty uniformed soldiers, as one reliable source has it, climbed the walls and entered a Jesuit residence. This community is responsible for running the Jesuit University in the capital. Six Jesuit priests, a womyn who cooked and cleaned house for this community and her 15 year old daughter were shot and killed point-blank.

Though shocking to all, many saw it coming for a long time. The Jesuit University with a presence of 25 years in El Salvador was renowned for its efforts to bring peace and justice to his land. Father Ignacio Ellacuria was second only to Monsignor Oscar Romero for his ability to confront the powers of injustice existing in El Salvador. He brought together a Jesuit Community and lay faculty dedicated to the liberation from oppression of the Salvadoran people through the means of educating the community and leading it frequently toward non-violent direct actions.

Immediately after the attack of November 11th began, the government encouraged people to call the radio station and express their heartfelt feelings. Hundreds of these calls were directed against the Jesuit University and specifically their director, Fr. Ellacuria. Accusations described the university as the center of guerrilla training and activity. What followed on November 16 in the Jesuit residence, after these public slanders were made, could have, again, almost been predicted.

President Cristiani has recently denied charges that the church in El Salvador is being persecuted. The facts show that since he took office in June, 53 church facilities have been entered into. Medicines, dental equipment, church documents, computers and other office material have been stolen or destroyed. The new printing press at the Jesuit University and the Church office of Bishop Medardo Gomez, recently destroyed by bombings, are cases in point.

Seventy eight church workers including religious sisters, priests and lay volunteers have been recently arrested, interrogated and expelled or pressured into leaving the country.

But even more devastating than this are the attacks leveled against the Salvadorans themselves who are involved in justice issues. Leaders of grass-root unions and cooperatives have been arrested, tortured and killed. An all out attempt to destroy what are referred to here as the popular organizations has since June been in the making.

The Lutheran bishop Medardo Gomez left the country recently under threats to his life. If violence occurs to Archbishop Rivera y Damas of San Salvador, it will come as no surprise. With the arrival of the Arena party, Archbishop Rivera y Damas has been referred to as an arch enemy of the government and supporter of the FMLN.

This isn't exactly a cheery note on which to begin the New Year. But beneath the suffering is an amazing spirit of unity and hope within the Salvadoran people. Our Christmas and New Year celebrations in our rural community were joy-filled and hopeful.

As volunteers from the U.S., we feel the same way. Our people share and partake of this gift of hope and joy with us. And as Monsignor Oscar Romero said - Con este pueblo no cuesta ser Buen Pastor. [With a people like these, it costs nothing to be a good pastor.]

A Blessed and Joy-filled New Year,

Lorenzo