News 9 -- Oct. 1990

“In March of this year, 1200 Salvadorans, the majority being womyn and children, returned from a refugee camp in Honduras. Some of them had fled El Salvador as early as 1980. Many of the children, born in Honduras, had never before set foot in El Salvador.”

[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]

October 1990
Newsletter # 9.

Dear Friends:

I am sitting here in downtown San Antonio, Texas, Thursday, August 23, 1990 at 2 PM, after two and a half days travelling by bus from El Salvador.

This is the end of the 4th year in El Salvador for myself and Val, a nurse, who have worked together in a rural parish which is 2 1/2 hours from the Capital - San Salvador. Each year the 4 or 5 volunteers from the U.S. who make up our team feel the need to get away for a while and generally return to the U.S.

As I related to you last year, coming back by bus is a time for letting things go. It's a trip of changing dollars to Quetzales in Guatemala, and to Pesos in Mexico. The exchange for pesos is now 2800 pesos to one dollar. Can you imagine the bundle of coins and paper one needs to travel a few days in Mexico?

However, this change in customs, the crossing of borders, the inspection of baggage and paying for visas is a good diversion from certain problems and tensions one lives with in El Salvador.

There needs to be space in my newsletter too to publicly give thanks to God and to friends for having gotten through another year South of the border. And thanks given to the bus drivers travelling the entire night on pitch black, two-lane roads, on buses not air conditioned as we are used to in the U.S.. The drivers travel in two's, sharing driving time while another person is along to care for the luggage.

Thanks for their patience, especially on that stretch of highway just after leaving El Salvador and entering Guatemala. It took us about five hours to travel 70 - 75 miles. The road appears to have been bombed out. In many places the holes are small trenches and we crept along at 5 to 10 miles an hour.

Toward the end of the first day, after crossing into Mexico from Guatemala, a womyn with her 2-year-old son approached the counter to buy a ticket for Puebla, Mexico. She was told there were no seats left for Puebla until the following day. What was she to do? Not enough money to pay for a hotel room and no friends in the area, she decided to approach a bus driver who was headed for Mexico City. On hearing her story, the driver simply replied, "I'll take you to Puebla." No fanfare about it, no apparent regulations prohibiting his doing so. I personally couldn't believe my ears - a forty-five minute detour off his scheduled route.

I too was in this same bus station waiting in line to buy a ticket for Mexico City. Person after person ahead of me was told there were no more seats till the following day. Yet, I decided to remain in line to hear it with my own ears. Finally, it was my turn. I asked for one ticket to Mexico City. Before the womyn was able to reply, a man standing next to her with a list of tickets purchased and seats occupied, said: "There's one seat left, sir." It was the last seat on the bus, seat number 41. Gracias a Dios.

Not only was I thankful for getting the seat, but also for being in that last row of seats at the rear of the bus. I felt so anonymous. As people fell asleep, I found an atmosphere of perfect peace. The purr of the diesel engine, a coolness in the air and a few dim lights to mark the aisle, made it a time to be alone, to give thanks and to pray while remembering the happenings of the past year.

It was a blessing too, to meet, upon my re-entry to the U.S., a community of friends in San Antonio who welcomed me with open arms, not to mention the freshly baked pecan pies, dishes of lentil, salads, etc.. And though only two days in San Antonio, the sharing was grace-filled and renovating.

And now, what to say about El Salvador? The completion of four years brings to mind a certain picture of an experience hard to write in summary, but important to recall.

The vast majority of families in our parish barely eke out an existence that could be declared human. Visiting village after village recently, the cry was for rain. If the rains don't fall, the corn will be lost, and the rice and barley too. If the crop is lost, the people will have little or nothing to eat. The few coins gained from selling a portion of the crop, if lost, makes it impossible to purchase seed, fertilizer and the veneno [pesticide] necessary in preparation for sowing their second crop in September.

You may recall my writing about the family of Bertha and Vincent and their five children-- their daily life consisting of going to the fields to work, of carrying firewood up the mountainside and the incident of where, when rains had not come for 9 months, they as a family, began, as a token gesture to bring water from the river up the steep hillside to their one-acre rented plot of land. While climbing the hill, the skies began to cloud, thunder rumbled in the distance and an avalanche of rain drenched the fields for days on end.

About the same time I wrote about Bertha and Vincent, I wrote also about Benjamin, our sacristan. I described his life as a campesino, his strength of body and soul. The sweat and tears and anguish that is a part of every campesino's life. As is the case of many campesino families, a great number of the children do not live to see their teenage years.

This was true in the case of two of Benjamin's grandchildren. They died within 3 months of each other. Seven and ten years old. They appeared to look healthy. But because survival depended on it, they did the work of adults. Working under the hot sun, sowing seed, picking corn, carrying firewood and water up the hillside, their small undernourished bodies could not take it. Their deaths were diagnosed as due to malnutrition and over-exhaustion.

During these four years in El Salvador, the above stories along with innumerable other tragic episodes have occurred. At first, it was an account that I related only to the poor of El Salvador. But my eyes were soon to be opened to other realities outside El Salvador.

I have lived outside of the U.S. for the last five years, except for an annual visit home. It has been on my visits to the inner city, such as in St. Louis and Chicago, where I witnessed such an agonizing parallel.

The city streets of America, in many respects, are like a jungle. This summer as I walked on the northeast side of Chicago I viewed block after block of abandoned apartment buildings. These buildings are now taken over by the poorest of the people. Womyn with their children are setting up home in these condemned buildings, while outside on the sidewalks, people are shooting cocaine and crack deals are negotiated. Violence was in the air as I've seldom experienced it in El Salvador.

Bertha and Vincent and their five children have grown in many ways over the years since I first met them. In the first place, survival itself is a sign of growth. Their five children have remained in school too, during the few years we've known each other. They are all excellent students. Yet, the cost for a child from a poor family to finish the first nine years of schooling is unbelievable. It is nothing less than a miracle. Sickness in the form of high fever, coughing and sleepless nights. Scrounging enough money for medicine and visits to the doctors are part of the human cost. Bertha and Vincent have managed that cross on several occasions. Death too has been close to their children frequently.

Yes, faith plays an important part in their lives. They read the scriptures together as a family each evening. They struggle to see the relation between the Word and their daily lives. They come to share the Word at 6am with others who meet and slowly have formed community, bound by their common sufferings. Recently Vincent told me that he and Bertha have promised each other to take 20 minutes each day privately to communicate their feelings to one another. He said this practice too has had a significant effect in their lives.

Several years ago, a small group of womyn in El Salvador began to gather each week in front of the cathedral in downtown San Salvador. They wore white bandanas on their heads and carried banners that read: "Where is my son!" Or "Where is my daughter!" as the case might be. They came and stood in silence. And after some weeks and months passed, other mothers of the disappeared joined them. Their presence needed little explanation. It was, in a way, a direct confrontation with the military and those in the government who order the arrests, capture, torture and death of the many who disappear.

Despite the early threats and arrests of the members of their group, they continue their weekly presence. As they began sharing their personal stories among themselves, they saw the need to open a place where they could gather. They found such a place and several `Mothers' as they are called opened an office where they displayed pictures of the men and womyn who were tortured and murdered. People made their way to their office in order to hear the mothers´ stories and to offer whatever support they could.

The Mothers´ stories made international news. Mothers of the disappeared from Guatemala, Honduras and Argentina also formed groups in unison with the Mothers of El Salvador. Large-scale marches have been organized by the Madres where madres from across Central and South America have come together.

Recently I read of a group of Black womyn from Detroit who organized the Madres in their city in solidarity with those of Latin America. They formed specifically to say NO to the drug dealers ultimately responsible for the death of so many inner-city youths.

As the visibility of the madres increases, government officials will be forced to listen and address the issues that they raise.

In March of this year, 1200 Salvadorans, the majority being womyn and children, returned from a refugee camp in Honduras. Some of them had fled El Salvador as early as 1980. Many of the children, born in Honduras, had never before set foot in El Salvador.

Can you imagine then that day, when, crowded onto buses (over120 buses in all) filled with their possessions, they crossed the Honduran - Salvadoran border and made their way down the highway to their final destination?

And what a thrill too, it must have been, when they finally made the turn off the Pan American Highway onto the road which would lead to their newly acquired piece of property. All 403 acres suitable for growing crops, divided by two gushing rivers, ready to receive them.

And we, from our small town a few more miles further down the Pan American, were waiting with our banners of welcome. Bus loads of family members and friends from other parts of El Salvador were also there.

What goes through the hearts and minds of a people who have been confined and guarded by soldiers for the last 7‑10 years of their life and now suddenly are given their freedom? A people who were not allowed to leave their small 4-acre plot of land to wash clothes in the nearby river or cultivate the land outside the fences enclosing them. It would be months before they would begin to speak of those years of confinement and the grief they had endured.

However, it was not only their pain and grief they would share with us. God had been present with them in their seclusion and had bestowed many favors upon them. Their sufferings had become known to the outside world. Concerned sisters and brothers, on hearing of the massacres endured by this fleeing community, came immediately. Professional people such as doctors, nurses, teachers and those possessing other skills came to accompany and to support in this difficult moment.


Conscientious persons from Canada, the U.S., and many other countries felt their responsibility and came. For it had been U.S. helicopters and bombs that strafed and devastated their towns and villages, killing womyn, children and the elderly, who were unable to defend themselves.

Out of their pain, the people longed to better their human condition and build a future for their children. With the arrival of the volunteers, both young and old jumped at the chance to learn to read and write. They mastered courses in carpentry, book-binding, shoemaking and tailoring. In fact, shoes and clothing for the entire community along with tables, chairs and beds for each family are manufactured cooperatively by members of the community. Unbelievable!

Out of the ruins of destruction, God has raised up a people. In those years of separation from their loved ones, the Spirit blew in from all directions. What we encountered as the community of San Antonio stepped off the trucks that Sunday afternoon, was a people reborn, resurrected and ready to live life fully, whatever the cost.

Segundo Montes, one of the six Jesuits killed last November, stated: "The Salvadorans returning from Honduras will be the salvation of El Salvador. They are the prophets, the chosen ones, who through their sufferings will unite and capacitate their sisters and brothers on their march to liberation."

In the first five months since their return, the challenge has been all but overwhelming. Building temporary housing, clearing the land, repairing the roads, making tortillas for over 1200 people each day, demands the cooperation and determination of the entire community. First, the basic necessities must be attended to. Later the schools, the clinics, the cooperatives where they will put their acquired skills into practice.

As the song says: "The road is long to freedom." Soldiers came from our town, offering the new community food, seeds and building materials. But the people politely replied: "Thank you, but no thank you. We have everything we need." Helicopters destroying their village and killing their people remains fresh in their memory: "Just permit us to be alone. We will manage fine."

The negotiations going on in Costa Rica between the guerrillas and government are seemingly going nowhere. The guerrillas have warned that if a truce is not signed to end the war, there will be another attack against government and military installations more damaging than the attack of last November.

Among certain elements of the base communities, some are saying that now may be the time to pull our energies together in saying "no more" to this war and this violence... Saying "no" through non-violent actions. The international community is conscious of the reality and ready to join hands with their sisters and brothers of El Salvador. How in the concrete do we do this? How do we organize? How are the numbers needed brought about? I feel the question of non-violence is valid, if it arises from the Salvadoran people. Let us pray for the wisdom and insight necessary to do what must be done. As Monsignor Romero said: "BASTA! - Enough!..." to the violence and war that is destroying..." my people."

Lorenzo