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| Our Trip to El Salvador | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| We spent seven days in El Salvador, from March 3 -10 1999. we wanted to experience the culture and the people, and see the atrocitites that these people have had to live with in their daily lives. The people were amazing, and the stories haunting. It was an experience that I'll carry with me for the rest of my life, and I hope that I can use what I learned to educate others. Please read about El Salvador below... | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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| The Salvadoran Elections took place the Sunday we were visiting the country. We served as international observers, placed around the country at voting sites to observe the elections as they were taking place, and to report anything that we felt may have unfairly affected the election. The current party in power is the ARENA party. ARENA is the wealthy classes party, and unfortunately does very little to help the people of their country who live below subsistance level, which is about two-thirds of El Salvador. But because of wide spread illiteracy and general lack of education in the voting process, these poorer people have not been able to vote ARENA out of office. The common people's party, FMLN, has been making strides in education of their supporteres, but have not raised enough awareness yet to acheive a victory in the elections. The ARENA party will hold the presidnetial office for at least the next five years now.The two pictures above were taken at the election site in Chalate, where we observed. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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| This is what most of El Salvador looks like. We visited the poorer communities of the country for half of the week. The village we stayed in, Ella Curia, is named after a Jesuit priest who was murdered by people who felt that he and other priests running the University of Central America were helping the poor, which was not what the government wanted. Ella Curia now is a village of about 300 families. There is running water for about 3 hours a day, and no plumbing. Chickens, cows and pigs run loose in the village, and more than once we had to chase them out of the open building we were sleeping in. These children, as well as all the children we visited with in Ella Curia, were as sweet and loving as any child who had whatever they wished for. The people of Ella Curia are more genuine than most I've met in America, even though they have nothing. But their faith is what is very important to them, and I believe it's why they are so happy -- they trust that God will provide. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Oscar Romero served as the Archbishop of San Salvador, the nation's capital, from 1977-1980. He was asassinated in 1980 while saying mass at Divina Providencia, a hospital in San Salvador. Many people feel that he was murdered for much the same reason as the Jesuit priests were murdered, because the government wanted the poor to stay as they were, and anyone who tried to help them was a threat to their idea. Romero wrote two weeks before he was killed that he knew he would die soon, but the spilling of his blood would rise up in the people of El Salvador, and he felt that way he could accomplish more than he would as just the one man he was. Many people in El Salvador will tell you the story of Romero. he is the people's hero. Murals of him, like this one in the law school of the National University, are found all across the country. He, and what he stood for, is always in the minds of these people. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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| More pictures and stories to come shortly.... come back soon!! | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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