6 IMPRESSIONS OF EL SALVADOR January 2002
by Fr Alexander Austin OSB
EL SALVADOR is a country named after the Saviour and appropriately bears the marks of both crucifixion and resurrection. Nothing can prepare one for this extraordinary country. From the depths of the English winter to be plunged for the first time into the third world, into the tropics, and to share in the life of the people and to speak in Spanish in a very different culture was, to say the least, something of a shock. One’s first impression is of vast numbers of people, of noise, and of appalling traffic, clapped out cars, pick-up trucks, lorries, buses, all falling to bits, without silencers and churning out great clouds of exhaust fumes. Everywhere people were selling things amidst heat, dust, filth and appalling squalor, and everywhere there was litter. Most of the buildings were flimsy, graffiti-covered and falling down, an architectural and cultural wilderness. There is a huge contrast between the amazing beauty of the scenery and the people, and the hideous ugliness of the city and towns.
One is immediately struck by the fact that this is a country which has been deeply scarred by injustices, civil war, natural disasters (last year it was decimated by earthquakes) and, it has to be said, by the imperialism of the United States. In the rich suburbs one could imagine being in North America; there there is no litter, no traffic, only huge houses guarded by enumerable heavily armed private security guards.
Oscar Romero often features in grafitti
The figure of Oscar Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador, shot by the army at the altar in 1980, towers like a colossus over the church and society. He is deeply loved and venerated by the people, especially the poor, and his tomb is a shrine of great popular devotion. The authorities, however, appear distinctly cool about his memory, despite his popularity and international repute.
The list of the martyrs in the parish church. Notice the name of Oscar Romero, eighth from the top, and, a little lower down the three North American nuns and one lay woman, Dorothy Kazel, Ita Ford, Maura Clarke and Jean Donovan also murdered in 1980 by soldiers trained at the School of the Americas.
The shadow of the martyrs looms large over the country and their presence is very real, indeed almost tangible. Many of them were priests, killed within recent memory. I spoke to a number of people who had actually witnessed their deaths. At the local parish church there was a memorial listing eighteen of them. Their murders were acts of hideous brutality as the photograph albums at the Jesuit University record - tanks running over peoples heads, students picked out and shot at random.
I was there at the invitation of one of the parishioners of Broadway, Worcestershire, Ron Soan, who, after a holiday visit seventeen years ago, was so appalled by the plight of the street children that she opened a charity, (ACES - Aid to the Children of El Salvador), to help them. On the proceeds of the sale of her parents’ house she set up a day centre to provide care, food and education for up to sixty children. The charity now also has a small residential home for twelve girls. The children are all utterly adorable, quite extraordinarily warm and affectionate, and we were welcomed like visiting royalty.
Children welcome Fr Alexander: see the notice on the wall
We stayed at the home of the director of the foundation, Coralia, and her friend Anna, who were the most wonderful hosts and great fun. They arranged a complete Salvadorean education for me.
We visited the Jesuit University and the graves of the martyrs there. I met Jon Sobrino, the leading liberation theologian. We got to know the children and helped around the center. I was taken by a social worker around some of the 'barrios' or shanty towns and into several of the homes.
We went to the Cathedral and to Romero's tomb. Around the markets I was besieged by traders shouting 'Oiga Joven', (Oi young man) much to the amusement of our hosts. We went to the house where Romero lived and died, and had meals with the Passionist sisters in the city and visited their lovely retreat house in the mountains. One of them worked with the children on the streets and took us to meet some of them. All were as high as kites sniffing glue, including one tiny eight year old and there was a seventeen year old girl about to give birth in a month’s time.
One of the 'Barrios'
The highlight for me was a trip into the country to Juiquiliscos in Usulutan, where we stayed with a friend, Reina, and her family, in a tiny and very primitive house, whose charming address was 'by the Acacia tree'. Conditions were cramped and rough to put it mildly, no running water or sewage, but the welcome and the generosity of the family were marvellously touching These people who have so little would share their last crust with you. In their poverty they have a dignity and joy, a warmth, a sense of community and belonging, and a real hope that puts us to shame in the West. The smallest gift is received as a treasure.
The indoor market at Juiquiliscos was so alien as to be quite scarey, a vast dark cavern of a place, full of great fires with strange things cooking on them and a huge range of largely unidentifiable things for sale, most of which you would not touch with a barge pole.
By a lucky chance our visit coincided with an ordination, which was a tremendous celebration with a very good commentary and lively, joyful and prayerful music that was really expressive of the local people One had the impression everywhere of a really lively and dynamic church. I met the local Bishop, Orlando Santiago de Maria, and concelebrated with him and many of his priests
The great fiesta in the main square afterwards, where all the town was fed, was marred by a fanatical protestant woman, screaming hysterical abuse through enormous amplifiers. The whole country is riddled with fundamentalist sects, all of whom preach a totally spiritual and other worldly gospel, mostly financed by the United States government during the civil war.
They were used to undermine Catholic social concern.After the ordination we went on a boat trip across the bay to an idyllic beach for an afternoon swimming. On the Sunday we went on a long trek to Reina's parents’ farm, high in the hills. This was even poorer than where we had been staying. We enjoyed a vast family Sunday lunch and went riding on the horse kept for drawing water from the well, only to discover afterwards the horse was heavily pregnant! A neighbor brought round his two enormous prize oxen for us to inspect and invited us over to his place next door, which turned out to be a good half hour hike away. Reina took us into the school where she tries to teach English and where we helped with her classes.
I spent a highly convivial night with Fr Michael Cambell-Johnson SJ at his very poor parish of El Desperada, where the degree of involvement and commitment of the people is quite extraordinary. There is a large medical center there together with housing schemes as well as a vast range of parish activities. We went out to supper with Sister June from Wales and visited her poor Clare convent and novices.
Fr Alexander with a group of children
Another highlight was a trip to the seaside with Fr Michael and fifty of the children, most of whom had never seen the sea before and who screamed their heads off at first sight of it. The beach was completely deserted and utterly breathtaking. Our last day was taken up with a visit to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadelupe and the new National Museum.
All in all, the trip was an amazing and truly humbling experience. We in the tired old West have much to learn from the people, the church and the children of El Salvador. I left with the words of St Paul to the Corinthians, reminding me again and again, that
'It was to shame the wise that God chose what is foolish by human reckoning and to shame what is strong that he chose the weak by human reckoning; those whom the world thinks common and contemptible are the ones that God has chosen’, those who are nothing at all, to show up those who have everything.‡
