Poetry

For Praxis class we had to make a final project that captured how our praxis site impacted us over the semester. For my project, I wrote a poem about Las Nubes and added pictures of the people I met there. 

Las Nubes

In a village with no water

I learned to drink in

The glimmer of an evening

To bathe in the hope of a suffering people

To wash the disenchantment and apathy

From my searching heart

To let the glow of flowers at dusk

Quench my thirst

For beauty

In a world in drought.

In a village where electric lights newly shine

I learned to look for light

In dark places,

To see a hint of dawn

In a new duck pen,

A job at a hardware store,

A small house made of earth.

I found Northern stars in

Unexpected teachers and guides,

Illumination by a single glowing bulb.

In a village where many are illiterate

I learned to read the faces

Of a forgotten people

To find in them

An unwritten history

Of sorrow and resolve

Domination and immense faith.

I received an education on the courage

In unapologetic tears

The injustice of impossible choices

The unshakeable, infectious joy

That lives on in spite of it all.

In a village where women are overlooked

I learned to see the special brand of strength

Of mothers, grandmothers, aunts

Of women who speak, who worry, who survive

To comprehend a new language of love

In a cooked meal, washed laundry, a chastising word.

In realities of oppression

I learned what it is to be liberated.

In a village where few are Catholic

I learned the true meaning of Communion

As I experienced a love so pure

It could have poured itself into bread.

I learned to celebrate Mass with dreams for the future,

Hot chocolate and fried plantains,

To recognize a soul

Feeling its worth.

In a world where people climb to success

The tail feathers of the torogoz

And the vines of the ceiba tree

Like hands reaching down

To the mother earth they have never forgotten

Taught me a lesson in downward mobility.

There in the clouds of the San Salvador volcano

I encountered Las Nubes.

And I will never, ever

Be the same.

Praxis Week

About a month ago I spent a week in Las Nubes and San Ramon for praxis week. It was simultaneously one of the most difficult and most impactful experiences I have ever gone through. Rachel and I spent the first two days together in San Ramon. The first day we spent with Gustavo at his art center, and the second we spent in San Ramon going to the Celebration of the Word, talking to people from the community, and then climbing the volcano to go to one of the community meetings in Las Nubes. For the rest of the week, Rachel and I separated to live with different families in Las Nubes. I spent the first two nights at Delmi’s house with Delmi, her 10-year-old son, her 26-year-old daughter Iberica, her husband, and their daughter Tatiana; and her daughter Patti, her husband, and their kids Stanley and Daniela. Then I went to Ester’s house with Ester’s husband and three kids as well as Ester’s sister, Marta Elena, her husband, and their son.

So much happened during the week that it’s been difficult to process, which is why it has taken me until now to write anything about it. These are some of the events that have impacted me the most out of my time there. So many other things have hit me, and I’m sure I’ll continue to process and write about some of them, but here’s what I’ve been thinking about lately.

One moment that sticks out to me is the second evening when we were walking down the volcano with Gustavo at dusk after the community meeting about the water tanks. The light was at the perfect dimness to illuminate the flowers and the trees, and the air was crisp and cool. We never have the opportunity to see Las Nubes at that time of day, and so we walked in silence for a while, taking in the beauty of the scenery. In the middle of the silence, Gustavo, casually dropping wisdom on us in his own peculiar way, took a breath and breathed out, “Those meetings are Mass for me. That is the true meaning of Communion. The work we do here is evangelization.”

What a beautiful way to look at this work. Sister Peggy, my liberation theology professor, said in one of our first classes that we have domesticated the sacraments—we have defined and regulated them to the point where they are limited. There was something holy about seeing people from the rural community of Las Nubes gathered together, lacking basic resources for so long but finally believing that they have the ability and the right to advocate for themselves. They’ve found their voices. It reminds me of a story told by Greg Boyle, a Jesuit working with gang members in LA. He talks about the moment when “the soul feels its worth.” The Base Community here is helping to facilitate the souls of Las Nubes to feel their worth—to see that although they live in extreme poverty and have constantly been oppressed, forgotten, and looked down on, their voices and their lives are invaluable in the eyes of God. How could that not be evangelization?

Another moment came from Delmi’s house. I was initially really excited to go to Delmi’s. The women are really sweet, the two older kids, Josué and Daniela, were really energetic and excited every time we had visited them, and the two little babies, Tatiana and Stanley, are adorable. I was excited to be with them and to get to know them better. The first day I stayed down in San Ramon at Delmi’s daughter’s house waiting for Josué and Daniela to finish school. Schools here don’t have enough resources to allow kids to go for a full day, so half of the students go in the mornings and half go in the afternoons. After we walked back up the volcano, Daniela asked me if I wanted to go play house with her. We climbed up the hill a bit and got to a place where two drain covers served as rudimentary tables, well balanced sticks functioned as a make-believe stove, and someone had hung a rope from the tree to make a swing. At first everything was fine. The game was simple. I was Daniela’s third grade daughter, and every “morning” I would wake up, Daniela would feed me breakfast, I would walk down the hill to school, walk straight back up the hill, Daniela would feed me more of the rocks and dirt “soup” that she had made, I would go back to bed, and we would do the whole thing over again. As the hours passed, though, I started to get tired. Daniela speaks incredibly fast Spanish, and although I had explained to her that Spanish wasn’t my first language and I needed her to slow down, she would get mad at me when I asked her to repeat things. At one point she even left me and told me she wasn’t coming back until I could answer her correctly. She was just being an 8-year-old, but after three hours of this it started to get to me. After a while all I could think of was the scene from the movie Frozen when the guy looks at the reindeer after he’s been making grumbly reindeer sounds and says, “I can’t understand you when you talk like that.”      

Something that we’ve talked about a lot at Casa has been the idea of feeling useless, or allowing yourself to simply be and observe difficult situations while understanding that you can’t fix them. Believe me, I felt useless during my time at Delmi’s house. When the kids left on the second day, Patti and Iverca watched the babies, washed dishes, cooked and cleaned, but anytime I went out to the porch with them to try to make conversation, I just felt awkward and in the way. I offered to help and they’d shoo me back inside to go relax. I spent the morning reading and journaling, but mostly sitting and thinking, “I am a useless lump.” By some miracle, Trena came to check on Rachel and I that day. Almost as soon as I saw her I broke down into tears. Trena is so good at connecting with people. She had no trouble at all making conversation with these women that I had been awkwardly spending time near that morning. That day I had started to feel like there was something wrong with me because I couldn’t connect with them in the same way. Looking back, I realized from that experience that I had to find a way to be okay with feeling useless while simultaneously believing that I am not useless, and recognizing the huge difference in those two ideas.

After Delmi’s house I moved next door to Ester’s house. I was apprehensive at first. Marta Elena, Ester’s younger sister who lives with her, is fifteen and has a one-year-old son named Angel. Her husband is forty-five and unemployed, which means that he spends most of the day lying in bed while Marta works to cook, clean, and care for their son. It was really hard to be around him and understand that he was the husband of a girl who had been thirteen when he impregnated her, barely older than my baby sister. I think my brain just refused to accept the reality of the situation.

I had been struck by the poverty at Delmi’s house, but when I came to Ester’s I realized that I had had no idea what poverty could look like. Being at Ester’s house was physically difficult and overwhelming at times. I had to continue to remind myself that as hard as it might be for me, these were the conditions that they lived in every day. I got to go home at the end of the week, but they might always live like this. They were so generous while I was there, but their generosity often made me feel guilty. I felt guilty for taking a whole bed to myself when the other beds each had three or four people in them, for using the only eating utensil and the only table area to eat my meals, and for all of the fruit that offered me when it was clear that fruit was not something that they could eat often. I felt guilty in my physical discomfort. Looking back, I’m trying to take that guilt and be grateful instead, to learn from their incredible generosity and strength.  

What breaks my heart is that this is normal for them. It’s normal to have tarantulas in the house and to wake up with cockroaches on your legs. It’s normal to fish insects out of your food and then continue eating it. It’s normal to go to the bathroom in a hole in the front yard, to be kept awake by the noises of the other eight people sleeping in the room, to not have the water to bathe or brush your teeth, to have a roof that keeps nothing out, and to be constantly surrounded by the smoke that floods through the single window from the front porch. I want so badly for them to know that they deserve so much more than this.

On the first night everyone was sitting around the little TV watching soap operas and I was sitting close by reading Pedagogy of the Oppressed for my praxis class. Marta Elena came over and asked me what I was reading. She asked me what it was about, and I told her that it was about teaching the poor and oppressed about their own dignity and about the knowledge that they gain from experiencing the world in their own way, even if they haven’t had the opportunity to go to school. She was quiet for a while, thinking, and then she said softly that she’d like to read it. Marta Elena has the most education of anyone in the house, but after reaching only second grade she had to drop out because she was pregnant. She is the only person in the house who can read. Choking back tears, I told her I would find a copy of the book for her in Spanish. What is heartbreaking is that I know the book is about her situation and contains so many things that she needs to hear, but after only second grade, it’s unlikely that she will ever be able to read it.

Later on that night, Marta was making soup for Angel and her husband. I asked her if she liked being a mother. She looked at me with a tired expression and said, “It’s hard. It’s difficult working so hard every day, and it’s even harder when Angel gets sick. Life is very hard as a mother.” Then she got really serious and turned to me, waving her wooden spoon and said, “Do you go to Church?” Before I could answer, she said, still waving the spoon, “Go to church, read your Bible, and take other people to church with you. God puts you exactly where he wants you, and only God can get you through the struggles you’re up against.”

I don’t think I’ll ever forget that moment. On one hand, I am so thankful that Marta Elena has her faith and the comfort of knowing that God is with her in everything that she is facing. I am confident that God is with her for every second of every day, and I’m inspired by her amazing faith even in her horrible situation. However, I refuse to believe that it is God’s will for a fifteen-year-old child to have a son with a forty-five year old man and to live in absolute poverty. Marta Elena’s situation is the work of society and of the choices of humans. I believe that God wants so much more for her, and it’s hard to think that Marta Elena believes that a God who loves and cares for her would want this life for her. I hope that someday she will know that she deserves so much more than that. I hope that good people will continue to do the work of God by trying to bring justice and prosperity to people while they are living, rather than making some people feel like their time on Earth must be spent waiting to earn those things in Heaven.    

In the end, though, I connected much more with this family than I had with the previous one. There was laughter and joy. I had wonderful conversations about life and God with Marta Elena, Ester, Kevin (Ester’s oldest son) and Nicolas (Ester’s husband). I played with the younger kids and helped Marta take care of Angel. I experienced their generosity, strength and faith. I love this family, and during the week and the weeks since them, they have shown me time and again that they love me too.

As hard as praxis week was for me, I am so unbelievably thankful for the opportunity. Since praxis week, I have felt so much more connected to the community of Las Nubes. Last week I went to praxis to find that Marta Elena, Angel, and her husband were able to move into one of the small, unoccupied buildings on Marta’s brother Daniel’s property. Daniel found a job for Marta’s husband at the hardware store where he works, and he is making more money there than he had been at his old job in the coffee finca. The change has brought good things for Ester’s family as well. The house looks spacious and much cleaner now, and they were able to build a little pen for their ducks and clean some of the trash and debris from the front yard. Ester’s husband no longer has to support all eight of them, which allows them to buy more water. Last time I went there, little Estercita had just gotten a bath. They’re all little things, but I wanted to jump up and down with excitement for them. It’s encouraging to know that life can improve for them, and hope that things continue to get better.

Living Words

One day at my praxis site, one of the women, Niña Isaura, was telling us about how they had recently lost a chicken. She described how she and her two younger daughters had been frantically searching everywhere for the escaped hen. This family is one of the lucky ones; they have quite a few chickens. But chickens here in El Salvador are precious for the eggs that they provide. As Isaura was talking about the search for this chicken, I couldn’t help but think about the Biblical story of the Good Shepherd. Imagine if Isaura and her daughters had left behind all of their other chickens and possessions to search far and wide for a single lost chicken. Crazy! But that’s what God, the good shepherd, would do for any one of us.

That same day we talked to Niña Juana for three hours after lunch. The conversation was really wonderful—we were talking about faith, in particular how we live out our faith. At one point my mind started to wander and I started to stress out about all of the other things I had to do: figure out what I’m doing with the summer, finish my reading and homework for the rest of the day, write applications, do my laundry… etc. But instead I was spending the day simply talking to people, relaxing in the shade discussing faith and politics and life. Then the story of Mary and Martha flashed in my mind. Mary chose to sit at Jesus’ feet and listen to him, while Martha worked in the kitchen to prepare the meal. When Martha complained, Jesus told her, “Mary has chosen the better part, and it will not be taken from her.” These people that I am blessed to accompany and to listen to are Jesus. It’s a blessing to be able to sit in their presence and to talk and listen and learn from them. Sitting and listening and absorbing what they have to say is the better part, more so than any “productive” activity I could have been doing.

I took an Old Testament class during my sophomore year and it blew my mind. My professor told us that the biggest problem we have when we read the Bible is that we treat it like a Western book. This becomes a problem when we realize that the Bible contradicts itself all the time. This idea of contradictory stories laid side by side is called parataxis, and resulted because the Bible was compiled from several different sources. The contradictions that exist lead many people to throw their hands up and declare that the Bible can’t possibly be true. However, my professor told us that the compilation of so many different stories about God leads us to a greater, more whole understanding of who God is.

For example, in Genesis there are two different creation stories, one after the other. The first creation story emphasizes the creative power and authority of God. Creation begins when a wind from God sweeps over the waters. Genesis 1:3 says, “Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light.” This format continues throughout the first creation story: Gods says, and his command becomes reality. God is portrayed as a transcendent being whose voice commands absolute authority and power. God creates order from chaos. This is an impressive, though admittedly cold, first impression of the Old Testament God. However, this picture of God is complicated as the redactors of the Bible present a second creation story. In this story, God is a more familiar figure. He speaks candidly, rather than in the formulaic way of the first creation story. He uses trial and error to find a partner for the man (Gen. 2:20). He walks through the Garden (Gen. 3:8). He is strikingly different from the removed, far-off God of the first creation story; yet the writers place the two stories side by side. This instance of parataxis shows the Biblical writers’ desire to show that God is transcendent and powerful, but that he is also a God who desires to have an intimate relationship with his people.

Here, I think I’m starting to understand this concept better. My history class is called “Perspectives on the Civil War.” In the class, we hear from speakers of all different backgrounds, political opinions, and degrees of involvement in the war. Through their stories, and the stories of all of the other people we’ve heard from, I’ve started to have a more complete understanding of the complexity of the war. We read a book in History class called Monseñor Romero: Memories in Mosaic. It’s about the last few years of Romero’s life, before and after his conversion. The most remarkable part of the book, though, is that it’s entirely made up of the testimonies of people who knew and interacted with Romero. Through all of their different perspectives, opinions, and stories, I’ve gotten a better understanding of who Romero was.   

I was reading one of Monseñor Romero’s homilies recently, and it struck me how well he was able to relate the Gospel to the reality of the Salvadoran people. He read the Gospel through the lives of the campesinos. This particular homily changed the loaves and the fishes into tortillas and beans, but there are so many other examples. Maybe this is why it’s sometimes so difficult to understand the Bible in the US. Jesus came for the poor, and he invites us all to join in the work for justice for them. In the US, we’ve become so far removed from this reality that the words no longer speak to us. 

One of the biggest questions I came to El Salvador with was how to reconcile the traditional Catholic faith that I grew up with and loved with this new idea of liberation theology and lived religion. Here, the Bible has become so real to me. Jesus came to the world with a message for the poor and for those who walked with the poor. “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” In Salvador, I feel closer to understanding that message than I ever have before.