Santa Clara University

Casa Newsletter, Fall 2002

The Many Sides of Paradise
By Jennifer Re

On the bus ride home between Chaletenango and the San Salvador I found myself sitting next to a small Salvadoran man with plenty of pena, eating his pupusa quietly and pretending not to pay me any attention when the most sentimental of Chicago’s hits, “If You Leave Me Now” bleated through the bus speaker system. I just broke down crying, thinking to myself, “Lupita, (I changed my name by the way) you are such a damn cheezeball…’70’s soft rock?” But beyond the contemplation of my predictable weepiness, I had a million things on my mind. After I let it all out and gave my penoso neighbor enough entertainment for the trip, I thought back to the me that was sitting in the bus exactly one week ago, heading in the opposite direction.

There I was, headed for Arcatao from Chalatenango, smashed between a box of chickens “for fattening” (Spanish and it’s shameless euphemisms) and the back of an old-as-sin bus, soaking up dirt from the spare tire I was sitting on and trying to breathe through all the musty dust deposited in the air by the combination of too many passengers and the smell of the evening just before it starts to rain. And I thought to myself, “I am pretty comfortable right now.” And I thought to myself, “I’m adjusting to El Salvador …it’s a part of me now.” And I didn’t know the half of it.

The campo experience began the next day for me, as we arrived late in the rain and my placement at Cerro Grande was a 40 minute walk up what they call a “feo” road, which is the understatement of the year. The next morning after attending the “day of the kids” celebration (why don’t we have one of those in the U.S.?) our mysterious teenage guides (boys…plenty of pena) led us up the trek into the isolated community of Cerro Grande. As the sweat dripped more and more steadily down my forehead and the rest of me, we climbed deeper and deeper into paradise, the narrow path a meager river itself, the cliff to our right giving way to a breath-robbing view of the valley below and the cloud-enshrouded mountains of Honduras in the distance. I noticed that the rocks were rather strategically placed in the mud (which has quagmire tendencies) and it dawned on me that as rugged as this passage was, it was, in a way, crafted. And I began to wonder about the history of this place, about the treks that took place there when people were fleeing from the army, about the first settlers here who carved out this path. I had never encountered a settled spot so rural and out of the way. Yet when we reached my host family’s home, I was surprised by the settled look of everything: mud and brick house with a cemented porch and a tile roof, new-looking latrine in the back, mud wood-burning stove in the corner, hammocks on the porch, chickens, pigs, ducks, and cats roaming around the fenced yard. It looked like a happy and busy farm, not what I’d expected when I heard “no running water and no electricity.”

And yet the window that time provided into my family’s lives showed that they were living a very hard, though not so isolated, life. They were living simply, but things seemed so complicated for them. I was there for only week, and the only thing I can peg on them is that the depth of their stories runs deeper than the length of time they’ve been living them. What I can say, I must do modestly from the persistent observation of a very genuine people.

The center of the family’s drama lies right now in the story of the oldest son, Luis. He is planning his immigration to the  United States on the 19th. He has chosen the dangerous and expensive path of going illegally through a coyote, not that a poor campesino man has any other choice. The family has lost 6 children to infant deaths, one son of 18 to the war, and a daughter to the city life in San Salvador. The other living daughter is what they call invalid and does not live what anyone would call a normal or productive life. The youngest son will never be able to handle the work of the farm because a bout of tuberculosis when he was younger has stunted his growth. Thus Luis’s role as oldest son is of compounded importance. My partner in this adventure, Jen, and I became very close to Luis because he’s 21 and he ended up being the one to show us around most of the time. He told us of the struggles he’s had with his father, who was constantly pulling him out of school to work in the fields (as a result Luis has a 4th grade education). His traveling to the  United States to reunite with a friend is more or less his only escape from his father.

Don Castulo, said father, is a character you’d have to watch in interaction to truly believe. Aside from being a very active leader in the community and, from what can be compared among the rest of the community, rather successful, he is a lazy, macho, crude man. He sits in his hammock all day long, ordering his wife and youngest son around like his slaves, berating the middle son who quietly does all his manual tasks for him. He plays a wicked snore-belch-fart-loogie-hocking medley every night, and has been known to use his cow whip to quiet Marixa, the invalid daughter, when she won’t cease her moaning. He likes to bathe his corpulousness on the front steps, and when he came upon Jen and I bathing secluded in the family’s spring one morning insisted that we shouldn’t be embarrassed…everyone has skin. Funny the things Salvadorans have pena about. He makes me uncomfortable, and so I too have come to know him as the object from which to escape.

Marixa’s case also makes me uncomfortable, because it is unendingly sad. She cannot walk and so scoots when necessary with her long bony arms along the floor. She spends all day in the hammock rotating between playing with her drool, swinging back and forth, and moaning hauntingly. She is a constant presence and yet constantly ignored like the pigs in the yard. The only contact the family really gives her is to feed her three times a day. I saw her smile once when I was talking to her, but just looking at her I feel paralyzed and impotent myself, wanting to do everything for her and not knowing where to begin. I can’t understand why her family doesn’t show her the least bit of love.

My host mother, Maura, is clearly the stable foundation of the family that keeps the walls, crumbling from stress and poverty, from falling all around them. She rises before 4 every morning to begin the four-step, sweat-involving process of washing, milling, grinding, and “tortilla-ing” (no direct translation exists for this process of molding the dough into circles). When there was no “con que”—something to dip the tortillas in such as soup, cheese, or beans—at least there were tortillas. She prepared the coffee for her husband, always promptly, but never before he could ask for it. She washed the dishes, swept, spent hours on washing the family’s clothes with homemade soap and water collected from the rain in oil barrels on a rock platform, and fed the animals around the house. I watched her frown as she tried to bring some order to the ever-replenishing dirt around her, but she had no shame about anything she did, and never complained. The only negative words from her came in the beginning and end of the days when she detailed the pain of her headache. Between her constantly-moaning invalid daughter, and the mentally disabled yet energetically-blessed neighbor who always came over to scream and bang on barrels and take things from their proper places, and her husband always complaining about something, I’m not surprised that she doesn’t go a day without a headache. I can also see why she doesn’t have time to give Marixa the care she needs. Her energy is spent in survival.

The other light of this family is the youngest son Samuel. When we first came I had been told of his development disability and thought that perhaps it had affected him mentally because he didn’t speak more than 5 words to me the first couple of days. But it turns out that he’s just shy. When he warmed up to us, he was the most affectionate, playful, creative boy. He looks like he’s six, but he is a bright 11 year old, and so everything that comes out of his mouth is darling and makes perfect sense. He took us around on visits to the other families in the community, which involves quite the treks through the wilderness. I should have brought my machete. I can tell that my being there impacted him by the way he walked away into the house before he could see us walk out the gate. That made all the pain of seeing Marixa, all the indignity of seeing the way Don Castulo treated his family, the difficulty of living with the kind of dirt that includes animal poop all over the kitchen floor and mosquito larvae in the water used to wash the dishes, worth it. Oh, and there was one more thing.

The incredible beauty of Cerro Grande is dirtied by the attempt to put words to it. I can only say what it is, which is a sub-tropical jewel at the top of the modest Salvadoran mountains, overlooking an endless variety of greens. Plants and flowers grow with incredible fertility around every path, and rivers and natural springs water the land. Living without electricity or running water out here just somehow makes sense. Everything that is needed for survival came from the land. For socioeconomic reasons, however, the land is increasingly something that one cannot make a living off of. Nonetheless, living like these people did in nature was a fuller version of life than I’ve ever been permitted to be a small part of. 

What tears at my heart is that this beautiful way of life is becoming obsolete. Poverty, cultivated by free trade that makes selling their crops impossible and the discouragement of agriculture in general, tear at the stability of the family and sons develop the desire to leave. Until a year ago, because the municipality believed Cerro Grande to be a bit of a myth, there was no school for the children there. There is no clinic, and medical emergencies have to wait at least an hour and a half while a team mobilizes a hammock to bring the wounded out to Arcatao or, even farther, to Chalatenango. There is no medicine that Maura can afford to give to Marixa. There are no resources to give children like Samuel something other to do with their time than play with the kittens. It doesn’t really matter that the children walk around in tattered dirty clothing you wouldn’t see on the homeless in the U.S., and yet it is a visual testament of their poverty. And thus I find myself envious of the strength of these people to survive and their luck to have land in a place as beautiful as Cerro Grande, and indignant that I would begin to romanticize their poverty. It’s not their poverty or simplicity that makes them beautiful. Rather it is that they continue their struggle and live their lives fragily. It’s not that they live their lives more fully, but they live them without blinders on.

When I was weeping on the bus ride home, I was weeping for Marixa and Maura. I was weeping with fear for the journey Luis has ahead of him. I was weeping for the life waiting for me back home, which includes more opportunities than I can handle, and thus more responsibility than I have been willing to accept. I was weeping for my own family, which I never have treated adequately like the source of my own blood, my own life. I was weeping for the emaciated woman I saw out the window selling tortillas, who plays just as intricate a role in this world as anyone else. I was weeping because I thought I was beginning to understand the people of El Salvador.

Alumni Contact Information

Julie Hoying, Fall 2001
8019 Monte Drive
Cincinnati, Ohio 45242
Ph # 513-891-4604
email: jhoying@jcu.edu

For a quick update: Last Wednesday I organized an awareness sit-it to encourage students to call their congress representatives before the Iraq vote. It was small but well received. Pat Rombalski informed us that it was the first student demonstration in his memory of being at JCU. Many other professors were very open to it and offered their assistance and funding in the future. Although student response was little more than taking a flyer and looking uncomfortable, I think it got a lot of them thinking about the issue. Now I am going to try to take it to the next step and am organizing a student debate about the issue. An organization called "College Republicans" is interested in defending the proposed war and I have meeting with some professors of debate and politics tomorrow. So I am working very hard and hoping to make this a worthwhile event at JCU. 

I am also putting in a few hours at a non-profit organization called International Partners in Mission. They fund independent, locally run projects all over the world. We just started funding two new ones in El Salvador--a day care in San Ramon and a woman's group in Zaragoza. I teach 8th grade Social Studies and Language Arts in a Cleveland inner city school a few days a week for student teaching. Although it is sometimes exhausting, I am realizing that teaching is definitely what I want to do with my life. I will take over full time at the end of the semester.

Steve Strong, Spring 2002
Fordham Univ.
CSP, McGinley 101
Bronx, NY 10458

Mariel Caballero, Spring 2002 
mariel_caballero@hotmail.com 

Patrick Nolan, Spring 2002
Nolan18887@hotmail.com 

I now work at the Latin American Solidarity Archives here at school. I helped put together our recent event. It went well; over 100 people showed up and the speakers were great. Fr. Joe Mulligan was there: Sarah, Steve, Christi, and me spent our time in Nicaragua with him. I am also volunteering at a community organization the Latino district of Detroit. The organization is called LA SED, Latin Americans for Social and Economic Development. I work in an after school program for high school kids. I help with schoolwork mostly. This area of  Detroit has the highest drop out rate in the country. I am also able to use my Spanish there, which I really like. I am just waiting to finish school at this point, I am ready to enter the real world and see what happens. I have been looking at the JVCs as a possible option.

Nicholas Leydon, Fall 2001
30 Bellevue Road
Stoneham MA 02180
781-245-4858

School address:
Nicholas Leydon
Boston College
Rubenstein Hall D54
PO Box 9180
Chestnut Hill MA 02467-9180
617-655-3820

Coordinator for Appalachia Volunteers (550 students who work with Habitat for Humanity)

Part-time employee at Physicians for Human Rights - I work with asylum seekers, helping them avoid repatriation and deportation because they have a history of physical, political or other such human rights abuses. We work the legal system with assistance from doctors, in helping people gain asylum in the United States through means of medical evaluations.

Plotting and planning a BC trip down to Ft. Benning GA in protest of the SOA. This year it’s on the Anniversary of the UCA Jesuits. 

Jessica Jenkins, Fall 2001
Jessica M Jenkins '03
1018 Campus Drive
Stanford CA 94309
650.497.6576.

SO ... I am in my last year of school at Stanford, finishing my International Relations degree and working on my thesis on liberation theology and women in the church in El Salvador . (Translated copies forthcoming... in eight months or so). I'm also editing a campus publication called "Street Forum", which focuses on poverty and social justice issues, and am doing anti-war organizing work with the peace and justice group on campus. I am also going to be leading a small faith community through the Catholic parish on campus, focusing on peace and justice issues, through which I'm hoping to raise awareness about US involvement in Colombia (El Salvador all over again.) As for next few years... plans include a longer stint in Latin America, via JVI or a similar organization, and graduate school in Latin American Studies and/or human rights or refugee issues. 

Sarah Montgomery, Spring 2002
1245 Lafayette Street
Santa Clara, CA 95050
(408) 296-3647 (home)
(408) 829-9060 (cell)

Since being back at SCU I've been, of course, doing classes but also re-entering the world of SCCAP (Santa Clara Community Action Project - doing some ESL stuff and some other things), the Peace Action Committee, and other on campus groups in the same theme.  I'm also working at the library (I start today), editing a magazine, and I just heard that I was cast into a piece for the yearly dance concert, so I will start rehearsals soon.  I'm also in the choreography class, working on a piece about los desaparecidos to be performed in December.  And, of course, CISV is ever present-along with my friends and family. 

I had an amazing summer working in a refugee camp in  Norway doing an integration project between Norwegian and refugee children aged 10-15 (my emphasis was teaching them expression and cooperation through taking and developing their own pictures in the darkroom there- perfect, no?)  Then I traveled around Europe a bit with my sister before going up to Finland for a whirlwind three weeks of meetings.  I didn't win that big election but that change of plans has allowed me to take on many exciting projects, so the disappointment was short lived.

Evan Hughes, Fall 2001  
ahughes@scu.edu 
842 Bellomy St.
Santa Clara, CA 95050 
(408) 984-0427
(until June)

2412 18th Ave. NW
Olympia, WA 98502
(360) 357-4830
(Permanent family address and phone--they'll know where I am at)

I, as you know, am finishing up my last year of studies here at Santa Clara. I am working with the Labor Action Committee and the Peace Action Committee--especially with the issue of the possible war in Iraq. Who knows where I'll be after this year. . . Maybe Central America.

Realidad Nacional

Pensiones
En 1998 se crean las Administradoras de Fondos de Pensiones (AFP), o mejor dicho se privatizan los fondos de pensiones, a partir de esa fecha el INPEP (Instituto Nacional de pensiones de los Empleados Públicos) y el ISSS (Instituto Salvadoreño del Seguro Social), cierran sus puertas a nuevos cotizantes y se inicia una campaña de convencimiento y de los beneficios que tiene afiliarse a una AFP, entre los cuales se mencionaba obtener una mejor pesión al momento de jubilarse.

Los sindicatos de estas dos instituciones sostienen que la corrupción y la descapitalización de los fondos de pensiones manejados por el gobierno ha sido una de las razones para llevarlas a su desaparecimiento.

El gobierno ha sostenido que esos fondos de pensiones públicos no han generado dividendos y que practicamente han estado ociosos. Pero al privatizar los fondos de pensiones se logran dos objetivos:
1) deshacerse del sindicato
2) fortalecer la inversión privada con fondos de los trabajadores

Los hechos dicen mucho: en enero de 2002 se retiraron “voluntariamente” alrededor de 7 mil empleados del Estado, entre ellos maestr@s y un grupo de ell@s estaba afiliado a las AFPs, pero recibieron una sorpresa. El monto que la AFP les daria mensualmente era inferior al 50% que estaba dando el INPEP. Bueno, como le dijo Don Quijote a Sancho Panza “cosas veredes Sancho..cosas veredes.”

Ahora el gobierno considera una carga, el hecho de desembolsar los “certificados de traspaso” del sistema público al sistema privado, ya que esta suma es de $ 1 mil 724 millones. Esta cifra supera la meta de recaudación tributaria estimada para este año y consume más del 50% del presupuesto vigente, para poder reducir el impacto fiscal que esto implica el gobierno ha llegado a un acuerdo con las AFP de entregar ese dinero en 15 anualidades, para el 2003 se ha presupuestado $263.5 millones destinados al pago de pensiones (Prensa gráfica, 2 de Sept.02).

Según FUSADES, el déficit fiscal aumentará cerca del 5% del PIB, y para evitar ese acercamiento se propuso las 15 anualidades.

Pero lo que hay detrás de todo esto es: qué va a pasar cuando el gobierno no pueda acceder a préstamos de organismos internacionales para financiar su presupuesto?

Qué va a pasar con los trabajadores y sus pensiones? 

Será que lo prometido (mejores pensiones) se convertirá en otra mentira más?

15 de septiembre
La independencia de Centroamérica tiene un significado policamente importante, ya que marca el inicio de un nuevo sistema; aunque para los indigenas no trajo ningún beneficio, todo lo contrario, le trajo una mayor explotación, pérdida de “cierta protección” obtenida por la Corona Española, fue obligado a participar en guerras centroamericanas que no entendia (después de desaparecer la Federación Centroamericana -1823-, por la que tanto luchó Francisco Morazán, Gerardo Barrios y otros caudillos), posteriormente (1881) le quitan sus tierras ejidales o comunales y es de nuevo obligado a trabajar en las fincas de café porque se crea la Guardia Nacional y la Policia de Hacienda (principales cuerpos represivos a lo largo del siglo pasado) y para “colmo de males” es masacrado en 1932 haciendoles desaparecer su cultura (lengua nahuat y sus tradicionales formas de vestir).

Una caracteristica de los discursos patrios ha sido que están carentes de contenido, vacios; además llenos de militarismo y presentando a los militares como los defensores de la patria y luchadores de ella, lo cual es una mentira, ya que la independencia centroamericana fue pacifica y si queremos resaltar el heroismo, entonces debemos fijarno en los sacerdotes, porque fueron ellos los que firmaron el acta de independencia.

Pero este 15 de septiembre el Presidente Francisco Flores habló de la unión Centroamericana, como un compromiso a cumplir y un discurso un poco más lleno de contenido.. en apariencia. Pero tal parece que una cosa es lo que dice y otra la que hace, ya que en la práctica se aleja de buscar lazos de una verdadera unión Centroamericana, esto mediante dos hechos fundamentales:

1) la Ley de la defensa nacional (que lo que busca es fortalecer y devolver poder a los militares; además esta Ley se enmarca en acciones concretas contra el terrorismo internacional que son impulsadas por el Presidente Bush)
2) renacimiento del viejo problema limitrofe con la hermana republica de Honduras. Esperemos, pues que algún dia el viejo sueño de Francisco Morazán se vea realizado, la Centroamérica como una sola nación, quizás se lleven a cabo pero solo porque son recomendaciones o exigencias para firmar tratados de libre comercio, pero no porque sea una santa voluntad de los mandatarios.

Huelga en el Seguro Social
Una huelga de 3 semanas ya en el ISSS, contra la no privatización del Instituto Salvadoreño del Seguro Social, este se ha ido dando de forma escalonada; primero los trabajadores (administrativos, motoristas,etc) afiliados al STISS (Sindicato de Trabajadores del Seguro Social), luego los médicos (generales, especialistas, técnicos) afiliados al Sindicato de Médicos del Seguro Social (SIMETRISS); posteriormente se fueron entregando hospitales del ISSS; para la semana del 14 al 18 de octubre los hospitales públicos han hecho paro de labores y uno de ellos (el psiquiátrico) algunos médicos entregaron sus puestos a la Directora de la institución; es probable que para los próximos dias las enfermeras también apoyen el paro y que se entreguen hospitales públicos; los galenos que laboran el hospitales públicos apoyan la lucha de no privatización del ISSS, ya que sostienen que después serán privatizados los hospitales públicos; hasta el momento el Presidente no ha dado muestras de que va a sentarse a dialogar con los sindicatos al contrario ha dado muestras de intolerancia y prepotencia al no querer escuchar al pueblo.

El mejor ejemplo es que ha presentado a la Asamblea Legislativa un “plan de reforma en el sector salud” el cual pretede a juicio de los galenos continuar con la privatizacion del ISSS por la via de la descapitalización del Instituto. Dicha reforma todavia no está clara en cuanto a su funcionamiento, no es conocida por el Colegio Médico, ni por nadie y el gobierno ha recibido una apoyo incondicional de la ANEP que es la cupula empresarial del pais y posiblemente sea aprobada pronto en la Asamblea Legislativa, esta acción del Presidente demuestra desprecio por la gente y que lo único importante es permitir a empresas privadas devorar los recursos del ISSS y posteriormente lucrarse de la salud y lo peor de todo es que la nueva reforma de salud presentada es una copia fiel del sistema de salud de Chile el cual en este momento es un fracaso porque los más pobres son los marginados y sólo pueden accesar los que si pueden cotizar más el cual a todas luces no es solidario; por lo tanto la ANEP quienes son los representantes del gran capital estan manoseando el término “solidaridad” ya que ellos hablan que el nuevo sistema se basa en la solidaridad, pero este criterio no tiene cabida cuando lo que se sobrepone es el lucro.

Este plan de reforma al sector de la salud es inconsulto y sobretodo ha sido manejado en forma secreta y tiene el aval de la empresa privada, y esto último es lo más importante para el gobierno. La situación es grave porque este problema ahora es de carácter nacional y cada dia se está agudizando más, un buen ejemplo lo constituye la denuncia hecha el dia jueves 17 de octubre por parte de medicos intensivistas que laboran en el hospital de especialidades del seguro, en el sentido que es metira que exista un plan de contingencia por parte del gobierno tal y como éste lo ha pregonado a los cuatro vientos y por lo tanto que están cansados de sobrecarga de trabajo y exigen al gobierno que cumpla; lo cual indica que dentro como fuera de las instituciones del ISSS lo problemas se ven más serios.

El nuevo sistema que propone el gobierno se oye bonito como por ejemplo incluirá cobertura para los hijos de los cotizantes hasta los doce años, a los trabajadores agr?colas, del mercado, asi como a las domésticas; pero si el gobierno no quiere apoyar a los caficultores entonces ¿como van los patronos y trabajadores a cotizar?. Existen más preguntas y dudas que respuestas.