|
Photos |
|
|
|
Missions |
|
Reflections on El Salvador mission by Sister
Margaret Welch |
So Dream They Did . . .
It’s understandable that the Salvadoran people refer to the song Sombrero
Azul, the blue hat, as their anthem. The early March sky is an exquisite
shade of bright blue with clouds that appear to be hung in random, the
better to show off the unusual depth of sky color. Whether in the city or in
rural areas, the air is perfumed with the fragrance of a myriad of flowers
that lean heavily into one another, in startling combinations of summer
orange, shocking pink, canary yellow, deep purple and dark red. The heat
throbs, building in the afternoon to the high 90s.
Gasoline is over $4 a gallon and the minimum wage amounts to between $170
and $175 a month for retail and industrial workers. Agricultural workers
earn about half that amount. In spite of that, the streets in the Capital
are clogged with cars, pick-ups, vans and bicycles that weave along the
roads rather than follow clearly marked lanes. Buses hemorrhage with bodies,
baskets and chickens, many on their way to the market. Many Salvadorans say
that they earn “colones” but pay bills in dollars. Loosely translated, this
refers to very low wages and increasingly rising prices. You wonder how
people survive, but they are expert in making do. The US presence is
ubiquitous, not only in familiar names of stores and restaurants, but in the
fact that the US dollar has replaced the “colon” as Salvador’s national
currency.
When Sister Margaret O’Neill went to El Salvador in 1987, the war was still
going on. The mountains surrounding her town harbored many who fought the
reactionary government by night, visited family members in the dark and
melted into the hills when light came. The loss of life and the devastation
of the land permanently shaped the Salvadoran reality. The Sisters of
Charity website has a wonderful article on El Salvador written by Pat
Farrell, OSF, who shared life and ministry with Peggy for over 15 years in
El Salvador. Many of the people who came to be Peggy’s friends in Suchitoto
and the surrounding “cantons” had been forced to leave the country during
the war and they spent long, hard years in refugee camps in Honduras. One of
the blessings of exile was that they learned how to survive by creating
communities. They organized and constructed communities that kept hope alive
in the midst of deprivation.
With so many people living close to the edge, it is amazing that the
Salvadoran people have put together a vision for their community that is
genuinely transformative. For many years, Peggy has worked with women,
peasants and young people on a variety of projects where they began to
fashion their own solutions to problems that seemed irresolvable. All this
time Peggy kept her eyes on the large, abandoned property across the street
from her house. Central American Dominican Sisters had operated a boarding
school there for neighborhood youth. Death threats in 1980 caused the
sisters to leave, always with the hope of returning, just as the refugees
had maintained faith that one day they would return to their homeland. Lack
of resources, both sisters and money, meant that they couldn’t reopen the
school, but they encouraged Peggy and the local community to find a way to
make their dream come true.
So dream they did. What would it mean if the community had its own space, a
place to promote creativity and imagination, a place where art and beauty
replaced violence and destruction, a place where young people’s gifts could
be fostered and skills learned that would prepare them for another way to
live in a country so fractured by violence? They dreamed a Center of Art for
Peace. In January of 2005, the Center opened with its vision of alternative
education that was creative, that prepared young people for a different kind
of future and offered hope to women in concrete form. More than 400 people
came together to celebrate the occasion.
Living with so little can either wear people down or give them the freedom
to dream in color, and vibrant colors are beginning to dominate the
landscape at the Center. You have to see the dream taking shape today. The
first project was to renovate a portion of the property as a hostel. This
provided groups - women’s groups, unions, cultural organizations,
international delegations with a beautiful place to meet. At the same time,
it generates income, both for the people who work there and the Center
itself. These dreamers have their feet on the ground. Over time the project
needs to be self-sustaining, and the hostel is an important step in that
direction.
This complex of buildings being lovingly recreated becomes the place where
Peggy and her friends create alternatives. Regularly, women from the
community come together to talk about chronic health problems. In response,
they’ve created a kind of self-insurance to cover costs of medicines and
creams that women always seem to need. Investing a dollar a week, they are
making a start, but it will be a long time before the fund can become
operative. Perhaps you know a parish or community group that would like to
donate $500 as a revolving loan fund to get this project off the ground.
While the task is daunting, the leadership of the Center decided to
rehabilitate the property, creating attractive, functional spaces at a low
cost. This part of the project will take years. Programs will focus on art
and peace, where alternative education spurred creativity and encouraged
alternative ways of fostering peace and learning job skills. No sector of
the community is excluded, though work with young people and women is at the
heart of the Center.
Local musicians are willing to teach music to young people, if they had
instruments. Marimbas, guitars, bongos and congas would help revive
indigenous sound and dance beat. Do you know someone who could donate
instruments? Two local photographers are willing to work with youngsters and
women to capture the realities of their lives, the joys, the sorrows, the
beauty of the natural world. Do we know people with older digital cameras
who are upgrading? Can we get some donations of digital cameras?
As our country is plagued by sexual abuse, so too are women and children in
El Salvador. Yet there are no resources to deal with these issues. The
Center needs dollars for workshops and courses on sexual abuse. They need a
healing clinic for victims who are just beginning to speak out loud the
atrocities they have lived. Do you know a group that provides small grants
that could support workshops and some funds for a healing clinic?
Peggy’s outreach is wide and deep. She is working with contacts in France to
renovate the chapel that is more that 100 years old. There is a Canadian
Shakespeare group that wants to train local young people in all aspects of
theatre production. They plan to offer at least one production a year in El
Salvador. Peggy travels and speaks wherever there is a group interested in,
and wanting to be part of, this renewing. There is magic in this place where
people whose lives were devastated have decided that community and
non-violence is a better alternative than greed and violence.
From the beginning, we have accompanied Peggy, knowing full well that where
one of us is present, all of us are present. My recent visit with Peggy
encouraged me to write these few words to see if any of us can again tap
resources, groups, friends, organizations who would want to be part of this
life-sustaining work. There is magic in this place amidst the hardships and
obvious deprivation. Adrienne Rich describes this kind of joyful
determination as “the passion to make and make again where such unmaking
reigns.” Let us join again with Peggy in this remaking.
Mary Morley, SC and Joan Repka, SC, manage contributions for the Sisters of
Charity-El Salvador Fund for Peggy’s ministry. Let them know if and how you
can help by e-mailing
sc41emory@aol.com.
Carol Johnston, SC
(photos courtesy of Deborah Humphreys, SC and Patricia Dotzauer, SC)
Box 476, Convent Station, NJ 07961 973-290-5345
