Ooooh baby does it feel GOOD to be back at the Casa Oasis! It truly feels like home. We spent this weekend up in the mountains of Santa Marta which is in Cabañas, El Salvador, and it was quite the stretch for most of us.
Before we left for Santa Marta on Friday morning we all went downstairs in the Oasis to hear Damian (the owner of the Oasis) give us his testimony about his life and experience during the war. Damian is an extremely soft spoken, kind man, and you would never believe that he has experienced some of these things. It was so inspiring to hear how passionate he was about the cause of standing up for peoples’ rights and how creative he had to be. Before the civil war started, the Military had been running the country for about 50 years and Damian said, “If it was bad when the Military was running things, it was even worse when the resistance/war started.” Soldiers would take human bodies and put them through a cow meat processor, then throw the pieces into the street to scare people. They would also do things like cut open a pregnant woman’s belly, take the baby out, then cut off the woman’s head and put it inside her open stomach to ‘prove their point.’ Damian decided to participate in various strikes and join the guerillas in various activities against the government like radio broadcasts, anti-government graffiti, etc. He was captured and put in jail multiple times, but was always very lucky and was released. It really made me think about how dangerous it was during the war and how easily he could have been killed, but like many people have said so far, they are willing to die for the cause. At the end of the war, the FMLN (the people’s party) wanted to prove that they didn’t want violence, so they destroyed all of their weapons (instead of keeping them or even giving them away). They even made a memorial with the pieces of various weapons called “Cries of Peace” in El Salvador.
After talking with Damian about his experiences, we loaded up the bus and drove a couple hours out to the countryside to Santa Marta. When we got to Victoria, the nearby town that has Radio Victoria, (the radio station run by Cristina that is speaking out against gold mining in their town), we were given the choice to either ride the bus to Santa Marta or to hike over the mountain; many of us decided to hike. We were told it was about an hour, but I’m pretty sure it was closer to two hours. It wasn’t a strenuous or exhausting hike, but you definitely had to watch your step the whole way because the hills were very steep and lined with loose rock. But any chance we got we had to stop and look up because we were surrounded by beauty. The hills were so green, the trees were so full, and the sky was so clear. It was a beautiful, hot, sunny day, and by the time we made it to Santa Marta we were very hot and tired.
So pretty!
Brittani, Reba, Alisha, Me
After resting up and eating a wonderful dinner at Aida’s house, we were put into pairs and ‘picked up’ by our new host families who took us back to their homes for the night. I was with Laina and we were picked up by Julia, our new mom for the weekend. Julia is probably in her early 70s, but she also had her daughter, Antolina, and her granddaughter, Kati, there when we arrived. Since Laina does not speak any Spanish it was pretty much up to me to translate and communicate for the weekend. Julia was pretty hard for me to understand because she was older and talked really fast, but her granddaughter was MUCH easier to understand, so we stayed up for a few hours talking to Kati about school, hobbies and her life in Santa Marta. When I asked Julia about how she liked Santa Marta, she told me that they were actually forced to live there because of certain events, but she said “You get used to anything.” At this point we were VERY tired from a long bus ride and long hike, so we made our way to our very large room that Julia prepared for us and we went to bed. Unfortunately my mind was still running at full speed and I was a little worried about bugs (being in the countryside) so I did not get a very good night’s sleep, and we had to get up at 7am on Saturday.
I was very thankful, though, when we all met back at Aida’s house in the morning and swapped stories about our host families and found out that we were the only ones with a real toilet that flushed, a ‘shower’ that actually had four walls of concrete, and a very private, large room (that had MINIMAL insect activity).
Me and Laina's Bedroom
Our beautiful, LARGE house
Pantera----Julia's dog
After breakfast we walked up the road with Walter, who took an hour or so to explain the history of Santa Marta and talk about how they were directly affected by the war. He told some pretty gruesome stories, and how so many people’s homes were invaded, how people were held at gunpoint, and many had to flee to Honduras (which is actually fairly close to Santa Marta). It was really impressive, though, to hear stories about how this little town came together and organized to do the best they could to fight off the military and save their people. Walter was part of the guerrillas who fought off the soldiers and stood guard while families crossed the river to flee. He also showed us a place in the dirt where there was previously a cave cut into the side of a hill that was made into a secret hospital for the guerrillas, and they covered it up by building a house in front of it with a secret door to the hospital (sort of reminds me of Anne Frank!). Even though they had a lot of success for such a small community, they saw a lot of death, and many of their houses were burned down to the ground in the military’s “Scorched Earth” operation. It was crazy to hear that all of this destruction and death happened less than 20 years ago, and now the community has rebuilt itself and organized itself to be very independent.
Secret door into the hospital that is now filled in
The people of Santa Marta don’t have paid jobs, but they all have roles in the community. Some are teachers, some are builders, some are bakers, etc. They have a very slow paced life in the country, but they all work very hard. It was so different than where we have been in the city. For example, when we were sitting at Aida’s house near the road, we saw a large bus full of people approach and there was a woman hanging out the window trying to talk to someone on the side of the road, so the bus driver stopped the bus for a minute so they could talk and say what they needed to say; that would NEVER happen in the United States because everything is about time and money so the faster the better! It was really awesome to get to experience a slower pace where we hardly ever even knew what time it was! (As opposed to me checking my cell phone every 5 minutes to check the time and to see if I have any texts or missed calls).
Saturday afternoon we also went down to the river for an hour or so with gloves and trash bags to help clean up the river. Even though the river is very dirty and full of trash, this is the water that people use to wash clothes, bathe, etc. It is very important to them, so we spent some time trying to clean it up. This was definitely not my favorite thing in the world, and my shoes and my body were very dirty and smelly by the end, but it didn’t matter because I knew that it would ultimately help the people in Santa Marta, and they were all very grateful.
Laina took this lovely picture of me dying of heat after the river clean up
Our last stop of the day was in the women’s bakery in Santa Marta. This is a bakery that is entirely run and operated by women who are part of an organization that is working to improve the treatment of women and women’s rights in El Salvador. Even though most attempts to set up bakeries like this in other places have failed, this particular one in Santa Marta has been very successful, mostly in part to Regina—a very organized and determined woman. It was really great to see such strong and independent women because a lot of what I have seen in El Salvador is “machisimo” and male dominance, so it was good to see women doing something to improve their situation and being successful! At first it was hard for the men in their community because they thought women’s rights would lead to divorce and women leaving their families, but with its success they have realized that the women are happier and stronger because of it!
For the rest of the time at Santa Marta we all shared lots of funny and sometimes scary experiences. For instance, most of the bathrooms in Santa Marta are outhouses that have plastic bowls as toilets, and many are filled with bugs crawling around them. Most of the houses don’t have showers, they just have buckets of water and the people stand right out in the front yards and bathe. There were lots of girls from the group who came back with horror stories of HUGE spiders, geckos and cockroaches in/on the toilets. I guess I was pretty lucky because I didn’t have any bug problems at my house, and the second night I slept much better!
The countryside was definitely out of everyone’s comfort zone, but I feel like even though I didn’t love it, I could get used to anything. Even though their lives are a lot harder than ours there are a lot of plus sides to living like they do. It is very communal so everyone supports each other and you know that you have someone to help you in a time of need. Plus, most families live very close to each other, so in the afternoons and evening it is common to see three or four generations of families hanging out and/or laying in hammocks and talking together! It is a much slower way a life, but it works.
We were able to end the weekend by heading into Victoria and we all got to sit and talk on the radio about our experience in Santa Marta and thank our families for letting us stay in their homes. It was pretty cool to be on live radio, and to be able to tell people that we stand behind them and the radio, and we denounced all of the threats that are coming in. We all promised that when we get back to the US we will make people aware of the problems that they are experiencing, and we already have names and emails of people to contact in order to make sure that Radio Victoria is safe and can continue broadcasting their news. They are really a means of communication for the town because hardly anyone has a phone or a way to contact people from neighboring cities, so the people at Radio Victoria let people make announcements or just simply speak their mind. It was awesome to see a bunch of young guys studying and working so hard at the Radio; you could tell that they were really excited about what they were doing and they were happy that we can now go and spread the word!
Talking on the radio!
Now that we are back at the Oasis we are ALL very thankful for things like soft beds, clean sheets, no bugs, good food, and wireless internet. My roommate Jen and I keep finding ourselves complaining, and then we correct ourselves because we know that it could be worse! So tonight at one point we were rolling on our beds laughing and crying because it kept happening! Here are some of the things that were said….
Jen: UGH it was so awful!
Leah: At least you have a leg! (we saw a man with no leg crutching around Santa Marta)
Leah: Why do they always unplug the alarm clock? I have to reset it EVERYDAY!
Jen: At least you have an alarm clock
Jen: Man! we have these thick embroidered blankets instead of cool sheets?
Leah: really, Jen?
Jen: Man it’s hot in here I wish there was a breeze...
Leah gives Jen a look…..
Jen: NEVERMIND!! Please don’t send me back! (as she curls up in her bed like a baby)
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