When I woke up at 5:30am on Sunday, July 24, in the Hotel El Torogoz in San Salvador, my only thought then and my only thought for the rest of the day was greeting Benjamin that afternoon. It had been a wonderful week in El Salvador: a week so full and stimulating that I didn't get much of a chance to sit and think about missing my child. But the day we were traveling back I couldn't think of anything else. When our plane made an extra stop in Houston to let off a sick passenger, I felt pretty sick to my stomach, so to speak, and I realized how much I was looking forward to what I thought would be a 4 o'clock reunion with my family.
When we finally got to DFW, the customs line was long to the point of absurdity, wrapping around each of the baggage carousels the looping around on itself multiple times. We walked for 5 minutes just to find the end of the line. They fixed the problem and the wait wasn't very long after all, but then we got to the car and realized that one tire was almost bald, so we drove home very slowly indeed. It seemed everything was working against my reunion with Benjamin.
When I finally pulled into the driveway, seeing him again was everything I hoped it would be. He looked a little bit older, he was saying so much more, and I'll always remember the look on his face when he realized his mama was home. And it was pretty great to see JB again too...
Here are a few pics JB and Grandmommy took while I was away:
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| An excursion to Cameron Park |
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| At our wonderful farmer's market |
And here below is just one picture from El Salvador. I may do a separate post about the trip, but I may just leave the stories to tell you in person. This is just a baby blog, after all : ) The one story I will tell here, to give a little context for our trip, will end up being kind of long, but writing it is as much for me as for you, so I won't be offended if you don't make it through.
The picture below shows my first view of the Lempa River, the main water source for El Salvador and the river our friends in Valle Nuevo crossed over the course of a couple of nights on March 18, 1981 as they fled the destruction of their town and its people by the military.
The left side of the picture is El Salvador and the right side is Honduras, where they stayed in a refugee camp for 9 years until near the end of the civil war. The U.S. backed Salvadoran military (backed financially and with guns given directly from the U.S. government) had a policy of killing anyone who might be a guerilla (rebel) or a sympathizer, including women and children. This policy lead to numerous massacres, some which wiped out entire villages of people. As the people of Valle Nuevo crossed the river, they dodged bombs from helicopters and guns from all sides. Juana told us how she was running down the side of the mountain at night with her two children (ages 6 and 9 at the time), and she lost them for almost a whole day. She finally found them up in a tree, and they crossed the river together. 50 people died in the crossing, some because they lost their grip on a rope thrown across the river and the current swept them away. Hundreds more died in the days after the crossing of various ailments and injuries and then more in the refugee camps.
As I tell this story, I remember walking down the side of that same mountain a few weeks ago with Juana, Margarita (who must be 80 or 85), Felipa (who was making the journey for the first time since the 1981 crossing), Pedro, and Douglas and Mari, who were not yet born at the time of their parents' crossing. I remember thinking how strange it was to be there, how out of place I felt to be entering a story that was not my own. As I walked down the steep and rocky hill in the comfort of my good sandals, my well-fed stomach and the broad daylight, enjoying the beauty of the place, I felt like I shouldn't be there, intruding on a story in which I have not earned a place.
And yet, as I walked down the hill, there was Douglas offering his hand as we climbed over the rock barrier of a cow pasture; there was our driver with his machete blazing a trail for us in the high grass; there was Felipa lending an arm as we stumbled on the rocky slope. At the river, Margarita sang for us the songs she had written since the crossing about Archbishop Oscar Romero, about her community, about the crossing and the refugee camps. As they shared their memories, they were inviting us to be part of their ongoing story. They want us to hear their stories, to understand their suffering, and to be part of their lives in the present.
And so in a small way I think we are part of their lives. Personally, I felt of the smallness of my presence there more than anything. But I also felt how much they appreciate our return year after year for the last twenty years, especially those of us like Nancy who have been going for 10 years and have contact with them throughout the year. They appreciate the friendship, the prayers, and the help we have been able to provide with their own community development projects like habitat for humanity housing and their ongoing battle to gain legal title for their farm land.
The relationship with Valle Nuevo is necessarily a difficult one that tries to cross boundaries of language (for some of us), culture, religion (El Salvador is predominantly Roman Catholic), wealth and privilege, and resources. I appreciate that SMC (the larger body our church is part of) tries to confront these difficulties rather than dismissing them as unimportant. But we share with the people of Valle Nuevo a respect for the effort being made on both sides to make this a mutual relationship based on our unity as children of God and people of faith.
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