Sorry it has taken so long, but here is an update on my return to El Salvador for the Presidential Election. It was so good to revisit El Salvador, and I still can’t believe I actually got to go back. It has taken a while to process the whole trip since I had a pretty packed schedule. So how did this all happen, how did I get to travel to El Salvador on an $80 stipend? Well, a former Jesuit Volunteer in Houston is married to a Salvadorian man (Francisco), who each year offers to lead a delegation of current JVs to El Salvador. When Francisco first talked to my roommates and I about the possibility of going to El Salvador for the Elections, Amber, Katie, and I immediately jumped on the offer. All three of us studied abroad in El Salvador and would do anything to go back and reconnect with our friends. We did some fundraising and wrote letters to former volunteers for donations and raised enough money to completely cover the cost of our trip. On March 13 we caught a flight to El Salvador, and the following describes how the trip unfolded.
March 14
Woke up to the sound of roosters and women selling empanadas. It’s unseasonably cool, so the mosquitoes were thankfully not to bad last night. We’re staying with Francisco’s aunt and cousin in San Marcos, a neighborhood just a little outside of the city of San Salvador. Francisco’s aunt, Maria, is a tiny old lady who shuffles around the house making sure everyone is well fed. His cousin, Silvia, teaches second grade and was only around in the evenings. Their house is relatively nice. They have a showerhead and real toilet (though both are in little outhouses outside and the toilet doesn’t flush). Still, this is an upgrade from my Campo days.
Today is our first day in El Salvador and we spent it registering and training to be International Election Observers. I got an official badge that said “Election Observer” and then was given a crash course in voting procedures. Basically, my job is to watch for fraudulent voting procedures and make sure the voting centers follow the rules. Since this is such a heated election, fraud is expected to be high. The FMLN party (liberals) has a good chance at winning and the ARENA party (conservatives) is nervous about losing their control of the country.
March 15
Today is Election Day and everyone is buzzing with anticipation. Salvadorians are very polarized, they either support ARENA or FMLN, there’s not really any middle ground. Some of the top leaders in the ARENA Party are connected to the murder of Romero and the 6 Jesuit martyrs at the UCA. The FMLN Party began as a guerrilla group during the Civil War to counter the attacks of the National Guard. Since the signing of the Peace Accords in 1992, there has never been any official reconciliation between the two sides. The FMLN fought for the rights of the poor and oppressed, while ARENA leans towards policies that benefit the rich. For 20 years ARENA has controlled the country, and this year FMLN has a good chance of winning the election. The two candidates are Rodrigo Avila (ARENA) and Mauricio Funes (FMLN). As Election Observers, our job is to make sure voting goes smoothly and monitor for voting fraud.
We began the day at a voting center in Santa Tecla. People are zoned to certain voting centers just like in the U.S. The centers are filed with different tables and each table has 450 ballots. Tables are set up alphabetically. There are posters with each registered voters picture and name, and people find their name/picture and the go to the assigned table. At the table voters must present their DUI (Salvadorian identification card). You can’t vote without a DUI. Then an election official finds the person’s name on the list, they must sign or thumbprint if they can’t write, then are given a ballot. The ballot has a picture of the ARENA flag on one side and the FMLN flag on the other. Voters go to a cardboard voting both and place and X over the flag they are voting for, then fold the ballot and place it in the ballot box. After they finish voting, they must dip their finger in a special purple dye that lasts for 3 days so they are marked and cannot try voting again. The system seemed to work pretty well and we didn’t see and suspicious activity.
Each voting table had two representatives from each party to make sure voting was fair. When people came to vote, everyone had on a T-shirt, hat, or some type of paraphernalia that showed their party support. In Santa Tecla most people were sporting ARENA gear, but we also visited Tamanique, Comasaguas, Jicalapa, and Teotepeque (the birth place of Farabundo Marti, who the FMLN is named after), which are small towns in La Libertad, and everyone was wearing red to show their support of FMLN.
Our last stop was in San Salvador at La FerÃa Internaciónal. This was an awesome place to close out the elections since it was so politically charged. At 5:00pm the voting booths closed and each table is responsible for counting its votes. I watched as one by one the ballots were pulled from the box and counted.
There was a small dispute at my table over a ballot that had a large X over the whole page and not just on one flag. In the end it was declared null because the voter’s intent was unclear. As each table finished counting, cheers could be heard from the winning party. My table went to ARENA, but the majority of tables at the voting center went to FMLN. As the votes rolled in from across the country, it became apparent that Funes would win and people went wild. We took to the streets in celebration decked out in red FMLN gear. Everyone was so excited. There was dancing, music, and fireworks. After more than 20 years of oppression, the people had finally gained power. The whole event was truly monumental and I’m so grateful to have been a part of Salvadorian history.
March 17
After taking a day to recover from all the post-election festivities, we headed off to meet with one of the FMLN diputados (Congressman), Hugo Martinez. He spoke a lot about immigration reform and wanting to work closely with the U.S. on this matter. Twenty percent of El Salvador’s economy is based on remittances sent by Salvadorians in the U.S. to family still in El Salvador, so immigration is a big issue. The new administration wants to tackle the factors pushing people to migrate, but they know this will not happen over night, so they are asking the U.S. stability for people with TPS and maybe some kind of Visa that allows Salvadorians in the U.S. with TPS to freely travel between the two countries to visit family which will strengthen families ties that are severed due to immigration.
FMLN also wants to tackle the gang issues, which are plaguing the country. ARENA wasn’t very motivated to combat the gangs because they profited from the violence. Many ARENA members own private security companies (vigilantes) and weapon companies. So they profit from the violence because more people need to hire vigilantes and carry guns for protection.
Hugo Martinez stressed that El Salvador’s new government doesn’t want to be compared to other leftist countries. They are not Communist, they just want equality and to end oppression. The new government will look at leftist countries like Cuba, Venezuela, and Ecuador and note what has worked and what hasn’t worked, but ultimately will make their own decisions. The new government wants friendly relations with the U.S., but they do not want to be submissive or a puppet of the U.S. El Salvador wants to be a strong country on its own.
March 18
Today we visited the UCA. It was so good to be back on familiar grounds. Not too much had changed since I was a student there. After walking around the campus for a while, we made our way over to the UCA Chapel and Romero Center. We stop in the Chapel to say some prayers and then walked through the Romero Center looking at the pictures and revisiting the Rose Garden (a memorial to the 6 Jesuit martyrs and they’re housekeeper and her daughter). While walking through the Romero Center, we had the privilege of bumping into Dean Brackley, SJ and Jon Sobrino, SJ. Dean is very involved with the Casa program and came to El Salvador right after the 6 Jesuits were killed to help continue their mission at the UCA. Jon Sobrino was one of the UCA Jesuits during the war and would have been killed with the other 6 had he not been out of the country for a lecture. Dean welcomed us back to El Salvador and then spoke to us for a while about the elections. He then made a comment that traveling to El Salvador is like a spiritual pilgrimage. I fell like that is a beautiful way of putting what this trip to El Salvador meant to me. The country has such a strong faith based in liberation theology and so many spiritual icons like Romero, Rutilio Grande, the 4 church women, and the 6 Jesuit martyrs. Returning to El Salvador was like returning to my spiritual roots. I felt invigorated and refreshed, ready to return to the U.S. and continue working for social change and living in solidarity with the people of El Salvador.
March 19
We spent most of the day at Francisco’s family’s beach house. After more than enough sun, we asked Francisco if we could spend the last days of our trip visiting friends from when we had studied abroad in El Salvador. So Francisco drove us to Antiguo Cuscatlan and dropped us off in front of Casa Romero. We knocked on the door of Casa Romero and stood outside next to our duffle bags waiting looking pretty dirty and tired from our beach day and a little nervous since we didn’t know any of the current study abroad students. But one knock and a student came running to answer the door and we were immediately welcomed in. We hung out in the hammocks chatting with the current students and then later that evening went to a pupusa dinner with all the Casa students and the becarios (Salvadorian scholarship students). It was so good to see all the becarios. Some I remembered from my semester at the Casa and others were new. One of the new becarios, Alejandro, remembered me from my time in the campo. I stayed in his village and for some reason remembered me. So I spent some time talking with him and getting updates on my campo host family. Later that night we went to mass with all the students. I almost forgot how much I love mass in El Salvador. God is so visibly present here.
March 20
I spent the night at Casa de la Paz, a new house that the Casa Program bought for guests and visiting alums. I woke up early and went to history class at the UCA. I got to class early and Amber and I chatted with Gene Palumbo, our former history teacher. There was a guest speaker coming to class, which is why we asked if we could sit in on the class.
After class we walked back to Casa Romero for lunch. As I was sitting in the hammock waiting for lunch to be ready, I saw Oti and Lolo walk into the house. Neither knew I was back in El Salvador because I didn’t want to disappointment if I said I would see them and then things never worked out. I saw Lolo first and yelled at him from across the backyard. He saw me and had the biggest smile on his face as I ran over and hugged him. Then Oti came over with Oscarito (who’s now pretty big) and we also hugged. It was a very emotional reunion and words can’t describe how happy I was to see them. We spent all of lunch catching up. Lolo said his family was doing well. Karen is now in second grade and loves school. Maria Jose is getting bigger and is apparently a terror around the house. Though Lolo had a huge smile on his face and was laughing and telling jokes, he wasn’t doing very well. He had spent most of last year in the hospital with a lung disease (people at the Casa think he has cancer). The medical bills were so expensive that Lolo had to sell his house and move into his uncle’s house. The women’s cooperative that I used to work at is no longer in business. The economy is bad and people just weren’t buying the goods. This is a major blow since the cooperative was also a source of support for the women that worked there, as most of them were victims of abusive relationships. The gangs in Mariona are worse. There’s now a curfew to keep innocent people off the streets at night and gang wars are more frequent. We only had a few hours together before Oti and Lolo had to leave, but it was nice being with them for even just a short time.
March 21
Today we went to the Romero March, celebrating the 29th anniversary of his death. We joined the parade of people singing and prayer as we marched to the cathedral. At the cathedral we celebrated mass.
That night we met back up with Francisco and went back to his aunt’s house and had a birthday party for his mom. Then we took our last buck shower in the sink and got ready to return to the U.S.
If you would like to read more about my study abroad experience in El Salvador, go to http://lubert.blogspot.com/
Paz,
Stephanie
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