The Aftermath

First of all I just want to thank everyone. Your donations, thoughts and prayers have been much appreciated.

I was finally able to make it back to Las Delicias on Sunday. We brought a ton of food that was bought with your donations, 50 pounds of rice, 50 pounds of beans, oil, salt, sugar, eggs and water (the most basic Salvadoran diet). The food was definitely needed, so thank you.

There was a bunch of people at the library when we arrived. A group of women came down from the church and other women from the community joined in to help make tamales. They made 750 tamales, which ended up feeding a ton of people from the community on Sunday and we had so many that we were able to bring more on Monday to the men who were working on moving mud.

On Monday we visited a lot of the lower communities that have been the most affected. We brought tamales and water to men who were working to clear mud from their homes and the roads. Some homes had had chest deep water that has turned into mud. One home had a solid three feet of mud that entrapped most of their possessions.

We went to another area of the community and found two men trying to clear their home. There was three feet of mud covering their patio area and spilling into many of the rooms. They had been working on clearing it out for 5 days but it seemed like they had just started. They were also still living in the home. They would walk to a raised room in their boots through the thick mud and get into their bed that still has not dried from the rain. The man told us they were drinking the water even though he knows its dirty, they do not have any other options. Right next to their home a lake has formed from the rains and the road is completely filled with mud. So if it is to rain again (there is still a month or so of the rainy season), their house will be flooded and fill with mud all over again.

Just across the road from these men lives another family. We squished through the mud to get to their home. As we entered it was clear that their house was damp and still had mud but they were living in it. We were told to enter a room were an older woman was laying in make shift bed. The first thing I saw was her foot elevated on a pillow and extremely swollen from an infection. I almost turned around right away but I clearly had to stay as the woman we were with (Cristina) talked to the woman with the infection. Her foot was swollen and was covered in sores. I later found out that she must have had a small cut in her foot and the mud got trapped in it as she had been walking through the mud barefoot.

This is starting to become a concern and will only continue to be a problem since most people have to walk through the mud with no shoes. It is just a matter of time until it becomes a nation wide problem. There is no clean drinking water so epidemics have begun. The people do not realize how sick the mud can make them so they are living in their homes when they should not be inhabited yet.

I spent Sunday through Wednesday in Las Delicias and stayed with Cristina who is the head of the organization working in the community. It was a difficult few days trying to understand the reality of the situation. Especially talking with people who are still living in the library. One woman told me that she thought we abandoned them, which is hard to hear as I care for them so much. In a lot of ways the situation is quite daunting as there is a TON of work and the work is slow and difficult. The amazing thing is how the community has been supporting one another. People staying in the upper shelter want to make food for the people in the lower community and help them even though they are also in need. The youth have been helping distribute food and accompanying the people in the library. People are doing whatever they can to help the other people in the community. It gives me so much hope that things will get better quickly.

I have a few more days of vacation and I am going to re-charge so I can be ready for the difficult weeks to come. Thank you again for all your support. (More pictures to come).

Help for El Salvador

Dear Friends and Family,

As many of you know, I have been living in El Salvador since August through a program called La Casa de la Solidaridad (The house of Solidarity). I have been a part of a community called Las Delicias experiencing the harsh and beautiful realities of the country.

The rain keeps falling. The tears do, too. For more than a week now, there hasn’t been a dry moment. Every day we are told that the rain will stop tomorrow but tomorrow never comes.

But you may think, well its just rain, what could rain do? In El Salvador (as of October 20) 38 people have died, 32,243 people have been evacuated from their homes and are living in shelters where there are limited resources.

More than 4 feet of rain has accumulated in the past week. President Funes has declared a State of Calamity throughout the country, higher than a state of emergency. It is being called a natural disaster but it is not natural when only the poor are losing their homes and lives.

In my community of Las Delicias, 1 young woman has died, 60 families are living in a church and many more are losing their homes as I write this letter. They are soaked to the bone and extremely cold which has been worse since a cold front is moving into the area. The roads are not passable or have been completely destroyed. The lower road had 3 feet of mud on top of the road and the military was brought in to clear it out but since it was cleared, there has been more rain.

A family I have come to know and love has two small children named Carla and Marcos. Their father was killed a few years ago and before the rains, they were struggling to fill their stomachs. Their mom had a small garden providing for them but now their garden is destroyed. They have no food and are staying in a shelter, as they are afraid their house will collapse. They do not have warm or dry clothes but somehow they still have hope that everything will be okay.

My community of Las Delicias right now desperately needs food, water and warm clothing immediately so they can make it through the crisis. Long term they will need help rebuilding their homes and community. I am asking you, as my friends and family, to help my friends and family in El Salvador. There are many ways you can help:

1. To donate directly to Las Delicias, the money will have to come through me. I will be able to keep track of the money for Las Delicias and use it as to best help the community since we have to take the situation day by day. This can be done by sending money to my parents, and they will deposit it into my bank account. Alternatively, you could send it directly to US bank (either my parents or myself can provide the account number).
2. You could give directly to an organization called Voices on the Border, http://www.votb.org/ They are a local organization that is helping with immediate relief but will continue helping with reconstruction.

Please keep my friends, the people of El Salvador and Central America in your thoughts and prayers. If you would like more information on the general situation the local newspapers are La Prensa Grafica (www.laprensagrafica.com), El Diario de Hoy (www.elsalvador.com) and Co-Latino (www.diariocolatino.com). Please let me know if you have further questions about donating or the situation here.

Thank you for your time and solidarity.
With love.

Puchica (POO-chi-ca)

It has been a long time since updating friends and family at home and I want to say I have been thinking about how to write this. The words took a long time to come. But I also want to give you an update on our country. There is a storm raging through Central America right now and it has been raining here since Tuesday. When I say that I really mean it has been raining almost 24/7 since Tuesday and not lightly but fuerte (strong). A national emergency was declared this weekend so the government can start using funds to help people. But it has wreaked havoc all over the country, houses have been destroyed and people are dying. Roads are impassible, others have rivers running through their homes and rivers are overflowing forcing people from their homes and neighborhoods. It is also causing people to get sick since the air is constantly damp which could be really devastating since clinics/hospitals are far from most communities. It is raining as I write this and I honestly do not know when it will stop. So please keep the Salvadorans and the other people of Central America in your thoughts and prayers because at this point, all we can do is pray for it to stop raining.

I have been back in the San Salvador area for just under two weeks now. Two weeks ago I was in the northern part of El Salvador in a town called San José Las Flores in the department of Chalatenango. It has been a big challenge trying to process the week and return to the same thing when I feel so different. I am also not sure what to tell everyone back home so we will see how this goes.

I stayed the week with another girl from my program in the home of a woman named Rosa. We have a sister program for Salvadoran scholarship students and Rosa’s daughter, Susi, is in the program so that is why I stayed with them. People seemed to be in and out all week for various reasons so I will try and explain it the best I can. But I have found here that the definition of family goes way beyond the nuclear family and even the extended family.

Rosa has two daughters who live with her and both are studying in the capital. Susi is just finishing her program and will graduate at the end of the month. She frequently goes home on the weekends even though it can be between a 3 and 4 hour bus ride. Susi is an incredible person with an amazing perspective on life and she seems to give a lot of hope and inspiration to her family.

Magdalena is Rosa’s other daughter who is studying agronomy at the National University in the capital. She has been living in another town during the week and commuting 2 hours to school because she has a beautiful one-year-old daughter. So she commuted the 2 hours so she could see her daughter in the morning and evening and continue studying. Her daughter is extremely intelligent for a one-year-old. She can identify many things, can mostly tell you what she wants, not just walk but run, play the recorder and identify parts of her body. It was so fun to have her around most of the week. She brought a new sense of life to the home and Rosa always lit up when her granddaughter was around. I also was able to meet the baby’s father, Mario, who was a great guy. He loved his daughter so much and told me that he just wants her to be a strong woman. To hear that from a man after experiencing so much machismo was quite inspiring and a clear sign that things are changing.

Doris was also with me all week. And she is a beautiful girl who is in eighth grade. All of her immediate family has left for the United States so she has been living with her aunt Rosa since she was 3. We were able to connect, play games, listen to her music and just hang out. She wants to go to the university and stay in El Salvador, which is pretty incredible since all of her immediate family has left. I think she really looks up to her cousin Susi and wants to be like her.

So there were two other groups of women from our program in the community, which was an amazing experience because most of the nights everyone in our community would meet at one of the 3 houses. It would be the same group of strong women and we would hear their stories and get to just understand their lives. It was very empowering and made me so proud to be a woman.

At one of the other homes lived Leidi (pronounced Lady). She touched my heart in a way I have not experienced. So she did not have much of an opportunity to go to school and I think it is because she has a learning disability. From a young age she had to work in the home cooking and cleaning for everyone. Now at the age of 18 she is still cooking and cleaning every day. She spends most of her free time watching telenovelas (soap operas) and has no friends apart from her couple sisters. I was able to get somewhat close to her and just hang out. We became friends for the week and it was a lot of fun being around her. The second to last day she was pretty upset and finally told me that she was sad that we were leaving. And that just broke my heart. Here I had come for a week, became her friend and now had to leave just as fast.

Coming back I was extremely upset. I felt horrible returning to my group of 30 friends when she was left with nothing. I was not sure how to process this. I didn’t think it was fair to her and to be honest I am still not sure how to feel about it. But I guess the only thing I can do is remember the beauty of the week. Not that I should forget the sorrow and pain I experienced but that part should not weigh me down. The duality of pain and love is apart of every day life here in El Salvador. The big question is how do I balance both parts? I don’t think I will find an answer but I know I have to hold tighter to those moments of beauty and remember them during the times of pain.

Unfortunately on Monday night of the week I got really sick. I was just starting to get adjusted and then thrown totally out of whack. I had gut wrenching pain and I can’t remember ever being that sick. It was nearly impossible to be present with the family let alone speak Spanish so it really took away from my time with them. I was sick until the day before we left and finally felt like I could be present with them and then we had to leave. I remember the bus ride back to the city and felt like someone was totally messing with my mind. I had gotten comfortable in my life in the city and then we were thrown into a completely new situation where I was so uncomfortable. But then once I felt like I should be there, I was forced to return to my old life and try and just pick up where I left off.

I titled this entry, puchica. This is a very Salvadoran word and I think embodies a lot of my week in Las Flores. Puchia can be used in a lot of situations but it means something to the effect of “oh, snap” or “god dang it” or “shoot”. But I guess the connotations signifies the weight of the situation and can be used to express the hardness. It is somewhat difficult to explain entirely but I think it is the great word for the week. I was sick, heard painful war stories, made friends and left them – puchica.

I just got back from a silent retreat which was amazing and hopefully I will get something written about that experience soon. Thanks for reading! (Pictures to come).