Heading Sur
March 4, 2006:
Seattle provided for us a brief evening for introductions and a chance at a good nights’ rest (perhaps our last one for the next ten days!). Funny thing, though; I’d not been able to sleep all night. The plane was waiting; we packed and repacked (and repacked) those bins and headed to the airport. It was time, and the excitement level was high.
During the long flight to Houston and on to the Comalapa/San Salvador
airport, I pondered my role as an observer of the fabric of other’s
lives. Winding my way through their day at a clinic in Central America,
what might I find? Would I be able to capture in photos a desire for care
and touch, the need for relief, or the memories of loss and war? And how
might I be changed?
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Upon our arrival in San Salvador, we met Ken Henderson, an eye specialist, along with Sister Eleanor and her trusty driver, Hermann (oh, the stories from this man!). |
| We gathered our ‘hundreds of pounds of luggage’ and meandered our way through customs, a bit weary and tired. Lucky us, we were escorted to Tierra Blanca in the dark of the night (a 45 minute drive) in a new air-conditioned bus! We arrived late into the evening, but the heat of the day was still apparent. I wondered what the next day would bring . . . |  |
Tierra Blanca is a smallish town located ten miles east of the Lempa River, which divides the country between North and South. We traveled from the airport in the Department of La Paz (equivalent to our ‘state’), through the Department of San Vicente, crossing the Lempa River into the Department of Usulutan and into Tierra Blanca (as we crossed the Rio Lempa, we were informed that the original bridge had been bombed and destroyed during the civil war).
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Arriving at a recently built hacienda-type compound, the Romero Center (named after Catholic Archbishop Romero who was assassinated during the civil war), |
| we found our cozy cots arranged in rooms painted a beautiful bright turquoise. This large and organized structure houses the office for the Fondo de Emergencia (Emergency Health Fund) and provides housing and meeting areas for local and visiting groups. |  |
During the 1970’s, the people of Tierra Blanca primarily worked the land. They are known as campesinos (rural residents of the countryside, campo). But this small community, as well as hundreds of poor rural communities in El Salvador, soon became active in worker’s rights for better wages and working conditions, which eventually escorted them into a civil war that was to go down in Central American history. As the week went on, we were to briefly experience the aftermath of years of emotional strain and moral efforts towards an insurgency to fight social injustice.
After a short introduction period and a warm welcome from Sister Eleanor, we were off to our assigned dorm-style rooms to unpack, shower, hang mosquito nets . . . and to finally sleep (I would wager a bet that not one of us had a problem doing so).