Mariona 2.4.11

Two full days each week, I spend my time in Mariona. Mariona is the location of my praxis site, and my time there is deeply connected to one of the pillars of this program, to walk with the people of El Salvador. While at Mariona, I am with two other Casa students and a family of Salvadorans. We arrive at around 9AM, depending on traffic, and we leave at around 3:30PM. I spend those six hours each time speaking in spanish. We make mistakes. We struggle. And we laugh a lot. From day one, these people have told us that their home is our home.

Mariona, is home to the largest prison in El Salvador called La Esperanza. Gang violence is a significant problem in the area. Consequently, we spend our time primarily within two households (in a small row of houses just off of a big street). The kids in these families are rarely, I mean really rarely, allowed to play outside. This means that we often are not outside either. And while in the late afternoon heat of this country, indoor time is often a blessing, this time is also an experience in the reality of these people. Gang violence and the speeding trucks and buses near their house are enough to confine them inside. And leaving my privileged life in the States, where I am able to walk where I want to walk, I now spend time aware of those walls in Mariona, I feel the restlessness that can accompany sitting, I feel the difference in a smaller home, I begin to challenge the comfort I've claimed in my large spaces. My large spaces. My comfort. Their home. My home.

For the rest of the semester and my time here, I will continue to learn from these people. This is an outline of what that classroom looks like:

Mondays: Generally, we stay in Mariona at the house of a couple with two children. They are all amazing, and so very beautiful. He is a candle maker, to make money. And he also is a gardener, again, to make money and support their family. He doesn't consider himself "employed", because neither jobs are careers. When in Mariona we will learn how to make candles with him and also how to make some native Salvadoran foods with his wife. Much of our days with them are spent talking. Learning about their lives during the Civil War, their faith and their everyday struggles.

Some Mondays throughout the semester, we will travel with him to rural artisan cooperatives, which he voluntarily aids in their business. In the late afternoon, on the Mondays when we are not visiting cooperatives, we will have creative time with local neighborhood kids (about 9 of them between the ages of 4 and 11), which can be music or crafts or dancing or games. This week, we played "charadas" or charades and "vaya pescar" or go fish. The kids loved it and so did their parents.

Wednesdays: Each Wednesday we will work with this man's aunt, who lives down the block from him. She practices massages and energy workshops as well as meditation. She has taken classes to learn this practice, and invites people in the community to join her workshops in order to work through the traumas they experienced during the Civil War and also the daily traumas they deal with in living in poverty. After lunch with her family, we visit for awhile and then teach an english class to those same nine children from the community.

This classroom is unlike any I have ever visited. The family, in their generous love, completely makes the work what it is. They are so welcoming and friendly, and willing to talk openly about their struggles and the state of their society here.

Tonight I will spend the weekend in their homes. I leave at 4PM and will return Sunday afternoon. And love continues to grow in my heart.