Learning to Live

When I called this process “study abroad”, I was referring to my classes. I was referring to the courses I would be taking about the history of the civil war in this country, the sociological analysis of coffee production and population growth. I was referring to the theology course that was scheduled for every Friday morning.

And all of these courses have given me homework, and I have studied for each of them. I have read the lectures and written the papers. I have learned the reality of this country through these books and taken notes on these lectures.

And I have also learned so very much more. Everyday here, every moment spent with my friends who call this country home, I am learning how to live.

When I chose this study abroad experience, I chose it because I wanted to know the people of this country. And with that desire came expectations, assumptions. I expected to learn about the history of the war. I assumed I would learn more about our country’s role in that history, our role in the funding of those massacres. I expected to hear many stories. I expected to have my heart broken. I anticipated a revolution of my heart.

When I thought of this study experience, I recalled the images I had always seen associated with El Salvador, most of them, if not all, from the time of the civil war. I thought of black and white faces of the disappeared. Face upon face, each without a smile, each with a cold stare. There was little warmth. There was a great deal of curiosity in my mind and in my heart. I recalled the stillness of dead bodies piled high during the war. I imagined soldiers, with tall boots, black hats and young complicated faces. I recalled words from the books I’ve read that described death and destruction and so very much pain. I analyzed our collective history, between my country and El Salvador, and I was disgusted by the role my country assumed in those images, those words, and that pain.

But I have learned so very much more than those images, those words and that pain could have taught me. I have learned, in the midst of that history, in the midst of that very tangible pain that exists here, what it means to live.

I have formed friendships with the families in Mariona. I have held their children, tickling them until their laughter chases their breath. I have washed their dishes. I have let them serve me food at every lunch meal. We have sat together in silence, a silence that feels very comfortable in a space that is shared with friends. We have hugged each other every time we say hello or say goodbye. We have talked about what does and does not work about our work and time together. They have seen me vulnerable in my broken Spanish and tired mornings. I have seen them vulnerable in their struggles with health and the exhaustion of living in a violent reality.

In learning to live, I have learned that these people here do not need my pity. They need my company and my respect. They need my listening heart and mind. They are living. They are living with the memory of their civil war. They are living with the pain of the traumas of that war. They are living with the murder that they witnessed last week on the way to meet their daughters at school. They are sharing these stories, inviting me to better understand their pain. And then, as living breathing loving people do, they share an embarrassing story from their childhood. They laugh in the midst of everything I struggle to grasp. They invite me to laugh with them. They invite me to live with them.

And live with them I have. I have sat on the crowded public buses and sweated through the afternoon heat bouncing my head to the beat of reggaeton. I have swam in the ocean at a public beach with the family of the Salvadoran student who lives in our home here. Swimming with his cousins and nieces, we were knocked down by waves and filled our swimsuits with sand. We looked at the private cabanas and walked past them, knowing they were not for us. I have spent a week in a home stay in the rural areas of El Salvador with a host family. We watched telenovelas, ate candy and played cards for hours. Time passed slowly. But we passed it together.

This is living. This is obvious. And yet in preparing for my time here, none of this was obvious. The people of this country, in sharing their stories and sharing their lives with me, even their friendship, have invited me to open my eyes. They have held my hand as I walk through the deep darkness of their reality and they have opened my heart, in a way I could not do on my own, as I walk through the joy of what it means to be alive with them, together.

And what it means to serve them is to live with them. What it means to live with them is to acknowledge their struggles and their joys. I have learned to listen. I have learned to follow their lead. I have learned that to serve them, to live with them, is to work with them for justice. And to be fulfilled in that work, to give that work and the humanity of these people their due value, I need to be alive with them, actively learning from them, actively living with them, and actively loving as they love.

Wrapped in a grace that I cannot fully articulate

I could not have anticipated blessings such as these during my time here. I could not manifest revelations such as these on my own. I am feeling a love divine. I am wrapped in a grace that I cannot fully articulate.

It was Saturday evening of our weekend at our praxis site in Mariona. The same evening that I struggled with the exchange of money between this Salvadoran woman and I, I also shared a bond with her strong enough to overcome any awkward exchange.

In preparing for our weekend stay in Mariona, our program suggested that we pack photos of our friends and family to share with our Salvadoran host family. In the rush of packing my bag it didn’t occur to me that I could be selective with which photos I would share. Instead I simply threw my photo album in my bag and boarded the microbus in the direction of Mariona.

On Saturday evening, my Salvadoran host and friend invited me to share my photos with her. She was very excited to see them and excited to show me her own album as well. I was a bit nervous. I quickly realized that I had brought nearly thirty photos. I didn’t want to overwhelm her, or bore her. But we opened the album anyways and the stories started to rush out.

She loved the photos of my family and enjoyed the photos of my friends from Minnesota. Soon my photos transitioned to my friends and experiences at Loyola Chicago. The very first photo was of one of my best friends and I holding signs together at a vigil against militarization. It was obviously a photo quite different from the rest. It was time to do some explaining.

I explained to her that this vigil was outside of “La Casa Blanca” or the White House. Immediately she smiled. I waited to see how she might react. Then my fellow student in the room interjected, “¡Anamaria es una revolucionaria!” We all laughed; I laughed timidly. And she smiled even bigger and put out her fist to me. She was inviting me to a fist bump; she was affirming me. I gladly returned the fist bump, and we all laughed a little harder.

As we continued through the pictures, a theme began to develop. It became clear that vigils such as that depicted in the first photo were reoccuring. Then this Salvadoran woman asked a question that I was simply not prepared to hear. She asked if we had heard of the School of the Americas Watch vigil because she knew many Casa students that participated in the vigil.

I breathed deeply. Time seemed to slow. My mind raced. Was this really happening? Did this Salvadoran woman really just ask me that? And it may seem trivial. It was a simple question, but for me it carried a great weight. In processing my decision to participate in civil disobedience this past November at the School of the Americas vigil, I wondered what my experience in Georgia at the vigil would mean to my time in El Salvador. For a time, I was even unsure if I would be able to study in El Salvador because of my pending state charges from the direct action in Georgia. And I refused to entertain any illusions that our direct action would be relatable to the Salvadoran people that I met during my time here. I didn’t want to assume anything, especially not that the people that I met would know about the vigil.

And yet there I was. And this friend of mine, this Salvadoran woman was the one asking me about the vigil. I told her that, yes; I knew of the vigil and had traveled to the vigil the last so many years. I breathed again. I thought back to the fist bump. That exchange seemed to go well. And so I told her that I participated in civil disobedience at the vigil this past November. I explained that I held a sign and blocked a highway. I told her that I was in jail after I was arrested.

We were all quiet for a moment. Or at least it felt as though we were all quiet. I quickly assured her that I was only in jail for one night. I was released the next day. All was well.

She smiled at me again. But this time, we weren’t laughing. Her eyes stared so deeply into mine, and her smile spread so calmly across her face, that without moving, she touched the depths of my heart. She told me she had been arrested once as well. She too had spent one night in jail.

This was really happening.

Throughout the rest of the night I learned a little more. I know that she was active as a religious sister throughout El Salvador’s civil war, and thus she had many dear friends martyred. I assume that her arrest was tied up in her work during the war. She assured me gently that I needed to have “orgullo” or “pride” in being a revolutionary. I had clearly had hesitation in claiming my identity in the photos that I had shared. She sensed this. This woman who had lived through the repression and violence of the civil war, told me to have pride. She looked into my eyes many more times that night, telling me that we had a lot in common. This Salvadoran woman nearly my mother’s age, she said, had a lot in common with me.

I could not have anticipated blessings such as these.

Later in the week, we were back at Mariona. Wednesdays are the days that we spend learning meditation and massage techniques with this Salvadoran woman. Wednesday was the day that we learned how to give each other hand massages. Soon I found myself sitting cross-legged with this Salvadoran woman at my side, massaging my hand. She smoothed each wrinkle and touched each worn joint from my twenty-one short years of life. Each time we finish these massages, she encourages us to send each other a verbal message. She held my hand in both of hers and out loud recalled the bond we had formed during the weekend past. She spoke of my being young and of having “compromiso” or "commitment" and what it meant to share this with me. Being told that I am someone with “compromiso” was an incredible gift, because this concept of commitment is one that she and many others use in telling stories of resistance and faith during the civil war.

Her hands holding mine, I was wrapped in a grace that I cannot fully articulate.

As we took time to reflect together after we had each finished the hand massages, I was able to share with her what this relationship with her meant to me. Using Spanish as best as I could, I told her that I had dealt with a lot of fear in jail. I told her with tears in my eyes that this time with her, her words, and the touch of her hands with such dignity, care and deep love was a part of my healing process of dealing with that fear.

She was sharing a divine love with me.

There I was, in El Salvador, in a small room in the top of this woman’s humble home. I was sitting across from this woman who had lived through a civil war that I have only known through stories, who has lived through death and great fear, love and great faith. And there was this connection tangibly moving between us.

And here I am, overwhelmed by these experiences. I cannot manifest revelations such as these on my own. Here I am and God is with me. If I was unsure before of God’s presence in my life, and I can say firmly that many times I was, I need no longer to be unsure. After following what I believed was my calling to civil disobedience, I experienced a fear that shook me to the core. I wavered. I was afraid. I have been broken and vulnerable. And in the weight of that brokenness, in the confusion of that vulnerability, God has carried me through the hands of this Salvadoran woman. I have now seen that in the times when I do not know my own strength, when fear and confusion cloud that strength, God enters and does the rest. I need not fear, God’s love is with me, in the very hands of this Salvadoran woman.