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.