an unexpected visit!

By some miracle, my Dad and 16-year-old Spanish-studying brother James walked into my apartment in Nogales, Mexico last weekend to surprise me!

The visit was a really welcome break, and it was wonderful to see them en vivo after five  months of separation.

I am so encouraged by this visit – that they too have now seen a glimpse of the reality of the  border, and that I will not be alone in my experience when I go home. It was a joy to have  shared it, and I know they learned a lot as well.

Also significant: I had the chance to stay with them in a hotel that had HEAT over the  weekend, and I effectively thawed! Also took my first shower in probably 5 days. There are  some aspects of the Estados Unidos that you just gotta love.

Thanks for coming and giving me a burst of energy to continue on my journey, guys! Mad props for your detective work in finding me. I love you!

<3  katie

P.S. My brother is awesome. This is a given.

 

heaviness, bien pesado: testimonios from nogales

This leg of the journey has been characterized by heaviness. The reality and suffering here feels like a crushing weight, leaving me weary and searching for how I might stand up under it.

I have the privilege of spending two weeks volunteering with the Kino Border Initiative in Nogales, México. Kino is a one-year-old binational Mexican & United States Jesuit organization working to address border and migration issues. I am working two meals a day at the comedor, providing warm food and sometimes clothing and medical care to the recently deported migrant.

Hundreds of people each day are dropped off in a Wackenhut private security bus into this economically depressed border city an hour south of Tucson, Arizona. They arrive with nothing more than some of the belongings they happened to have with them at the time of their arrest in an oversized plastic U.S. Border Security and Customs Enforcement bag, and a white slip of paper declaring their deportation date. The bag, their flopping tennis shoes disassembled during the detention center shoelace confiscation, unwashed hair, frequently a limp, and always a tired look of defeat identify each deportee as clearly as the border wall punctuates the imaginary line that’s on everyone’s mind.

Border wall at Mariposa entry in Nogales

While drying dishes after the breakfast meal or chopping cucumbers for lunch, story after story is generously shared. Some tell in perfect English of their 40 years in the States, having been brought there by their parents when they were 2 years old – it is the only life they’ve known. Others tell of their wife and kids still on the other side, and how they have no choice but to cross again – that life without their kids isn’t worth living. And many have epic tales of days upon days of hiking through the inhospitable desert terrain, thirsty and starving, robbed and raped, with bleeding blisters and twisted ankles, lost or separated from their group – only to be picked up by the Border Patrol most of the way to Tucson for a night in jail and back to square one.

Kino Comedor for the deported migrant

Looking into the tired eyes of my joking dish-drying friends in Nogales, now is not the time to talk about abstract policy or citizenship and the law. There is a place for those discussions, and I intent to be part of the structural change that will alleviate the situations of danger, risk, poverty, hopelessness, and separation from their families that these children of God currently find themselves in. But this place is the emergency room of the immigration debate – a place where a warm meal, a jacket with which to survive the 40 degree rainy weather, a place to stay the night so that you don’t have to sleep out in the cemetery, loving eye contact that restores dignity and respect, a patient open ear to your story, and space to decide your next move is the only thing that makes any sense.

In honor of this place, I would like to share a few testimonies from the friends that have won my heart in a matter of hours. I hope that their faces and dreams will remind us what we are actually talking about on the news or with our vote: precious human lives.

TESTIMONIOS

YOVANI is a 23-year-old Guatemalan man who has lived in L.A. doing construction work for 3 years. He went home to Guatemala for the one-year anniversary of his mother’s death, which is a culturally significant time for the family. When his mother passed away, because of the risk of not being able to re-enter the U.S. he had chosen not to go home, but felt that he needed to be with his family this time. He is now facing the dreaded risk of trying to return undetected. Yovani volunteered with us working very hard in the comedor for a week, spending his free time serving the other migrants. He has been picking up some day labor work around Nogales where he can, trying to save up a little bit of money so he can attempt to cross back to where his apartment is in L.A. He came back the two days before I left to make sure he could say goodbye to me – a really sweet guy.

Yovani’s story is a classic one for undocumented people living in the United States – the impossible decision when a loved one is sick or passes away of whether to go home or to stay safely in the U.S. I can’t imagine making that complex decision in the midst of grief.

JOSÉ MANUEL showed up the morning of January 18^th in nothing but an open-backed hospital robe, paper-thin hospital pajama pants, socks, and flip-flops. He is 20 years old and tears of fear and defeat were openly streaming down his face. He had an unbandaged wound on his head and his eyes were completely red with blood. He shared with us that he had been in a car accident on the 15^th while he was being driven, hidden, across the border. We later found the article describing what had happened to him here:

http://www.kvoa.com/news/crash-involving-illegal-immigrants-leaves-1-dead/

Because he had been hidden underneath the car, he couldn’t see what happened during the crash. The woman who died instantly was right next to him. He was airlifted to a hospital in Tucson where they removed shards of the vehicle from both of his eyes and put him in a neck brace. Two days later, on the 17^th of January, they deemed him ready for release. Having cut his clothes off when he came in, he was sent out in the paper-thin hospital clothes and nothing else. José Manuel was deported on a night bus, dropping him off in the unfamiliar city of Nogales, México at a time of day that it is impossible to find a place to sleep or eat. This injured kid with no real clothing spent the night outside, with the temperature getting down into the 30s overnight. He arrived at the comedor in the morning. We listened to his story, fed him, got him some clothes, and took him over to a Mexican government deportee service agency (Grupo Beta) that got him a ticket home to his state of Puebla. I hope he has arrived okay.

José Manuel’s treatment really shocked me. He was a really sweet kid, and his tears were so scared and lonely – I felt like I could imagine how he was feeling, being exposed to so many atrocities and being so far from home or anyone who would love him or look out for him. He passed through so many hands between the hospital, the people processing his deportation, the bus driver who brought him over to México… and not one person said: ‘STOP! This is a scared young boy, in a fragile medical condition. Let’s get him some clothes, or let’s wait to deport him in the morning when it’s warmer and he can find a place to stay.’ Not one person was sensitized to his humanity and vulnerability. And I think it will take him a really long time to recover from being treated like that.

I met ANA JULIA at the Mexican government services center when we were waiting with José Manuel to get his ticket home. She has two daughters, one 22 and one 20 years old – just like my sister and I. She is from Oaxaca City, a very beautiful place that I have visited twice. We chatted a bit about that, and I asked her about her trip. She was on her way north to New Jersey to find her 22-year-old daughter, who had a new baby – Ana Julia had never yet met her only grandchild. She was moving through the Sonoran desert with a group, but had many wounds and told me she had been beaten up and raped twice in the desert by the coyote. The openness to share horrific personal trauma such as that with a near-stranger can only attest to the way deep suffering becomes almost casual conversation for migrants as many are so consistently experiencing trauma on their journeys.

amigo Felipe ("Pony") - a talented illustrator

The painful stories keep coming. The exhaustion I feel from absorbing these accounts doesn’t even begin to compare to what any one of these children of God has suffered through. As a citizen of the United States, I need to continue to hear testimonies of suffering at the hands of my country and take responsibility for them. This reality needs to compel me to action – to make me part of the alleviation. Our differences in citizenship were based only upon chance.
I never want to forget these faces.

Sisters Engracia, Imelda, Lorena, & Father Sean

Somehow in years of hard daily work, the Sisters who run the Comedor have maintained their energy & hope. When I ask how, they say the motivation comes from the migrants. The vitality of those who have suffered more than I can bear to hear about is remarkable. The generosity of the volunteers washing dishes, the trust of those who share their stories with a citizen of the country that has rejected them – I want to learn to draw on that as the Sisters have learned to do. I know it’s possible.

‘He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well.
Is that not what it means to know me?’ declares the LORD.
(Hebrew Bible, Jeremiah 22:16)

Other photos of interest from around Nogales:

Line forming outside the comedor - tienen hambre!

Art depicting migration (Mexico side)

Migration border wall art

our volunteer apartment

 

placeholder of shaaaame

there have been many writing-worthy events lately! namely:

• leaving el salvador
• traveling with josiah
• christmas in guatemala
• san cristobal de las casas, chiapas
• oaxaca
• mexico city
• el paso, texas / ciudad juarez …

in all of the activity, i have gotten way behind on reflection and writing and sharing of photos. i intend to go back and detail these adventures… but currently wanted to reflect on my most recent time in nogales, mexico. check back for more content in between!

in love, solidarity, and peace,

kati

 

and deeper still…

Today is the third day that I am accountable to Angélica.

When my fellow student Emily and left to spend our fall break in Guatemala, we went with the educational objective of visiting Casas de Migrantes to inform our understanding of immigration through Guatemala (aaand also with the intention of seeing some sea turtles). As tends to be true a lot in Latin America, plans changed. And had the prospect of five additional hours on a life-threatening bus ride and an unwelcoming priest not deterred us from our original plan, I would have never been changed by la familia Zamora Chavez.

We met Angélica and her eight-year-old daughter Rosemary in the Parque Central of Antigua, one of the most touristy areas of the country. At first she seemed no different than the countless women and children in bright traditional dress who relentlessly attempted to persuade us to buy their bracelets, necklaces, change purses, and scarves. “¡Conocimos esta tarde! ¿Me recuerda?” After we declined to buy, instead of moving on she plopped down on the bench next to us asked if we remembered meeting her earlier. I squinted and recalled a moment in the afternoon, not unlike a million identical moments on this trip, when I had asked her for directions to the park. We made light conversation, eventually meandering to the topic of traditional Guatemalan food – Emily and I wanted her advice as to what authentic dish we could look for, as we had spent the afternoon passing touristy Italian restaurants and burger joints. Her answer surprised us.

“Les invito a mi casa,” she replied – I invite you to my house.

Fast forward through a great night’s stay at a hilariously cliché hostel to us sitting on the same bench in the Parque Central, waiting for Angélica, who was to arrive at 10 am. As the sun intensified we became unsure as to whether she would actually come – but sure enough, nearly an hour later, we spotted her face amongst the bright colors and Mayan patterns of the working women. Of course we assured her that we had not been waiting long at all, and off we went to the market to buy the ingredients as we had agreed on the night before, Rosemary in tow.

After a chaotic weave through the bustling stands and a traumatic trip through the open-air meat section, we boarded the bus to her pueblo: San Antonio Aguas Calientes. After a short ride we found ourselves walking up her street and through a corrugated metal door into her mother’s house. The house was just as I expected it to be based on my two months of experience so far in El Salvador: dirt floors, a fire to cook over, the overwhelming smell of smoke, electricity and a gas stove, no running water, and a bounty of kids and extended family members (the relations of whom would take months to memorize). We were welcomed enthusiastically by Angélica’s sisters, Telma and Milvia, who immediately invited us to join them in cooking a Mayan dish called Pepián.

From roasting chiles to chopping carrots to making tortillas, the women were eager to explain and include us in every aspect of the dish. It was such a fun community effort that we didn’t even notice as three hours passed and our stomachs were grumbling. When we finally got to sit down and enjoy the meal, we learned that Pepián is typically a dish made for weddings, and felt humbled that the family would go to such lengths on an average day just for us.

As we five women lingered at the table, helping ourselves to more rice and just one more tortilla, the family’s story began to emerge. There was no element that I haven’t heard on a weekly basis here – there is not enough work; the men are in the fields all day earning a minimum wage that can’t even stretch to feed the family; in hard times all they have to eat is tortillas and salt. The Guatemalan public school system is so bad that sometimes teachers don’t show up for fifteen days at a time, so they have no choice but to send their children to private school – which costs 400 quetzales (about $50) a month for each child, which is more than papá can even hope to earn. As I looked around at the kids playing so sweetly and helping their parents in every type of work without complaint, the tías told me that there was no way economically that any of the children would be able to attend school past the second grade. And for some reason, in that moment as I was trying to calculate the impossibility of their monthly budget in my head, I began to understand.

Stories of suffering have an interesting effect. As one moves from memorizing statistics to hearing the experiences of individuals, reality definitely becomes more real and human; but a true softening of the heart and opening to solidarity is taking longer for me that I would’ve anticipated. There are many people here that I have come to have great affection for who suffer much, but I have had a hard time pulling forth as much compassion as I would like to be able to offer. Somehow, entering Angélica’s home in such a natural way – meeting in a park, being invited over, and cooking together – evoked an emotional investment in their family’s oppression that broke through the tension I had been stuck behind and invited me to begin to really get it.

Knowing that migration is an inescapable topic here, we asked whether the family had anyone in the United States. The tías admitted that they had considered sending a family member to work there, but had ultimately decided that it was better for the family to stay together and struggle for every meal than to be apart. I attempted to encourage them that I thought they were absolutely right on – that the family’s unity is the biggest priority and that life in the north isn’t all it’s made out to be. But sitting in their kitchen surrounded by the reality of their material poverty, one cannot honestly encourage a family to stay without acknowledging the structural change that would need to happen to make that a possibility for them. Their daily lucha for survival must have an end in sight, or else we give them no choice but to make terrible familial sacrifices and take the horrific risks of migration.

I told the women that I was honored that they opened their home and their story to me, and that I am committed to remembering their family each day as I will return to the United States and work for the change that is needed to alleviate the pain our country inflicts on this part of the world. And in a way I have never meant it before, I am committed to remembering and honoring their family’s struggle. I am more deeply betrothed to the change I will seek through my work and my life, because I am responsible for more than just myself. I am responsible to those in Latin America whom I have loved and who have loved me so well.

I am now accountable to Angélica. Across national, cultural, and economic lines, I am personally accountable to her liberation.

This story, I believe, is my beginning of Love… of Solidarity… of Kingdom and Community. That it would only continue on and become deeper still.

 

ode to dolores huerta

OUR FIRST STRIKE

from Cesar Chavez’s “The Organizer’s Tale” (1966)

 

Our first strike was in May, 1965, a small one but it prepared us for the big one. A farmworker from McFarland names Epifano Camacho came to see me. He said he was sick and tired to how people working the roses were being treated, and he was willing to “go the limit.” I assigned Manuel and Gilbert Padilla to hold meetings at Camacho’s house. The people wanted union recognition, but the real issue, as in most cases when you begin, was wages. For grafting roses, they were promised $9.00 a thousand, but they were actually getting $6.50 and $7.00. Most of them signed cards giving us the right to bargain for them.

We chose the biggest company with about 85 employees, not counting the irrigators and supervisors, and we held a series a meetings to prepare the strike and call the vote. There would be no picket line; everyone pledged on their honor not break the strike.

Early on the first morning of the strike, we sent out ten cars to check the people’s homes. We found lights in five or six homes and knocked on the doors. The men were getting up and we’d say, “Where are you going?” They would dodge, saying “Oh, uh … I was just getting up, you know.” We’d say, “Well, you’re not going to work, are you?” And they’d say, “No.”

Dolores Huerta, who was driving the green panel truck, saw a light in one house where four rose-workers lived. They told her they were going to work, even after she reminded them of their pledge. So she moved the truck so it blocked their driveway, turned off the key, put it in her purse and sat there alone.

That morning the company foreman was madder than hell and refused to talk to us. None of the grafters has shown up for work. At 10:30 we started to go to the company office, but it occurred us that maybe a woman would have a better chance. So Dolores knocked on the office door, saying, “I’m Dolores Huerta from the National Farm Workers Association.” “Get out!” the man said, “You communist … Get out!” I guess they were expecting us, because as Dolores stood arguing with him, the cops came and told her to leave. She left.

For two days, the fields were idle. On Wednesday, they recruited 35 Filipinos from out of town who knew nothing of the strike. They drove through escorted by three sheriff’s patrol cars, one in front, one in the middle and one at the rear with a dog. We didn’t have a picket line, but we parked across the street and just watched them go through, not saying a word. All but seven stopped working after half an hour, and the rest had quit by mid-afternoon.

The company made an offer the evening of the fourth day, a package deal that amounted to a 120% wage increase.

Dolores Huerta in 1965.

 

 

america ferrera as Dolores for something or other…

 

me as Dolores Huerta for Halloween in El Salvador.

 

Dolores, that my life and spirit will resemble yours! Thank you for being a woman worthy of being looked up to.

 

reflection from the silence

(adapted from a letter I wrote to Sarah Knie… thanks, Sarah, for helping me reflect!)

 

Now that we are halfway through the semester, we had the privilege of going on a silent retreat for three days in Parque Imposible, the biggest national park in El Salvador. Amidst all the noise and busyness we are constantly bombarded by, these days of silence were very welcome and needed. During this time, I went on a long hike alone through the jungle to ask the Lord in myself: “What have I learned here so far? And how might I use the rest of my time to the fullest?” My mind would wander to places I’ve been, people I’ve met… and once in a while to whether that growl was a puma that might eat me. At the end of the trail, I came to a lookout high in the mountains. There were enormous birds soaring in slow motion, dancing around the valley. I was all the way up at the height of the clouds, and when I looked to the left, clouds were rolling in between two peaks as if they were coming onstage from behind the curtain. In the time that I stood there, the basin far below all the mountain peaks began to fill with the clouds’ heavy white mist.

            I imagined that behind the mountain curtain was the mysterious figure of God, exhaling breath to fill all that empty space. I imagined that God was filling my cupped hands, my hollow body with that breath – that my heart was opening to be filled with more love for the people I meet here – that my stomach was expanding to make room for more rice and beans and tortillas.

            I would like to be able to articulate some beautiful lessons learned and remaining objectives in order to justify my time here as productive, but the truth is really more like my experience watching the clouds roll in. I came here to enter the reality of the Salvadoran people – including their material poverty, and suffering, and enormous spiders, and scorpions on bedroom walls. It’s still hard, but my Spanish has GOT to be improving. And other than that… just to ask the Lord to use this experience to firmly plant seeds in my being for a growing perspective on how my lifestyle might reflect compassion and awareness for how the rest of the world lives.

            I suppose my concept of SOLIDARITY has really been brought down to earth. It really makes sense now that solidarity is just putting yourself aside to accompany people in their suffering. When I think about the abstract values of solidarity, loving the poor, and loving your neighbor, I realize now that we can combine all of these spiritual imperatives into a really natural human experience if we just move in with the poor and fall in love with them. It is very easy to advocate for and remember the needs of those we love, and to be by their side through pain. Padre Jon Cortina, a famous Salvadoran Jesuit priest, wore a stoll (Catholic thing you wear while giving mass) that said:

EN ESTE PUEBLO, ES FÁCIL SER BUEN PASTOR

(In this community, it’s easy to be a good pastor)

He truly knew and loved the people who are oppressed as his family, which made even risking his life for them feel natural… easy.

            I really do feel the Lord slowly breathing into me. Nothing new or different in the way the Spirit interacts with me here – it has always been faithful to lead me to new passions and ideas, which feel like where I am supposed to be. Of course I’d love to hear a voice, have a grand realization, or hear some absolute confirmations that I’m on track – but I feel content and loved and at peace that I can trust the still voice that guides my heart toward what is good and my mind toward understanding… the voice that is never fully separable from ME because it is speaking from its dwelling place in me.

            I am really looking forward to being fully present to the rest of my time here, open to the people and lessons that I will encounter. And I feel very fortunate to have the luxury in life to be able to be in a place where my objective is solely to learn and to love.

 

this one’s for the fam!

I am here to learn and grow; but I promise I am having fun too. My entries have all been quite serious, so I just wanted to throw up a few pictures and stories for Mom & Gram, who like that kind of thing!

We had a lot of fun watching the U.S. vs. El Salvador soccer game a few weeks ago, in a mixed group of Salvadoran students and students from the States. We projected the game on the wall, ate a lot, and were all thoroughly disappointed when the States won. The next week, when El Salvador played Costa Rica (apparently a huge rivalry), we could hear the cheering from the stadium two miles away from our houses! Apparently those games are INSANE – people throw bags of urine onto the field when they don’t like a call?! People get ROWDY. As fun as it would be, I will not be attending a soccer game. (fotos 1&2)

We’ve been eating lichas (lychees) at lunch sometimes – soooo good. Mari, one of the Salvadoran scholarship students, gets a huge kick out of calling them “Katis” because she thinks their spiky outsides resemble my hair. It is so not normal here for a woman to have short hair. And Mari is ridiculous. (foto 3)

We spent a day at Lago Cahuatepeque, an absolutely stunningly beautiful crater lake. The water was so clear and refreshing. (fotos 3&4)

The 15^th of September is Central American Independence Day. Betsy and I went outside to watch the parades, for which we have heard bands rehearsing outside for almost a month at every ungodly hour imaginable. The parade was really funny. Kind of like a parade in the States… it sounds exciting, but then you get there and realize it’s weird and you’re just sweating in the sun. The battalions of girls marching and dancing in heels was definitely impressive. (fotos 5&6)

My new favorite spot is the Panadería just a few blocks from the casas. They have an overwhelming selection of delicious bakery. It’s so nice to sit there and enjoy a 20 cent cup of coffee and 40 cent treat. And really fun to try the weirdest looking stuff… it never looks like you think it will. Bep and I went there and had a Blanco y Negro… my favorite thing yet. (foto 7)

I am still enjoying the time and learning so much, and can’t believe I’ve already lived here for over a month! I still have a lot of time left, but this month has really flown. I miss home dearly and have a renewed appreciation for the beauty of my neighborhood, my family, mi novio, my church community… also toilet paper, bikes, and technology that works. I’m loving the adventure and will be really ready to set some roots down when I return. (If I don’t die from hypothermia upon setting foot outside the airport.)

This upcoming week we will be living in the rural, impoverished campo with families. Can’t wait to fall in love with the people there, and enjoy the beauty of hard work and the land; and to learn profound generosity from people who don’t even have enough to sustain their own families. Bring it on, scary huge spiders! You’re not gonna bring me down.

Paz y Amor,

Kati

 

reflection on martyrdom

We talked about the definition of a martyr in Liberation Theology class today. A martyr is defined as a witness, someone killed for the potency of his or her testimony, ideas, and work; either religious or political. Here in El Salvador where martyrs are remembered with zeal, the Salvadoran definition of martyr expands to include those who have been killed as innocent victims of unjust politics and unjust war. For most Salvadorans, this is not a historical idea – this is a memory of their friends and family dragged from their homes by military death squads or massacred by the hundreds along the river due to misplaced and haphazard accusations of involvement in “subversive” (a.k.a. any) organizing in their communities. It is a vividly remembered and traumatically recent lived history.

Jon Sobrino, a Jesuit priest who was targeted to be killed during the war but happened to be out of the country when the death squads came for him and six others, tells us that the poor today reveal the meaning of the cross to our faith and worldview. The conditions of the poor and marginalized reveal to us the ugly truth about what our world is really like. As we remember the suffering of Jesus and our favorite martyrs or historical heroes, we must also look to the suffering of humanity – in this way the poor and suffering are a mirror for the story of our spirituality and inspiration. Sobrino points our attention to the ‘crucified’ people of today, the ones that bear the crushing weight and burden of the world’s structural sin.

Out of respect for the truth of this teaching, I would like to expand my definition of martyr even one step beyond the Salvadorans. I want to see it include all those who have been killed by the weight of society’s injustices and inequalities. I want it to include every man, woman, and child who died in slavery; in starvation; due to contaminated water; due to lack of access to health care that they could afford; due to violence or drug addiction caused by structural deficiencies in urban public schools and a non-rehabilitative prison system; due to faulty levees breaking during a hurricane; due to gender misunderstanding; due to obesity-related health complications caused by living in a neighborhood with no reasonable access to fresh produce and healthy food options; due to factory accidents and slaughterhouse injuries caused by an unsafe workplace and emphasis on production and profit over people; in migration forced by agricultural subsidies and unjust economic policies. I would include every Iraqi and Afghani, every Vietnamese civilian lost at the hands of my country. And I would count all of the victims who have lost their dignity and their lives with no access to a trial at Guantánamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. I’d count every potential life lost through abortion, or at the hands of the death penalty.

If we recognize the overwhelming presence of continuing martyrdom all around us, we can quickly see that the organizer or the activist or the spiritual person or the Christian community is disturbingly involved in these causes of innocent death. This is where Sobrino connects for us that the most relevant question at hand, more so than any personal theological or ideological claim one can make, is whether or not we are complicit in continuing to produce these ‘crosses’ for our brothers and sisters. It becomes our responsibility to fight to wash the blood off of our hands that did the work that earned the money that paid the tax dollars that funded the School of the Americas that trained the Salvadoran military men who murdered the priest because he was speaking up on behalf of poor and marginalized. It becomes our utmost priority to halt injustices that endlessly repeat the cycle of Jesus’ suffering and assassination at the hands of unjust policy and disproportionate power of the elite.

How might we express our faith in Christ by working for the liberation of the people He most adores, the poor and forgotten, right now? How might we express our good will through action and not just words of good intention? How might we transform our concept of LOVE from sentimentality to self-sacrificing action?

 

i cut hair now.

i’m preeeetttyyyyy proud of the haircut i performed on the inherently beautiful Bridget Garrity last week. she is now all the rage in our group of tourist-looking, hiking footwear-sporting, sweaty group of blindingly white exchange students.

pictures below… you’ll have to imagine the ‘before’… she had long hair. i was really nervous lopping off huge pieces, but i feel a lot more confident in my ability now… so if anyone wants a free haircut, i am now officially in the business.

thanks for the haircutting scissors, mom  :o)

 

a few words about Monseñor Oscar Romero

Monseñor Oscar Arnulfo Romero’s face is everywhere in El Salvador. In the city you can visit the chapel in which he was martyred by the Salvadoran military (funded by the United States) in 1980 for speaking out on behalf of the poor who were being massacred and disappeared en masse during El Salvador’s Civil War. You only have to begin to drive out of the city to find neighborhoods of increasingly extreme poverty, at which point you will see Romero’s face appearing more and more on murals and T-shirts. He is truly a cultural icon, and the poor of El Salvador put their hope in his words in a way that is only rivaled by the way Americans put their hope in their military.

Romero is one of the early champions for Liberation Theology, which is a call for the Christian’s involvement in history and advocacy for the poor. He originated the idea that the church needs to have a “preferential option for the poor” (although arguably Jesus beat him to that one). I have been so captivated by his teachings, and especially the way he is so alive in the hope of the people in the hardest circumstances in this country. I will let him speak for himself:

This is the mission entrusted to the church,

a hard mission:

to uproot sins from history,

to uproot sins from the political order,

to uproot sins from the economy,

to uproot sins wherever they are.

What a hard task!

It has to meet conflicts amid so much selfishness,

so much pride,

so much vanity,

so many who have enthroned the reign of sin among us.

The church must suffer for speaking the truth,

for pointing out sin,

for uprooting sin.

No one wants to have a sore spot touched,

and therefore a society with so many sores twitches

when someone has the courage to touch it

and say: “You have to treat that.

You have to get rid of that.

Believe in Christ.

Be converted.”

JANUARY 15, 1978

The world does not say: blessed are the poor.

The world says: blessed are the rich. You are worth as much as you have.

But Christ says: wrong. Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, because they do not put their trust in what is so transitory.

JANUARY 29, 1978

The guarantee of one’s prayer

is not in saying a lot of words.

The guarantee of one’s petition is very easy to know:

how do I treat the poor?

Because that is where God is.

The degree to which you approach them,

and the love with which you approach them,

or the scorn with which you approach them –

that is how you approach your God.

What you do to them, you do to God.

The way you look at them is the way you look at God.

FEBRUARY 5, 1978

I had a privilege of visiting the chapel where he was martyred – a very chilling experience. Photos below, including one of the nun who gave us the tour – who is quite literally the smallest Sistah I have ever seen. I invite challenges on that one.

Also of note is the picture of Romero’s typewriter. On that very typewriter he wrote a letter to President Jimmy Carter, asking that he stop the flow of weapons and money from the United States to the oppressive Salvadoran military death squads during the Civil War. Clearly his request was answered in a quite different way when he was later killed based on orders that trickled down from the United States, but the way that his image and words live on in the people here more than justifies the historical worth of his voice.