Yesterday I returned from an extraordinary journey. Excluding two travel long days, Sr. Pauline Quinn, OP and I sent four full days in El Salvador. We stayed in the home of a very poor peasant family, who lived near the rural town of Santa Clara, about a half-hour away from the bustling city of San Vicente. The family consisted of about dozen people, including grandparents, aunts, uncles and five young children. Two of the adult sisters were handicapped, one of whom was wheelchair bound. The family lived in three small homes, two of which had dirt floors and were made of mud, sticks and tin. The third dwelling, in which the handicapped sisters lived, was made of cinder blocks and it had a tile floor. Not everyone in the family had beds. Some slept in hammocks. The cooking was done in a small wooden structure featuring a concrete platform atop of which wood was burned for cooking. There was also a large grinding stone upon which the woman ground the corn for tortillas and the coffee beans. I was astounded by the delicious the meals prepared in this humble, smoke filled kitchen. None of the houses had indoor plumbing... no toilets or running water. The toilet was located outside in a tin structure. The toilet was made of concrete and did not have a seat. Waste collected in a deep pit. The stench was... let's say powerful to be polite. The entrance to the outhouse had a flimsy plastic curtain that the wind enjoyed playing with, often to the embarrassment of the occupant. Attached to the outhouse was the shower stall. Cold water trickled out of a makeshift pipe. There was no roof on the shower, and so morning showers were chilly affairs. I found the toilet and shower facilities to be extremely challenging, and a constant reminder of just how pampered my life is. This family, by virtue of having their own well was well off in comparison to many of their neighbors who lived in shantytowns where residents had to lug water from a nearby lake.

Typical kitchen of the poor in El Salvador

    The days were hot and the evenings chilly, thanks to gusty winds that seemed to arrive like clockwork around 9:00 pm. The wind banged the giant banana leaves against the tin roof, creating an eerie sound that made sleeping difficult. Each morning around 4:00 am., we were awakened by an animal symphony performed by cows, bulls, roosters, chickens, birds, dogs and cats. The rabbits did not perform. We arrived late at night, and the morning light of our first day revealed El Salvador's exquisite beauty. The Chinchontepec Volcano and the Jiboa Valley brilliantly illustrated the creative wonder of God.

    Our days packed with adventures. And sad encounters. We traveled from town to town the way the poor travel: in very old, very crowded buses or in the back of pickup trucks outfitted with metal railings that allowed about 20 people to stand on the flatbed as the driver zipped down winding, narrow mountain roads which were also used by ox-drawn carts, horses and tractors. Transportation in El Salvador proved to be an exercise in faith, as serious accidents are normal occurrences. Most poor people cannot afford a car, even an old, used one. The rural hamlets have no shops or markets, forcing people to travel up to 45 minutes just to go shopping for essential supplies. The buses departing cities like San Vicente are jammed with people transporting everything from live chickens to rugs. People literally hang on the sides and back of the buses, most of which are old school buses. One bus ride speaks loudly about how hard life is for the chronically poor of El Salvador.

    Consider the case of Karla, a young handicapped woman in her 20's whom Sister Pauline brought to the St. Vincent Hospital in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where doctors treated her and fitted her with braces. Not long after getting the braces, which gifted her with freedom from her wheelchair, Karla was riding in the back of a pickup truck, standing with a host of other passengers. On the steep hill descending to San Vicente, the driver lost control of the vehicle, perhaps has he tried to pass a slower truck or bus, and it flipped over. Karla was seriously injured and blinded in the accident. Now she can walk, but she cannot see. Very sad.
 

    El Salvador is home to premature and unjust death. For many, poverty means death, death by hunger, death by sickness, death by the machinery of oppression employed by the wealthy and privileged.
 
 
 
 

Wheel chairs we brought down to the handicapped