Houses, Road Work, and Stories

Julie and I just spent a couple of days with Pastors Matias and Martina.  I just love staying with them!  They take such good care of us and are such wonderful people!  The highlights of our stay with them was going to visit the two month old baby in the community of Colon and going to the pool.  We also got to go visit a couple of houses in Guaycume that are being rebuilt after the heavy rains of last November damaged them.  One house was pretty much completely destroyed when mud from the hill above slid down and covered the house.  They now have a sturdy house, but they don´t have electricity, running water, or windows, and they just have a dirt floor.  The other house fell down the hill it is located on.  They are still working on reconstructing the house.  I´m not convinced that even the new construction will help.  The house is well constructed, but it seems like it is just a matter of time before the land below it is washed away down the hill by rain.  The family is in a tough situation though because this is the land they own and so that is where they need to construct their house.  The money for the new construction for both houses came from donations from churches in the States.  The new house cost $3,000 to construct- strong foundation, two rooms, strong metal roof.  With $1,500 more they could have electricity, a nice cement floor, doors, and windows.  Just think...only $4,500 to construct a nice house.  Wouldn´t it be wonderful if everyone could have a simple nice house like that?  Here are pictures of the house that was destroyed by the land slide and their newly constructed house.

Also in Guaycume, Pastor Matias and some of the church members spent time clearing some brush from the side of the ¨road¨ and digging some ditches on the side of the road for the rain water to run through so that the rain hopefully won´t make it´s own ditches through the middle of the road.  The road was in great need of work.  Pastor Matias worked so hard!  He was using a machete to whack away the brush.  I think you would be hard pressed to find a pastor in the U.S. who would lead his congregation in such road work (and with one lung!).  Again it was obvious just how hard working Salvadorans are. 

The other day, Julie and I went with Trini to a little museum.  We took the bus to get there and as we were riding the bus I was observing the people on the bus.  I first looked at Trini who was sitting a few seats ahead of me and I thought about her testimony that she shared with us some time ago.  I thought about all she had been through during the war and since then- fleeing the army, losing one of her sons and her husband during the war, being imprisoned and tortured, struggling to find work to survive, and most recently losing another of her sons to gang violence.  Then it struck me that most of the other people riding that bus also had some story about the war and how it affected them.  I know at least part of Trini´s story, but I cannot even begin to fathom how many other stories there are.  Practically every Salvadoran who is older than 18 has a story to tell about how the war affected them.  It´s difficult for me to comprehend how all the Salvadorans I see everyday -riding the bus, walking on the streets, shopping in the grocery store- all these people have their own stories of war, of violence, of pain.  These stories have obviously shaped people- who they are and what they believe- and yet just looking at people one would have no idea what stories they have within them. 

I cannot imagine what it is like for people to carry around such stories of violence and pain.  Do such stories unite Salvadorans?  Or do the stories divide people?  There is such a rich history and so many stories that I don´t know.  And yet I´m in awe of the humanity here and the incredible lives that continue despite or perhaps because of their stories of war.