There are of course a lot of reasons why I'm going to El Salvador, and I'll do my best to explain my reasoning here. This trip will be my second trip to El Salvador. On my spring break in 2009, I went to El Salvador for about a week. I fell in love with the places I visited, with the mountains, and most importantly with the people I met. Even before I left El Salvador, I began thinking about when I would be able to return. So, for more than a year I have been thinking about and anticipating returning to El Salvador. I don't think a day has gone by when I have not thought about something at least partially related to El Salvador. Needless to say, I am VERY excited for this trip!
My interest in the country and people of El Salvador began when I took a Latin American history class at Augustana. In this class, we read and learned about the violent history of El Salvador. From a purely academic standpoint, there are so many interesting issues in El Salvador both past and present, but my interest has gone beyond the academic. At first I was able to remain emotionally detached from the stories I read and the information I learned. Of course I was saddened and horrified, by the violence I learned about, but for a while the stories and information were abstract and without a context or connection that was meaningful to me. However, it wasn't long before my emotional and spiritual sides took over and I allowed myself to recognize that the Salvadorans that I was reading about were indeed real people who suffered greatly. Slowly at first and then with more intensity than I would have liked, I connected with the people I read and learned about.
There were two things in particular that made the connection between me and the Salvadorans. The first was learning about the role the U.S. played in the violence of the civil war in El Salvador (1980-1992). The U.S. provided weapons and significant funding to the Salvadoran government which killed thousands and thousands of civilians during the civil war. While it wasn't specifically my tax dollars that were sent to the Salvadoran government, I still feel that in some way I am partially responsible for the atrocities committed by the Salvadoran government. Once I learned that my country has had and continues to have a significant impact on what happens in El Salvador, I no longer felt like I was disconnected from El Salvador. Even if the connection is indirect and unintentional, it is nevertheless a connection that I could not ignore.
The second aspect of connection was learning that young people, especially college students, were some of the main targets of the Salvadoran government's oppression and violence during the civil war. In general, students tend to be optimistic, energetic, willing to take risks, and aren't afraid to speak their mind. This was especially the case in El Salvador around the time of the civil war when students were very active in speaking out against the oppression and violence of the government. For speaking their mind and standing up for what was right, they were threatened, raped, disappeared, and murdered along with many others. I identified with the students because I too am a student, a young person with hopes for a better world, one who isn't ready to accept that things have to be the way they are because those with power say that's the way things have to be. I tried to imagine what it would have been like to be a student in El Salvador during the 70s and 80s. I questioned why it was them and not me.
These connections I made with the Salvadorans I had read about led to all sorts of theological and philosophical debates in my head. As much as I would have liked to forget about the violence and suffering in El Salvador, I felt an intense desire to know more, to deepen the connection. I found myself trying to learn as much as I could about El Salvador. I read and read and read...but at this point the connection I had with the people of El Salvador was strong but still without that real personal connection.
This is where I need to give credit to my friend Julie for fostering my love for El Salvador. It would be difficult to be friends with Julie and not be influenced by her passion and love for El Salvador. Since I first got to know her, I have heard stories about her experiences in El Salvador and from these stories it was very clear that it was the people she knew in El Salvador that gave her that passion. So, when I had the opportunity to go with Julie on a spring break trip last year, I went. It was then that El Salvador became real to me. I visited places I had read about and met people who had lived through the violence of the civil war and continue to live through the struggles of life in El Salvador. No longer was El Salvador an abstract, distant place. The things I had read about now had a context- a very personal context. It is this personal connection that draws me back to El Salvador.
