YOU ARE STANDING ON THE SPOT

“Where you see a red rose bush, there was a Jesuit told to lay down on the ground on his chest before he was executed.”

 

It is one thing to look at a stained glass window or a statue or take in a reading about someone being martyred for the faith.  It is even something to hold on to a relic of a person, a piece of bone perhaps, who shed their blood for Christ.  It is another thing to stand where they stood and speak to people who are of the age that they could have witnessed the blood.

 

The Church faces many trials in the United States, but “you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood.”  Once in Slovenia we saw a restored church building that had odd striped sections on the outside of the building.  Our guide told us that is where “the communists” through in the bombs and when the church was restored they left those sections decorated like that to remind future generations of when the Church was persecuted.

 

How powerful that is.  “THIS IS THE SPOT.”  No wonder the Church has always promoted pilgrimages.  “Here is the ground.  Here is the bullet.  Here is the blood stained shirt.”  It is not theory.  It was not because they were drug lords but because they practiced the Catholic faith and set about bringing that freedom to others.  There was nothing more important to them.  “Love for life did not deter them from death.”

 

That was part of the marvel of our mission trip to El Salvador.  To tell the truth, there is not much to see there.  But in another respect there is everything to see.  During the height of the civil war men with guns entered the Jesuit University, took the Jesuits and two women who were staying in the dorms (unexpectedly for the campus was supposed to be empty) and took them out on the lawn and shot them.  The ploy failed however when a witness came forward to say what really happened and that began the end of the civil war.  Today that area is a rose garden where a red rose was planted for the men and two golden roses for the two lay women, a mother and daughter.

 

In the shrine near by there are the bloody clothes, the blood tinted grass that was pulled up, the books with a bullet trail ripped through it.  Here is inspiration for living for something greater than the self.  How life lived faithfully and death faced bravely can continue to change the face of the earth; to know that such an action is not carried out in vain but continues to have repercussions both in this life and the next.

AND WE WOULD HAVE GOTTEN AWAY WITH IT, TOO, IF IT HADN'T BEEN FOR YOU MEDDLING KIDS

“Be careful of the shower.  We call her the Widow Maker.”  This was part of the welcoming talk.  They don’t have hot water tanks as we do here.  Instead, a dubious looking wire hangs down over the shower and into the shower head and warms it on the spot.  This means one should never, ever touch the showerhead when in the shower.  I forgot this once.

 

I was standing in the shower using the hose when it popped off of the showerhead.  Reaching up to jam it back on I felt a tingling in my left arm and wondered if I was having a heart attack.  That was when it occurred to me that I was being electrocuted. 

 

The other different thing about this country is that you may never, ever put toilet paper down the toilet.  Really, really bad things happen when you do this.  This led to some interesting stories over our stay of which I will spare you.

 

So we took our first trip to the orphanage.  We walked out of our house, out of the gate past the man with the gun, down the street to the other side of the bock where there was another gate and another man with gun (who didn’t smile until our last day there) who let us pass, and up to another wall with a giant, solid gate in it and rang the bell.  It felt a little bit like Dorothy and friends at the door to the Emerald City.

 

Over the door to the house the children made a sign that said, “Bienvenido” with all of our names.  It was the last time I was to be called “Fr. John” for I was hence dubbed, “Papa John” after their favorite pizza shop.

 

Our first meeting with the kids was a bit stiff – or at least I thought so.  “Here are your guests!  Say hello!”  Some of the people in our group amazed me at how they weaseled their way into the children’s attention right away.  I’m of the type to stand back and wait until their ready which can take some time.  In either event I was WAY out of my comfort zone. 

 

It was “Kids Day” in El Salvador -  a kin to Mother’s Day and Father’s Day etc.  So we all piled into two vans (one looking shocking like the Mystery Machine of Scooby Doo fame) and headed out to a pupuserea for our first taste of authentic El Salvadorian fare – avoiding of course, all fruit, water, and ice.

 

We took over much of the restaurant and it took some time for the food to get to us.  Though the children were lively they were exceeding well behaved.  I would have been very proud of them if they were from my school.  We drank sodas out of real glass bottles with straws that were too short (I lost mine inside not have learned yet that one must bend the straw) and watched the women make our food.  Snatching a handful of (something) they would pat it into a hollow patty and then fill it with whatever we ordered and then toss over to a hot griddle where another lady tended them.  When they were done she slid them over to another lady who piled them on plates and sent them out to the customers.

 

It was quite good.  If anybody out there knows how to make these things I would really like to know.

 

By the time we got back it was quite late.  We trudged back to our house through gates and guards and had our first nightly meeting in which we prayed and talked about our experiences.  For me, it was odd.  I did not feel like we were actually there yet, but more like we were in a place made to feel like El Salvador and perhaps we would turn a corner and find ourselves in the middle of New York or something.  That would change soon.

DECORATING WITH RAZER WIRE

We hit the city of San Salvador after an hour or so and encountered traffic driving patterns that I haven’t seen since my last strip to Rome except without the motorbikes that Romans call mosquitoes.  Everything looks just a bit tired.  The only things that looked shiny and new were the North American establishments that opened up shop there such as McDonalds, Mr. Donut, Papa John’s, and the like.  The civil war there ended on 1992, a little over two decades ago, but they don’t look ready to let their collective guard down quite yet.

 

There are the few incredibly rich and everybody else.  We never saw the incredibly rich but we stayed in what was called a “good part of town” for the everybody else.  That meant at the head of the street there was a gate and man who minded it twenty four hours a day.  He was incongruous with his broad smile and the shot gun that hung on his shoulder as permanently as some people wear a necklace. 

 

Getting out of the car we chuckled at the plants that were growing there.  Plants that we would pay a lot of money for back in the U.S. to have as house plants.  A number of twelve foot ficas trees grew on the street (I can’t keep those things alive to save my life.)  I’ve never seen them that large.

 

The houses are all jammed together – no side lawns.  A wall guards each of the houses springing up from the edge of the sidewalk.  Every house sports a twelve to fourteen foot wall with razor wire strung across the top and a steel gate. 

 

Once inside it is discernible why the country might be reluctant in getting rid of its endless miles of razor wire.  It is very common for buildings to have a center court open to the air onto which rooms are just open.  In the U.S., we would have screens and lockable doors, a dog, maybe an alarm, but there is not so much as anything to keep a fly out.  It is a beautiful feature but if I lived in a one story, flat roofed building that I couldn’t secure and I had just been through a war, I might want my razor wire too.

 

The afternoon was spent moving in and napping.  I got a bed with Sharknado sheets and so was very happy.  That evening would be our first visit to the orphanage.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

 

MONDAY DIARY: ENTERING A DIFFERENT WORLD

No comics today.  Sorry.  But I will continue a little more about the trip to El Salvador. 

 

As we were coming in for a landing it was already obvious that we were not in Akron, Ohio anymore.  Palm trees dotted the landscape and roofs tended to be made out of corrugated metal instead of shingles or tar flat roofs.  The heat greeted us immediately as we walked off of the plane.  The airport, like most of the buildings we saw, had major areas open to the elements.  Who needs to be hermetically sealed in a building when it never snows I suppose. 

 

Customs was not as horrible as we were told it was going to be.  As we snaked through the line we saw a fair amount of surfers with their boards in large bags.  Another group was on a mission trip and as we passed each other zigzagging through the ropes we would fill each other in on the plans of our trip.

 

I understood almost nothing that my customs agent said.  I took six years of Spanish but remember almost none of it and certainly even less so when it is spoken quickly.  The only two lines I really got were, “You must pay $10” which is standard for everybody and “You’re done.  Go.”

 

There was a button everyone had to push also.  It was connected to a stop light and took on the feeling of a game.  If, when you hit the button, it turned green, you were free to enter the country.  If it turned red, a buzzer would sound and you had to go over to a table and have your luggage gone though.  (I got green!)

 

Jason, the young man who put the trip together for us, was waiting on the other side of the glass doors from customs.  That was a particular relief in a foreign country.  He took us to the curb where we awaited our transportation.  It was odd seeing how many people, old and young alike, stood in the back of pickup trucks to be driven around, not something one would want to get caught doing in the United States.  Surfers spent considerable time tying their luggage and boards to the tops of much more expensive modes of transportation.  We were afforded a truck and a microbus to head into San Salvador.  It had air conditioning of sorts but it wasn’t enough for 12 people and the hot, hot sun so we road with the windows down the wind being a relief. 

 

TO BE CONTINUED

ON THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF EL SALVADOR BECOMING OUR SISTER DIOCESE

“Buenos dias” said the man with a broad smile wearing a security guard uniform and having a sawed off shotgun over his shoulder.  He unlatched the gate and swung it open for us.  This was a nicer part of San Salvador and we were staying in their version of gated community.  The first house on the right was the Love and Hope Orphanage, surrounded, as all the houses are, by a high wall topped with razor wire.  You ring the doorbell and someone opens a steel door and lets you in to the small court before the pleasantly sized home and its twenty or so children.

 

Inside a busy household is at work.  Children are completing their homework or kicking a ball on the small, well manicured lawn area.  Dinner is cooking, the tias and tios are helping with school work, tending a bruised ego, picking up toys, or sitting quietly with someone.  It is a true home of sorts and we were invited to come stay with them for a few days.

 

A young man joined the Catholic Church and the parish not long ago.  Hoping to get him more involved I asked him what his interests were.  He studied languages in college and now we are blessed that he offers classes in Latin for kids and adults at the parish.  “What are your other passions?”  He told of his mission activity down in El Salvador at an orphanage.  As it turns out until recently there was a parish in our area that took mission trips there and parishioners from St. Sebastian often joined in but they no longer go.

 

“Why don’t you put a mission trip together?” I offered him never thinking that he’s do it.

 

But he did.

 

And so eight of us got out passports out, packed bags and sunscreen and hopped on a plane with him at an hour in the morning I hadn’t seen in a long time.

 

When I got to the airport (at the agreed upon time I might add) I was the ONLY one there.  It turned out to be a good thing however as it would allow me to avoid publically embarrassing myself.  Going up to the counter to check a bag the lady behind the counter asked, “May I see your ID.”  Reaching into my wallet it was discovered, much to my horror, that I did not have my driver’s license!  This was the EXACT dream I had just the night before.

 

The day before I was at the ATM machine to get some funds for the trip when I realized all the cars stashed in my wallet had fallen out.  Had I dropped my driver’s license and lost it?

 

“Do I have time to go to Akron, get my license, and get back?” I asked the airline representative.

 

“Well,” she paused, “If you hurry.”

 

I ran out the door angry with myself.  A bus would have to be taken to my car already nestled in ling term parking, a mad dash made to St. Sebastian, a frantic search for my license, and then start all over again (assuming it was found).

 

Feeling dispirited standing on the sidewalk waiting for parking bus it occurred to me, “Wait.  I have my passport.  Shouldn’t that work?”  So I went back in and asked, “Can’t I just use my passport?”  The lady said, “Yes.  I was wondering how you thought you would get into El Salvador without it.” 

 

Hmmm

 

So we all eventually – a common theme for the whole trip - made it to the airport and on to the plane.  A flight attendant stopped by our seats and asked, “Are you missionaries?”

 

Confused we answered in the affirmative but asked, “How did you know?”

 

“Nobody from the states just happens to go to El Salvador unless they are surfers or missionaries.  And you don’t look like surfers.”

 

And thusly did our trip begin.

 

To be continued.