San Salvador

We are now in San Salvador in the guest house (temporarily) run by CGE.

But before we get there, a quick rundown of the last week. We left Xela last Friday (just over a week ago) for one night in Santa Anita. The community of Santa Anita was founded by former combatants in the Guatemalan civil war after the signing of the Peace Accords. They collectively own 1000+ cords(?) of mountainside land, about 950 of which are in production of a fair-trade, organic coffee crop. We met with the man in charge of roasting and foreign markets for the coffee. It was a great introduction to the reality of fair trade labeling (not a blemish-free process, by any means) and the lives of ex-guerrillas.

The following day we split into two groups, one of which went to Cantel and one to La Escuela de la Montana (the Mountain School of PLQ). I went with the latter group, seven in all, including Rebekah the intern/coordinator. It was a pretty fantastic week of four laid-back Spanish class days, at least one presentation or field trip each day, etc. We visited a regular coffee finca owned by a former president of Guatemala who is now the mayor of Guatemala City. We also spent a great deal of time with the other folks living at the school, from California, London, and Sweden.

Friday (two days ago) we returned to Xela for the day and night, then left for Antigua. In Xela, I caught up on all of my emailing from the previous week. In the course of that, I found out that a friend from high school was struck and killed by a truck on his bicycle on Tuesday. I also found out that the older brother of another South friend died during the week. Without much time (or many details that I know), I will simply ask people to keep Jeff and Nick's families in your prayers right now.

As for now (note: several days later than when I started this, due to computer access) we are in San Salvador taking a class on Liberation Theology. We have a three-hour lecture three days a week (the middle days) and at least one history or current events lecture each afternoon. This afternoon we met with Jon Sobrino, a Jesuit priest and one of the major bases in the history of LT. For those familiar with the massacre of the Jesuits and their gardener's wife and daughter, Sobrino was supposed to be in the house with them that night. He happened to be out of the country, but the military thought he was there. He had already written a great deal on LT and has continued to do so, especially in ways that do not always endear him to the church hierarchy. He is quite a presence and not usually able to meet with CGE semester programs, so we were pretty lucky.

This weekend are the rural pastoral accompaniments in Base Christian Communities. I am very excited to see these more practical, real-life examples of LT being acted out in the lives of Salvadorans post war.