Para no tener otros Copapayos

We visited the colonial town of Suchitoto this weekend. Situated as the town in the middle of more than seventy cantones (sort of like hamlets), it is the place from which Sister Peggy does her work of building the programs of the Peace Center. And what programs! It is amazing what the Centro Arte por la Paz has going in that area.

The area that Suchitoto encompasses was the locale of seven massacres during the civil war, including one in the town of Copapayo. We went to the actual site of the massacre, in which 150 people were killed by the military troops of General Monterosa (trained at the School of the Americas). We heard the testimony of the only survivor of the actual massacre. [To expain, many people fled by getting into boats and leaving on the lake/reservoir, but only one man, who was 9 years old at the time, survived of the people who were on the hillside when the military discovered the community.]

At the site, Peggy expained a bit of what happened and events that led up (the military harassment and small-scale attacks that led the community to vacate their homes). She said that the tradition, when visiting the site, is to take a few moments of silence to re-dedicate ourselves to peace, so that there will be no more Copapayos, no more massacres, and that those places that exist in violence today might know peace. So let us all take a moment to re-dedicate ourselves to this struggle and this vision.


As part of our course, we spent the last week working in small groups with books that look at more specific aspects of liberation. Rebekah and I took a book called Soul Sisters, which put poetry to a set of icons drawn of women of the New Testiment. We then used our experiences and interactions with Central American women, as well as women of the bible, to write our own poems. I'm not, by any means, a poet. But here is my product.

In her day, as in ours, “adultery”

only meant anything if a

woman had strayed.

Vilma knows this

all too well. Her mother

had no men on the side;

her father had plenty of women.

No wrong was seen.

So a childhood of poverty,

after father’s flight,

ensued. Mother,

always loving, had to be

convinced that her child was not

hungry, despite days without

food.

The girl grew up, swearing

to break cycles and avoid repeating

history. Yet cycles are strong

and patterns easy to repeat. And

so three generations of faithful women –

representing entire communities of their sisters –

are left or infected by non-“adulterous” men.

In her day, as in ours, children

were all too often placed at the

bottom of the priority list –

daughters with particular ease.

Chata knows this, abandoned

by father and struck by mother’s

death. Yet she has the same

fortune as the daughter of Jairus –

a community enamoured of its

children, its future.

Just as the healer said “fear is

useless,” you, Chata, are fearless.

Only girl on the futbol team,

hiking,

joking,

vice-president-organizing

force of spirit.

Pride of her community.

Daniel also knows this love. Not

a daughter, but a young, deaf

son in a place where this affords

few options.

Easily relegated to the least

position, but child of parents who

refuse to do so.

The pride in father’s eyes as

you heal yourself through

weaving and learning is

more than enough to put an end to

pity.

In her day,

as during the war,

as in ours, mothers bore

children; mothers raised

children. Mothers, with too much

frequency, outlive their

children.

Mothers across Central America

know this to be wrenchingly,

profoundly,

terribly true.

They share in the benchmark –

and the day-to-day – experiences of

la Madre de Dios.

Life under repressive occupation;

labor in surroundings that

emphasize the depths of

poverty possible in this creation. Sacrifice.

They raise children who learn to

question the need for this

suffering.

They raise children who

raise people to from their knees

to their feet in pride, and sometimes,

back to their knees

in awe.

And as a result,

(because we know how the

story ends, because cycles are

strong and hard to break)

they raise children called ‘subversive,’

children who must live as refugees, and

children killed for the

danger they pose to systems and cycles which

deny and attack the existence of life.

In their day, as in ours,

women encounter their God on the

road – to Jerusalem, to las Flores,

to and from the tomb. Yet

despite their travails – and their

victories – these sisters hear and draw power

from the words “do not seek among the dead for those who

live.”