Universidad Nacional, Robert White, Romero, la Boda del Siglo, y Hijo Desaparecido

Long entry warning! I have had a pretty interesting last few days. On Thursday I went with my Spanish class to visit the National University. The National and the UCA are the two most prestigious universities here, but the big difference is that the National is public. It costs between $5 and $35 a month to go to the National, depending on how much money you have. I don't remember the exact range for the UCA, but I think the bottom end is around $35, up to maybe a couple hundred a month. The National also has to accept everyone who passes an entrance exam. There are about 35,000 students. Even though the money comes from the government, it's retained its autonomy, and during the war it was very very far left, among faculty and administration as well as students. The major guerrilla groups came out of the National. The government keeps funding it because it's in the Constitution, and the FMLN (leftist party) members in the Congress are mainly graduates of the National and make sure it keeps its funding. We visited to look at the murals on campus. They were fascinating. I don't have time to post pictures today, but there were a whole bunch of hammers and sickles (is that how you spell that?) and a bunch of Marxist and Leninist stuff. Pictures of Che and Farabundo Martí, a famous Salvadoran Communist, etc. If someone proposed murals like these at USF, people would just laugh. There is no way murals this political would make it on a university campus in the U.S. I'm no Marxist-Leninist, but I would love to have murals like those on campus, just to get people thinking and debating. But it would never happen. People don't care enough to put forth the effort. At the National there are very strong student organizations. Classes didn't start till a couple weeks after they were supposed to because students took over the school until the school figured out a way to let everybody in. Technically they have to let everyone in, but they have space and time restraints, so they can't admit everyone. But when they do that, the students organize and make them admit everyone. Again, I would never see that sort of organization at USF, and they don't have that sort of organization at the UCA either. The UCA is a private, Jesuit school, and while it is active in human rights stuff, the student body tends to be wealthier people and the focus is academics, not political activism. It was all really interesting.

On Friday Robert White, former ambassador to El Salvador from the U.S., came and spoke to my history class. It was very interesting and pretty awesome that our teacher is good enough friends with him to get him to talk to our class on his lunch break. He was speaking at a conference at the UCA. He was fired from being ambassador when he refused to lie when the U.S. government wanted him to sign something saying the Salvadoran government was working hard to solve the killings of the four U.S. churchwomen (I think that was December 1980). He was like "Dude, you and I both know it was the Salvadoran military that killed them, and they are not going to investigate themselves." Maybe he didn't say dude, but it was something like that. So he got fired because Reagan was like KILL THE COMMIES! GIVE LOTS OF MONEY TO THE SALVADORAN GOVERNMENT! But the Congress wanted to be told that they weren't financing human rights abuses and the government was making progress, doing things like investigating the deaths of the churchwomen. White wouldn't lie, so he got fired. As he and other people have told us, if the U.S. had not funded the war here, there is no way it would have gone on 12 years. If the U.S. had wanted, the peace accords that were signed in 1992 probably could have been signed in 1981 or '82. Yay Reagan.

Saturday was the 27th anniversary of Monseñor Oscar Romero's death. If you want to learn about Romero, I suggest the movie Romero. It's very good and I've heard it's pretty accurate. Oscar Romero was archbishop of San Salvador in the late '70s. When he was appointed, the Church thought he was a safe choice because he was relatively conservative and liked his books and didn't make waves. However, after the killing of his friend Fr. Rutilio Grando, a Jesuit priest who was advocating rights for the poor, and after spending more time with the poor and seeing their situation, Romero became a voice for the voiceless, a prominent figure who spoke out against all the violence that was going on at that time, especially the violence against the poor coming from the military/government. His homilies were broadcast by radio and he was hugely popular. He was killed March 24, 1980, as he was giving Mass in the chapel at the Hospital Divina Providencia, a hospital for terminal cancer patients, where he chose to live instead of having a fancy bishop house. The U.N. Truth Commission which investigated human rights abuses during the war, said that Roberto D'Aubisson, founder of Salvadoran death squads and the ARENA party (the party in power now, modeled on the U.S. Republican Party), was responsible for the killing of Romero. I think Romero knew it was only a matter of time before he was killed, but he kept on speaking out. He said "Se me matan, resucitaré en el pueblo Salvadoreño." If they kill me, I will rise up in the Salvadoran people. And he has. His memory lives on very strong in this country, and he is very much a source of inspiration. He's not canonized, not yet at least, but he is often called San Romero de las Americas. There was a march, a Mass, and a vigil (more like a concert, actually) in celebration on Saturday. It was pretty cool, and the music was great.

Sunday was the boda del siglo (wedding of the century), between Eugene (Eugenio) Palumbo and Guadalupe Montalvo, a.k.a. Gene and Lupita, our history teacher and one of the women who cooks for us. A group of students formed a decorating committee and we all went early and set up for the reception. It looked beautiful and it was a wonderful wedding. Gene is a journalist and is friends with everybody. Fr. Dean Brackley presided, Horizontes, who did the music for the giant Romero celebration, did the music, and Robert White was there too. It was lovely.

Yesterday, Patrick (my praxis partner) and I started doing interviews for a video we're making as a project for our praxis class. I was nervous about it, but it went really well, especially our first interview. We talked to a woman named Rosa Edit. Her son, who is/was 20 or 21, disappeared about a month ago. She doesn't know what happened. He could be dead or alive. He worked and helped provide for the family. They are very poor and she has four other children. Her husband works when he can find work, but work is very hard to get here, especially for people without an education. Angelica (our praxis site coordinator) said his disappearance could have to do with gangs, but Rosa didn't say anything about that. However, a lot of people are afraid to talk about gangs. Angelica always gets very quiet when she talks about them. Rosa said the family could get some money, I think some kind of social security, if they had a death certificate for him, but they don't even know if he's dead or not. Before she told us about her son (though we already knew because Angelica told us), we asked her what a typical day is for a mother, and she started to cry and talked about the tristeza, the sadness. Please pray for her and her son and all her family.

And now I have a ton of schoolwork to do. And today is my birthday (happy birthday to me), and no, I will not be going out and getting trashed for my 21st birthday. Even if I wanted to I wouldn't have time. :) On Thursday we have a midterm for sociology, which we have to read a 30-ish page article for (an article written by Stuart Hall, who is British and wrote in ENGLISH, yet our professor gave us the Spanish translation), and I have to read a short book and write two short essays for Spanish. By Friday I have to read an entire book (in English) and write a reflection for theology. And this afternoon I'm meeting with Patrick to work on our video.

Next week we're spending in the campo (rural area) near Arcatao in Chalatenango, in the very north of the country. A few of the becari@s are from communities around Arcatao, including Lupita, one of the students I live with. Monique and I are going up on Friday to spend the weekend with her and her family, then we'll join up with the other students on Monday and stay in pairs with families who are part of the Jesuit parish in Arcatao. Some of the houses have running water and electricity, some don't. Some are about a two hour walk away from the town. Some will have had American students stay with them before, and some won't. It's pretty scary, but it will probably be amazing. Let's hope.

Okay, I think this entry is long enough. Adiós.