17 November 2009

On Monday afternoons, a meeting is held at the clinic for all of the staff of Campesinos para el Desarrollo Humano. Bela and I were getting ready to attend the meeting, when three young children arrived at the clinic in order to talk to Etelvina.

The children explained to Etelvina that their grandmother was having trouble breathing. Etelvina knew the grandmother, and asked the children more about what was happening to her. She had been having fevers, a cough, and shortness of breath. Etelvina decided that rather than sending medicine, it would be better for someone to go to her home to evaluate her. Bela and I had planned on walking to her community in the afternoon to see another patient, after the staff meeting, so we volunteered to go. I walked in to the pharmacy with Etelvina to talk about the patient before going. She sent me with some medicines and also told me a little bit more about the woman.

“She has always had a cough,” Etelvina explained, but she has gotten worse over the past few weeks. She is such a hard worker, and a very strong woman.”

Bela and I left the clinic, saying goodbye to the staff before heading out the door. The three grandchildren led the way, across a cow pasture, down a hill, across the soccer field, and finally we arrived at the river.

“You will have to cross the river on a cable,” the granddaughter smiled at me, “I hope that you won’t be afraid.”

Torola is a large river, with steep banks on either side. There is one bridge that divides the two halves of the community, but many families live far from the bridge. In the past, before the bridge, many people would swim across the river to get to their homes or to visit people who lived on the other side. Now, however, the bridge has become the central crossing point. Additionally, as a source of income, some families have built cable cars which are powered by turning a large hand-made crank. In order to cross the river on the cable, you pay a small fee, and one of the family members will crank you across. This was one of those families. The “car,” however, consisted of a metal plate hooked to a wooden plan by three metal chains. The stops on either end of the river looked rickety, as they were also constructed of wooden planks. The children had no fear of crossing, and the two smallest ones hopped on the plate together. The plate was only large enough for one to sit, and so the boy stood, holding on to the metal chains for support. I was not pleased by the arrangement.

Bela went across next. As he sat on the plate, he turned and flashed a large grin, as if to say “This is going to be really fun, and you are going to hate it.” The crank was turned, and he flew across the river.

As the plate came soaring back across the river, I tried to ready myself. I took off my glasses, adjusted the strap of my purse, and tried to remind myself that my fear of heights is something in my own head. The plate arrived, and I think that the oldest girl noticed that I was nervous. She took my hand, and helped me sit. She took one of my hands, and put it on the metal chain, and rested the other on the wooden support. “Hold on tight!” she yelled as I started to zoom above the river. The trip was like flying.

We regrouped on the other bank, and trudged up towards the house. The grandmother´s son was sitting outside, and guided us inside towards the hammock.
An elderly woman was wrapped inside, breathing quickly through pursed lips. We began to ask questions, but it was clear that she was in distress. Prior to examining her, we asked her and her family how they would feel about taking her to the hospital. They were worried about transportation, and the cost, and so called Ramiro, the director of the NGO. Ramiro is also able to drive, and so often takes patients to the hospital in the CDH pickup truck. We examined the woman, so that we would be able to present the patient to the staff in the hospital. The house was located such that the pickup could not come to the house. No road leads there, and so, in order to bring the woman to the hospital in Gotera, the nearest city, we had to get her across the river. She was weak and had difficulty breathing, but was able to get out the hammock and walk out the door.

Her son and granddaughter were able to help her to the cable car, with difficulty because she had such trouble breathing. We were all wondering how she would possibly get across, but she plopped down on the plate and yelled, “Drive me!” The son complied, and she flew across the river. Her daughter-in-law went next, in order to wait with her. Bela went across next. I took a deep breath when it was my turn to go, and again went soaring across to the opposite bank.

Slowly but surely, the woman was able to trudge across a pasture and across a small stream to an opening in the road that leads out of town and up the hill. Ramiro picked us up, us being the woman, her daughter-in-law, and me. Along the way we picked up her two other daughters who had heard that she was on the way to the hospital. We arrived, and I went in to talk with the physician on-call. He was polite and serious, and came out of the emergency room to help me bring her in. He immediately set up a nebulizer treatment for her, and readied the radiology suite. A half an hour later, based on her clinical history, physical history, and chest X-ray, she was admitted to the hospital with suspected tuberculosis. Ramiro had waited outside of the hospital for me, and so we traveled back to Estancia together.

16 November 2009

My parents visited us last week. They arrived on a Friday afternoon, and as soon as they arrived in the city we started touring around in the rain. We went to the Museo del Arte Moderno, and had pizza at a little neighborhood restaurant close to the hotel where we stayed. On Saturday we woke up early and took two buses and a pickup truck to a town called Perquin on the Honduran border. We stayed there all weekend, and on Monday we traveled to Estancia.

It was so wonderful to have my parents here for a little while. They were able to meet the staff members of CDH, the NGO for whom we volunteer, and go on home visits with me. My mom toured some community members’ gardens, and my dad hung out with me in the clinic. The night before they left Estancia, Ramiro and Lucia took us all to eat pupusas in a town called Corinto. I think that it will be easier for me to go home at the end of this year after having had them here. I will be able to talk about the people that I miss, and they will know who those people are. I remember that coming home from Ecuador was so much easier than it might have been, because my family had visited me in the town where I lived. I was able to reminisce about people and places, and they understood a little bit about what I was saying in a way that wouldn’t have been possible if they had not visited.

During the morning of the following Friday we began the trip back to the capitol. Griselda, one of our neighbors, accompanied us to Cacaopera, one of the towns along the way, as she had to run some errands related to the next school year. When we arrived in the capitol we went to see the Archeology Museum, and went on some long walks. We ate a delicious dinner that night, and woke up early the next morning to walk some more before my parents left for the airport.

* * * *

As Bela and I were already in the capitol, we decided to go to an event held at the campus of the Universidad de Centro-America. Twenty years ago, during the civil war, six Jesuit priests, the cook, and the cook’s daughter were murdered at night on the campus by the army. The four priests were very active in speaking out against the conditions that led to the civil war in the first place, and were seen as a threat by the right-wing government in control.

The event was beautiful. We arrived at the campus in the afternoon. Students at the university had spent the morning creating murals to commemorate the lives of the priests, the cook, and the daughter out of colored sand. Students worked as volunteer guides at the small museum on campus dedicated to the lives of the priests killed during the war. The university choir sang. After the sun set, a candlelight march took place on the road that runs through the university.

When Bela and I returned to Estancia, I talked with Etelvina, the health promotor, about the event. She explained that one of the priests, Segundo Monte, had visited the refugee camp in Honduras where she lived with her family during most of the war. He gave mass to the people living in the camp, and spoke about the injustices that the El Salvadorian people had suffered, and gave them hope that things would be better in the future. The people in the camp where she lived returned to El Salvador shortly after the murder of the priests, the cook, and the cook’s daughter. Most settled in an area close to Estancia, and as homage to the priest who had given them hope during the war, named the town Segundo Monte. Etelvina also explained that when she fled El Salvador for Honduras, her family traveled in the night, hiding in the woods during the day. They had to cross the river that divides Honduras and El Salvador at a town called Mozote. A few years before, in Mozote, over 1000 people were massacred by the El Salvadorian and Honduran armies while trying to cross the river. She told me that the river still stunk of dead bodies when she crossed, and that the smell is something that she will never forget. However, the return trip was different. After the murders at the University, the people of her camp walked on the roads, during the day, to return. She told me that there was a feeling of strength and unity in the people. The work of the priests, their words, and their violent deaths is still very present in the memory of the people. They are remembered as martyrs.



--Calla