Reflections upon return

So I fell off the ball in the last few weeks of my time in El Salvador. It was a challenging few weeks, as I felt really pressured to accomplish a lot before I had to leave. I was also sad about leaving behind the friends I made, the craziness of San Salvador, the excitement of exploring the country, Friday night dancing at Cafe la T, and the community members of Arcatao. I felt bad about leaving in the middle of the research project, right when Deisy needed more support. She now has to plan and facilitate the remaining workshops as well as provide accompaniment to the families going through the exhumation process, which will be starting soon. She has to do this mostly on her own. I also felt bad leaving right when the International Masculinities program was starting. The 25 participants came from 17 different countries and from what I heard had a very rich experience. I was just beginning to feel comfortable in my job when it was time to leave.

Despite all the craziness right before leaving, the CBC team gave me a wonderful goodbye party at the Lago de Coatepeque and I spent an amazing weekend with Deisy and my two roommates from Spain at the beach (see pics). Then I was off to Guatemala to travel for 2 weeks with my brother. Although we had a fabulous time, I felt very strange as a tourist just passing through. Tourism in Central America is so weird, but maybe I'll save this for another entry.

This whole experience really changed my outlook on social work and my life plans. I realized that to be useful working internationally, I need more skills and experience in program development, evaluation and strategic planning. I'm hoping to find ways to develop these skills so I can go back and work for a longer period of time. I was also just generally inspired by the level of organization CBC has, their ability to put gender theory into practice and their attention to the self-care of their staff. I was also inspired by their spirituality, senses of humor and passion. I know I'll be back soon...

Land of Volcanos

(Sunset in Arcatao). I finally got to use the hiking boots I dragged across the continent for the first time this weekend. I was glad to have them, as they helped to grip the porous volcanic rocks on the way down Volcan Izalco. My legs are still sore 3 days later, but it was worth it. There's nothing like the satisfaction of having climbed a volcano and breathing in the hot sulfur steam coming up from deep inside the mountain.

Work has been a struggle for so many reasons. I struggle with the guilt of not being able to accomplish very much in only 2 months time. I struggle with how I could be most useful to projects such as the Mental Health program and Masculinities program in the long term, being a foreigner and being a woman. Should I be involved in direct group facilitation or assist more in research, program planning and funding?

In any case, last weekend I had the chance to cofacilitate the 5th workshop for the Gender, Religion and Memory research project in Arcatao. I am continually impressed by Deisy's ability to connect the trauma experienced by group participants to its physical manifestation. We planned to have the group present socio-dramas about near-death experiences and "guindas" which were times when the entire community had to flee into the mountains in the middle of the night in single file without light or sound. If the soldiers heard them or found them on the move, they would have all been killed. In order to prepare for re-living some of these really intense experiences, we conducted an activity called the Blind Lasso, where the participants had to pass a series of obstacles blindfolded, holding onto a rope and depending on those in front of them to alert them of the obstacles. I thought it would be really re-traumatizing for this group of mostly elderly men and women to participate in this activity. I felt really scared during this activity, that one of the participants would break down, that the experience would be too overwhelming, that someone would fall. But Esperanza led the group, carefully stepping her foot out in front of her feeling out for any obstacles and yelling out to her compas when there was a step, a tree, a hole, a channel to cross. Most of the participants really seemed to appreciate the opportunity to be able to share together this horrible event that they all experienced in order to remember it together and not leave it festering in their minds and in their bodies. They seem used to dealing with the pain of the past, so that talking about it in the workshops isn’t the first time these stories are coming out. The next workshop is the weekend after next, the last one I’ll be able to participate in. I’ll let you all know how it goes.

Workshop hopping

I was moved to tears numerous times this weekend. My co-workers at CBC truly amaze me with their creativity, energy, and compassion in the groups they facilitate. On Thursday morning, Rutilio picked up Hector and I and we drove through the abandoned streets of San Salvador north to La Palma, the same Franciscan center in the mountains where the last workshop I went to took place. 19 male youth from all over the country arrived soon after for the last session of their Equinox Masculinities workshop. I mostly came to conduct interviews with 4 of the participants about their impressions of the methodologies used and how the program has impacted them. Because the group is all men and they have already established trust with each other, I did't participate in most of the activities, but I did have a chance to observe a few. What I saw was really powerful...

The first day the youth spent the afternoon and evening in a process of Forum Theatre (a technique based on the work of Augusto Boal and Theater of the Oppressed). First they thought up situations in which violence occurs on a daily basis and acted them out, without words. Then, each group added words to their piece. After this second performance, the actors froze at the point at which the conflict was about to break out and audience members had the chance to ask questions of each of the characters. One of the scenes involved a man looking for sex workers. He ended up with 2 female prostitutes and a transvestite. When he realized the transvestite wasn't a woman, he began to beat her up and the police came to break up the fight. After the question and answer session, one of the audience members took the place of one of the sex workers to act out a way of preventing the conflict from happening. This tool of Forum Theater seemed to work really well and I was really impressed by how Rutilio and Hector facilitated the process.

The next day, while I escaped to climb the tallest peak in El Salvador, the youth worked on a process of representing their "Corner," or their space. The idea was for them to think about the spaces they occupy or share with others and what kind of emotions they have while in these spaces. Each of the participants then presented their corner to the rest of the group by candlelight. I peeked in for part of this process and was incredibly moved. The youth all quietly listened to each of their compañeros as they talked about their feelings about family members and relationships. One of the youth broke down while talking about his father and his brother who has Downs' Syndrome. At the end of each presentation, they all surrounded the presenter and hugged him as a group. They shared things with each other that they hadn't shared with anyone else, and some of the youth were completely overwhelmed by emotion during the process. But in this space, they had the support of their friends and the staff of the Centro who helped them learn how to express their emotions in healthy ways.

After this workshop, I took off again for Arcatao, but I'll write more about that tomorrow...

San Salvador at Lunchtime

I just finished eating lunch on the 3rd floor terrace of the office. It's much cooler up there than inside, and there's also a beautiful view of the city. I can hear horns, a vendor announcing the prices of his fruits and vegetables by bullhorn, bus cobradores (assistants who collect fares) yelling out their destinations in front of the entrance of the church and the roar of school bus engines as the 30 revs up when the light turns green. I'm above it all and can only picture the scene below as I eat rice, avocado, broccoli and cheese with loroco flowers.

The other two pictures are from the farm last week... Hiking to the river and the view of 3 volcanos from our cabañas...

My last week of travels

I just returned from a week on a beautiful farm in the mountains of the Sonsonate region of El Salvador for the mid-year strategic planning meeting of my organization. Sounds boring, but because Centro Bartolomé de las Casas is founded on methodologies of popular education and self-care, we incorporated dancing, stretching, hiking, and a process of biblio-drama to enter into the intense programming discussions we had to get through. I had the opportunity to assist one of my co-workers in the process of facilitating the planning meetings for all the programs (Masculinities, Mental Health, Youth Leaders, and Biblio-Theology) and learned a lot from him about the complex process of program development and planning.

Although I am involved in a number of projects here at Centro Bartolomé, the work has gotten off to a slow start. I’ve been feeling the frustrations that come along with the limitations of a 10 week internship, and wishing I could stay longer. One of my projects is assisting my coworker Deisy with the Mental Health and Living Memory program. Last weekend I went with her to co-facilitate a workshop with survivors of war atrocities in Arcatao, by the border of Honduras in the north of El Salvador. The workshop is part of a research project about Religion, Gender and Memory, with the goal of creating a documentary and involving a group of survivors in a process of healing and sharing of collective memories. In the workshop, we incorporated visualization activities and dance with more a more intense process of creating a timeline of all the important massacres, killings, and mobilizations during the war. I found myself very emotionally affected by the stories this group of mostly elderly men and women told. I was also incredibly inspired both by the level of organization of the community and the effectiveness of the methodologies implemented by Deisy in helping this community heal from intense trauma and loss.

The other major project I’m working on is helping the Masculinities program evaluate the impacts of their Equinox School (which involves group of men and adolescent males in a process of exploring the meanings of masculinity and impacts on gender-based violence). So far, I’ve started organizing and photographing what they call the silouettes of the Hegemonic model of Masculinity. These silhouettes are drawings of what each group interprets as what it means to be a man both physically and emotionally, and what roles men are supposed to play. It’s an ambitious project, but really interesting to compare how different groups represent the model. I hope I can give back as much to Centro Bartolomé and the communities they work with as they have shared with me.

Street life

I've been learning over the last few weeks how to maneuver through the chaos of San Salvador's streets. Every morning I take the number 52 bus to work. It's either a big school bus or a microbus, which is like a large van. The microbuses fly through the streets, grabbing passengers at each stop while yelling out their destinations. I watch out the window as we pass by shopping centers, street vendors selling pupusas, candy, juice and newspapers, traffic circles, parks and people on their way to work. The air at 8AM is already cloudy with exhaust hanging low over the city. I get off the bus at the Alcaldía stop (mayor's office) and walk 5 blocks to the CBC office. The streets in the city's center are lined with vendors. I pass by about 15 pupuserías in 5 blocks, varying from actal restaurants inside of buildings to steaming grills set up on the streets with women standing behind them flipping the cheese-stuffed tortillas. One must walk precariously, sliding by teenage boys toting wheelbarrows full of mangos, buses, CD vendors blasting Michael Jackson songs, rotting garbage and women selling bread out of baskets set up on stands on the corners. Once I finally enter the Rosario church where CBC's office is located, I can take a calm breath of relief as I look up at the strange-looking curved walls inset with rainbow-colored stained glass windows.

Pictures from last week's workshop

The first picture includes Ivette to my right, who is a forensic psychologist and shared a cabaña with me; behind her is Mitzy, who works for the Casa de la Mujer in Santa Tecla, a woman's organization that works closely with the mayor of Santa Tecla to promote women's rights; Marisol, a Chilean woman who's lived in Guatemala for 15 years and fought in the Guatemalan civil war; and Pilar, a lawyer from Colombia. Pilar and I spent a lot of time together last week visiting women's organizations in Santa Tecla and a youth center in Popotlán (the center is a space for youth who are at risk of becoming involved in gang activity in one of the marginal neighborhoods of San Salvador. One of the women at the workshop, Ceci, is a Catholic sister who works at the youth center and lives in the neighborhood).

The second picture shows the facilitators for the workshop. First is Walberto, who's my supervisor here at CBC. Then Pansho, a social worker from Chile who I spent a lot of time with during my first week here. Following Pansho is Rutilio, one of the facilitators for the Masculinities program. Then Larry, the director of CBC- I'll write more about him later, but he's awesome; finally Wilfredo, a professor of community psychology.

The third picture is a group shot of everyone...

Mental Health and Living Memory

(Picture is a view of the mountains surrounding La Palma, Chalatenango) Today I finally sat down with Deisy and Walberto to put together a workplan for my time here. All of a sudden, I'm inundated with projects! Hopefully I'll be able to complete them all in the 2 months that I have left to work here.

One of the projects I'm going to be working on is the Mental Health and Living Memory program in the town of Arcatao, Chatatenango, right near the Honduran border. For a few years, Deisy has been working with a committee of community members in a process of community-based healing from the many massacres, disappearances and other acts of violence committed in Arcatao before, during and after the war. The idea behind this is that the community experienced collectively this violence, so the healing process should also be experienced collectively. In cooperation with a woman from Holland, community members engaged in many kinds of natural healing such as massage, breathing, visualizations, art therapy, dance therapy and exercizes focusing on energy centers in the body in order to learn strategies for self care and self healing.

After this experience, the committee wanted to do something more to seek justice for what had happened and to give a proper burial to their loved ones. They decided to work on three projects: a book of testimonios (personal stories of violence), a Museum of Memory and a process of exhumation of massacre sites. Deisy is also involved in a participatory research project with another woman from Holland related to the themes of Memory, Gender and Religion. I'm going to be helping her put together workshops for this research project and collect interviews with a few key community members. I'm so excited to be able to go back to oral history work, especially in a situation where it's actually useful for a community's process of healing!

Feminists, Franciscans and Football

Just before Rutilio through the balloon into the air, there was a moment of anticipatory anxiety and excitement in the room full of women. Once the balloon had taken flight, chaos broke loose. The women in the center jumped and smacked the balloon, trying to get it to their goalie armed with a tack for popping it. Within seconds we were all screaming, swatting and sweating. One after another, participants in the game were getting injured- scratched, hit in the face, falling off chairs, breaking jewelry.

This was just one of the interactive games we engaged in during the Allied Women workshop for the Masculinities program of CBC. A caravan of three microbuses full of women arrived on Friday at the Franciscan retreat center in the mountains of La Palma in Chalatenango. Each of the women who participated either works with or is friends with one or more men who have gone through the process of the masculinities program. Through games like these, we were able to analyze how we act out the hegemonic model of masculinity. This model lays out the roles that men are supposed to play, how they should look physically, emotionally and psychologically. If men don't fit into the hegemonic model in some aspects of their lives, they exaggerate it in others. For instance, a man who can't provide for his family because he's unemployed might try and become physically abusive of his wife and children. The process of the masculinities program helps uncover this hegemonic model, explore questions of sexuality, fatherhood and prevention of gender based violence by helping men to examine how they have experienced masculinity in their own lives.

The methodology of the masculinites program is really cool. We engaged in exercizes in which we held hands and had to hold each other around the waist, activities that make men uncomfortable as they don't usually touch each other very much. We also participated in reflective activities where we quietly thought about what parts of the hegemonic model we take on as women, and then taped those qualities to our bodies. Like in balloon-soccer, many of us are violent in our daily lives, not caring what harm we do to others in the struggle to reach our goals. This model of the masculinites program could be powerful for men in the states as well.

Bienvenida

Yesterday was my first day of work at the CBC office. The staff gave me a wonderful bienvenida (welcome). We sat on cushions in a circle around a big candle placed in the center of an embroidered burlap mat. After a round of introductions, Walberto passed around a gourd filled with stones and asked that each of us move the stones around and listen to what they have to say. At the end, everyone shared what the stones had said to them. Larry told us that the stones came from the Rio Lempa in Arcatao, where the organization works on their Mental Health and Living Memory project. He said each stone has a story, and that during my time here I´ll hear these stories and add new ones to the gourd, as it isn't full yet.

I'm adding here a few pictures of the CBC office, which used to be a school run by Dominican nuns and is attached to the Rosario church in the center of the city. The first photo shows Monseñor Oscar Romero (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%93scar_Romero) and the gourd of stones. The second photo is a view of the metropolitan cathedral from the second floor of the office.

Pupusas on top of the world

So I made it to San Salvador safe and sound despite traveling through Honduras during a military coup. I actually didn´t even notice there was a coup happening, nor did I know anything about it until Walberto and Larry from CBC told me when they picked me up at the Tica Bus station.

Before arriving here, I spent a lovely 4 days in Managua visiting friends in Barrio Walter Ferretti and La Centroamerica. I´ll post pictures next time, as I don´t feel comfortable yet wandering around San Salvador with my camera. There has been a lot of gang violence in the barrio in the last year- basically, if you´re a teenage boy, your life is in danger just sitting outside of your house. Last week, a 19-year old was killed with a machete by members of Los Perros, although he wasn't part of any gang himself. Despite this, I got to meet my friend Gustavo's new 3-month old baby girl, take everyone out for pupusas, get caught up on gossip, and eat my friend Tere's unbeatably delicious pollo asado, tostones and frijoles molidos. Being in Managua felt like being home again, with the intense heat, chaotic streets and hot sticky school buses belting out clouds of exhaust. And it was so nice to spend time with everyone there.

Here in San Sal, Larry and Walberto gave me a wonderful welcome. First they dropped me off at my apartment in a pretty upscale neighborhood right behind the Chilean embassy. It´s probably the nicest place I've lived in all my travels in Central America. After resting for a couple of hours, they took me out for pupusas in Los Planes, a hilltop scenic overlook of the city surrounded by tiny pupuserías with wooden tables set up on the sidewalk. Larry and Walberto are perhaps two of the most warm and welcoming people I've ever met. I immediately felt comfortable with them as we talked about the coup, the work of CBC, and life in San Salvador and Managua. This week I'll be my orientation week, so I'll post more about CBC's work later on. Saludos!

Introduction

Hello all! I wanted to start this blog to be able to keep in touch with everyone about my experiences this summer working with Centro Bartolome de las Casas in San Salvador, El Salvador. I was able to organize this internship through the University of Chicago's Human Rights Fellowship program. I knew I wanted to work with an organization doing gender-based violence prevention work and a colleague suggested looking into CBC. The organization is run by a small and brilliant team who I feel very lucky to be able to work with and learn from. They do a variety of community development programs assisting communities in overcoming the trauma of the very brutal war that took place from 1980-1992 (the US funded a lot of human rights abuses in this war).

One of the programs they run is called Escuela Equinoccio Masculinities Program. The program seeks to "recreate more equal and inclusive relationships between men and women characterized by environmental sustainability and reflection about what it means to be a man. The program addresses knowledge of the body and sexuality as well as the social repurcussions the traditional construction of masculinity, with great influence of machismo, has for both women and men." I'll be supporting this program as well, although I'm not yet sure about the details. I'm sure I'll be writing more about the war and about the programs at CBC.

The pictures here are from the historic inauguration on June 1st of the first left-leaning president of El Salvador, Mauricio Funes of the FMLN. There's more info about El Salvador and the elections on the website for the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, www.cispes.org.