Elvira's Story

This is Elvira's story. Elvira is a remarkable, quiet, strong, gentle woman who lives in San Miguel. She is a one-person, unpaid, volunteer Prison Ministry at the San Miguel women's prison. Three or four times a week she visits the prison to provide spiritual and earthly care for the women. She's a lay missionary, social worker, parole supervisor & foster mother for the women all rolled up into one.

In her spare time she works full time for an electronics company, where she earns less in a week than many people in San Francisco would pay for a nice dinner for two; she raises her own beautiful children, including 8 year old Oscar; she maintains a nice home; and she always has a few newly released prisoners living in her home....providing them the housing and care they need until they can become established without turning back to the crimes that landed them in prison. She calls the Bishop in San Salvador and asks him to see if the group of Americans just arrived from San Francisco can check their wallets and see if they can afford to pay $20 per mattress to buy a few mattresses for women prisoners who are sleeping on bare concrete floors because the prison is crowded with twice the number of women that it was meant to accommodate. You should visit Elvira and let her tell you the women's stories.

The Prison Director's Story

This is the story told by the Director of the San Miguel Prison. He has invited the group to lunch after we visited the prison.

He tells us of the need for the prisoners to be treated as human beings, not as animals. He tells us of the classes in family dynamics, domestic violence, and anger management that the prison provides. He tells us of the work programs, and the release provisions for prisoners who have proven their reliability. He tells us of compassion, and the need to be firm when discipline is required. He tells us of the horrible pestilence of gang violence that rips at the fabric of life in El Salvador. He tells us of the overcrowding, and the need for things that would seem so simple here in the U.S., like the need for $18,000 to replace the torn black plastic that covers the open compound in the women's side of the prison so that they would have an open air area to work and socialize during the rainy season (so if you know of someone with $18,000 for that project, I can get you in touch with Elvira to arrange for it).

At the beginning of the lunch, he says that honestly, he did not know what to expect when we arrived. He though we would be "just some church group".... but he was relying on the reputation that Elvira had established through her work in the prison. When he met us...observed our actions...and saw the 25 mattresses we had brought for the prisoners he realized, he said, that we meant business.

And so he had allowed us into the men's side of the prison, which earlier groups had not been allowed to enter. He introduced us to the prisoners, and allowed us to talk with them and pray.

He led us on a tour of the shops, like the woodworking shop, where prisoners make items that they can sell in booths outside the prison entrance in order to support their families at home.

After our visit, he came to our hotel in the prison van and drove us to a chinese restaurant for lunch. He introduced us to the owner of the restaurant, who owns 3 other chinese restaurants in El Salvador. This man provides bones from the chickens and cattle he slaughters for his restaurants to the prisoners for making soup. He buys the chairs in his restaurants from the prison workshop. He employees former prisoners in his restaurants. He serves good chinese food.

So....if you are even in San Miguel, eat at Restaurante Shanghai. He has a restaurant in Usulatan and two other cities as well. El es un hombre muy amable.

The Orphan's Story

This is the story of a young boy. He lives in an orphanage in San Miguel run by Carmelite nuns.

He had a bag of candy, and he came up to me to offer me a piece of his candy. Listen to his story with the full attention of your heart.

We were all apprehensive about visiting the orphanage on the afternoon after we'd visited the prison. We didn't know what conditions to expect, dreading the worst. What we found was a beautiful compound with gardens, buildings painted in pastel green, yellow, pink and blue, quiet and smiling nuns and nannies, and laughing children who welcomed us like long-lost relatives, were polite, shared and played with each other, and loved having their pictures taken.

The orphan's story is told in the pictures. My words don't do it justice.

One of the high points of the visit was when Doris told a group of children the story of El Conejito...the Little Rabbit. Doris is one of those remarkable free souls who will speak Spanish with anyone anyplace...without a hint of self-consciousness. About a minute into her story, the little boy sitting in the second seat to her left said, in Spanish: "Please speak Spanish." Everyone roared with laughter, and Doris was laughing the loudest. Without missing a beat she said, in Spanish: "I'm trying...please help me...ayudarme".

To listen a few moments of Doris' wonderful storytelling, click the video.

Excuse the blip at the end. No professional videographers were harmed in the making of this clip.

The Presidential Candidate's Story

This is the story of a man running for president of El Salvador.

While were were staying at a hotel in San Miguel, the ARENA political party was holding rally at the hotel for the candidate's seeking ARENA's presidential nomination for the 2009 national elections.

If you thought the U.S. primary season was long.....just imagine. Their general election is not until next year and they're already in the thick of it.

So....he we were at the Hotel Tropic, eating our lunch, being goofy Americans, and surrounded by ARENA supporters with their red, white & blue polo shirts and campaign signs.

Innocents abroad....

Michael & Louise

John & Molly

Connie decides the water is too cold

John & Father Tommy

Connie, Lois & Molly

Now, I must confess that this whole situation did not make yours-truly terribly comfortable, as my politics don't veer to the right much, and ARENA is the right-wing party in El Salvador. And while the gentlmen milling around were wearing polo shirts and not carrying machine guns that I could see, they did look grim and I was certainly not going to provoke them. The candidates, however, were another story. Although surrounded by grim types that looked as though they would just as soon shoot you as break bread with you, the candidates themselves were right out of a talk show....all pearly smiles and well coiffed hair.

A little diversion into current Salvadoran politics before we get to the candidate's story itself. There are two main parties in El Salvador. One is ARENA (Nationalist Republican Alliance) founded by gentlemen like Roberto D'Aubisson, a former president of El Salvador that was widely rumored to have been behind the military death squads and the assassination of Archbishop Romero. ARENA currently controls the national government. The other main party is FMLN (Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front). FMLN is the political successor to the insurgents who fought the government during the civil war. FMLN controls many city and local governments, including that of the capital, San Salvador, and is particularly strong in some regions, like the eastern part of the country that were guerilla strongholds during the war. The FMLN candidate for president has already been selected. He is a widely popular television journalist named Maricio Funes. ARENA, as I said, is in the middle of it's primary and the leading candidates include the current vice-president, Ana Vilma de Escobar

and the man who until a few months ago was head of the National Police, Rodrigo Avila.

So....we're sitting there eating lunch, and there's this pleasant looking gentlement being interviewed by the television station. Turn's out he's Mr. Avila, the former head of the National Police and current presidential candidate.

Later, Mr. Avila spots us for the obvious Americans we are and walks over to ask me where we're from. "San Francisco", I reply. "Ah! San Francisco! What a beautiful city. My father went medical school at UCSF". So then Rodrigo asks where we've been (when I say Baja Lempo I swear I can see the wheels turning in Mr. Avila's head...Baja Lempo...former guerilla stronghold...now controlled by the FLMN....not my friends....but he continues, friendly as ever), what group are we with in the U.S. etc. He says he went to school in North Carolina, thanks us for helping the people of El Salvador. He also says that it is a little awkward that until a few months ago he was head of the National Police. This seemed odd, but then I could have misunderstood embarassment for pride. Then presidential candidate Avila drives off in a caravan of large SUVs filled with men who are now visibly carrying weapons.

Now, this may not be much of a story, but it's not every day that I get to have a one-on-one with someone running for president of El Salvador....or any country for that matter. And his story did tear at me, because as much as I wanted to think of Mr. Avila and his associates as bad people (and used a bottle of hand sanitizer after he'd driven away) God kept pestering me and reminding me that I am no better than Mr. Avila. That in eyes of God, Mr. Avila is a precious being. So my prayer for Mr. Avila, and Mr. Funes, and Ms. de Escobar, and most especially myself, is that our hearts be broken open by God to the suffering of our fellows in El Salvador, and San Francisco and every other place in the world...and that whatever Rodrigo and Ana and Mauricio and me are struggling with, wherever we need your help and comfort today - I pray God may grant it to us and that we may come to feel and know God's love.

Manuel's Story

This is Manuel' story. Manuel is a lay missionary. He lives in San Miguel. He is starting a ministry in the men's side of the San Miguel prison, like the ministry conducted by Elvira on the women's side of the prison.

Manuel is also working to establish a church in a marginalized settlement on the outskirts of San Miguel, called Las Brisas.

We drove with Manuel on the rough dirt trails through the area, past houses that were little more than piles of corrugated metal and discarded wood.

And we had the privilege of meeting famlies in the area and hearing their stories.

Finally we reached the location on a hillside overlooking the settlement, with cows grazing below. The views of the volcano in the distance with the city of San Miguel at it's base were magnificent.

We listened to Manuel tell, with quiet passion, his story of a dream for this community.

And we shared the peaceful moment of a sunset over this country that has such great heart.