"You will not pass this way again."

Hola a todos y todas!! I am here in El Salvador, safe and sound (that is, if any of you were getting a little worried not having heard from me very often… sorry Mom and Dad!!) I have finally made my way to an internet café where, our friend Milton here is absolutely lovely and only charges 75¢ for an hour, so I can take a few minutes to let you all in on what I’ve been up to these past few days!  

Trena, one of the coordinators of the Casa program and an absolutely amazing woman, shared with us on our first day of orientation something one of her spiritual directors used to tell her years ago--“You will not pass this way again.” I am in love with this idea.  I will never feel exactly the same way as I do now in the same context, which is why it is so important to embrace the “now-ness” of it all.  And I am trying very hard to do just that.  I knew I was called to be here from the moment I first read about the Casa program during my freshman year at Gonzaga.  Every part of this program seemed a part of me too, and I felt like I belonged there.  And although I definitely miss home already, every minute I spend here I feel more and more at home, and that this is definitely where I need to be.  I hope that I can be okay with getting my feet dirty, taking risks, and diving right into all the opportunities offered to me here (cliché, but all true!), but I have faith that I will find the courage to do this, and I can’t wait to get started!

Part of orientation (which lasts about ten days, because the UCA doesn’t even start classes until February—how cool is that?) involved a short tour of part of campus, including a beautiful church and La sala de las fichas—a memorial museum dedicated to the priests and lay people who were often very brutally murdered around the time of the Salvadoran civil war throughout the 80s and early 90s.  At the beginning of the tour I was kicking myself for not bringing my camera along, but by the end I was almost glad I forgot it, as I realized that there is no way I could have taken pictures and effectively captured the moment or the emotions behind seeing the real thing, and trying to do so would just be cheating you all from the true experience.  We had just watched a movie on the civil war that had mentioned a few of these individuals and featured some rather obscene and disturbing footage of bodies after they were found, so I expected to see some pretty graphic images.  But I must admit that I was not at all prepared to see the exact tattered and bloody bathrobes, t-shirts, and various other articles of clothing or belongings of these innocent, faith-filled men and women –that I had just seen them wearing in the film as they lay on the ground— completely on display in a room full of glass cases.  Or be in the same room in which an innocent woman and her daughter were brutally murdered as the woman tried to protect her child with her own body—all because military policy instructed that the assassins leave no witnesses.  I know I cannot fully explain how I felt in that moment, but it was almost as if that part of history was suddenly all the more real to me than anything I have ever actually lived before.  It was at the same time the most horrifying, humbling, and haunting experience that I know will never be able to forget—not that I ever want to.  Things that disturbing and beautiful cannot, and should not, be forgotten. 

I am so sorry to end this post on such a disturbing note, but I just wanted to share with you some of the thoughts I am having as I begin my experience down here.  I promise more uplifting posts in the near future!  But I do encourage you to look into the details of the Salvadoran civil war if you ever get the chance.  It is so important for us to be educated on the history of our nation and its involvement in the world around us, because horrors such as those that occurred to so many innocent people should never happen again, especially if we have any say in it.  My friend Britta especially recommends the film Voces inocentes—super heavy, but she says it is absolutely beautiful and very well done (and it has English subtitles!) 

Thanks so much for reading, love you all. xoxo Annarose