Some good stuff

So, there’s a lot of complaining I do about this whole thing because well, frankly, it’s not that awesome. But then, every once in awhile I have an exceptional experience. During times like these I need to remember that some days are really good days. And it’s not even that the other days are bad, they’re just days. So here’s the story of these last few days.

I am currently spending my time at a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) workshop in Perquín with the English teacher at my school, Don Rodolfo.

Day 1: Friday
The plan was to meet my teacher at the school at 7:30am to leave for the workshop (we had to be in Perquín by 11:30am, ready to go). And of course he showed up leisurely at 8:30, had some coffee and some breakfast, and was ready to leave at 9:00am. Great, I thought, we’re definitely going to be late, in typical Salvadoran fashion. And, being late stresses me out. A great way to start a three and a half hour bus trip.

Surprisingly, things turned around from there, and let me tell you, by surprisingly I mean miraculously. Don Rodolfo showed up in his car. Now he shows up in his car everyday (he lives close, but not close enough to walk), but we had discussed transportation to the workshop and he said his car probably wouldn’t make it up the mountains, which was fine, I understood. We would be taking the bus. But, like I said, miraculously, he said we would try it in the car. . . and we made it! One hour and twenty minutes. Success! We arrived early!

During the car ride we chatted, talking about El Salvador and traveling around, using the time as an opportunity for me to practice my Spanish. Anyway, then we got to the good stuff, the stuff I’m always hoping to hear about, but always afraid to ask about. The war. I mean, it was kind of perfect, kind of cliché really, riding up through the Morazán mountains, talking about the war on the guerilla battlegrounds. I know, it’s a little much, but it’s true. So anyway. . .

NOTE: the information presented here is note being pulled from historical sources, so the accuracy may be a bit off, but the stories are true

he told me how the military took over La Unión, along with most of the country, including Santa Rosa. At the time he was young, in high school perhaps, and the military took over his school, sending the students over to the grade school for morning classes, while the military infiltrated the school and turned into a new base camp.

Kids were picked off the streets frequently to be recruited by the army. The entry age was supposedly eighteen, but from what I here, kids as young as twelve were taken in. And there were no options, the youth were plucked off of sidewalks, and taken away. Peoples’ children would just disappear one day, sometimes returning, sometimes disappearing forever.

Some years later. . .

One evening, around eight, Don Rodolfo and a classmate were heading back from the university in San Miguel, hitchhiking their way back to Santa Rosa, a common travel technique, nothing out of the ordinary. After attempting to flag down several cars, they were offered a ride in the back of a pickup truck, going as far as Jocoro, a pueblo about twenty minutes from where I live. They took the ride and got off in Jocoro, standing beneath a street lamp, assuming they would soon find a ride to their final destination. Suddenly, the street lamp went out and the military pulled up. They began questioning the two about their whereabouts. Don Rodolfo explained to the officers that they were students, just trying to get home after spending a long day studying. The officers made them empty their pockets. Don Rodolfo reveled some Honduran limpiras that he had remaining from a boarder sale he had attended. One of the officers immediately began making accusations about Don Rodolfo’s guerilla involvement (apparently Hondurans were deeply embedded in the guerilla forces). He repeatedly tried to explain his situation, but the officers became aggravated and hostile, accusing him of involvement with the enemy. They then proceeded to question every aspect of his life, demanding to know names of professors and family members, requesting phone numbers and addresses. Don Rodolfo willingly gave all the information he could, but the officers’ attitudes became increasingly aggressive until they began beating and kicking the two students.

Luckily, after spending the night, beaten and bruised, in a makeshift holding cell, Don Rodolfo and his classmate were released. Upon arriving home, Don Rodolfo’s mother already knew what had happened. These things happened often. The military had called and visited his mother, in attempts to verify his innocence, making threats to the family. Lucky for him, though, he returned safely and avoided any further interactions.

Around the same time, Don Rodolfo’s sister was studying the National University in San Salvador, a particularly volatile region at the time. Many of the university students were becoming involved in the fighting and protesting with the guerrillas.
And because of her association with these groups of people, she left the country, seeking a safer life in the US, afraid of being stopped and captured by military, as her brother had. She remains there today.

Moving on. . .

One of the most interesting things Don Rodolfo told me that day, related to a book I read, that I recommend to all of you. Massacre in El Mozote. It’s a short book, based on the experiences of a woman named Rufina, one of the few surviving victims of the massacre, someone left to tell the story. Don Rodolfo knows her daughter. She was a guerilla fighter, who hid those ties from her mother. Don Rodolfo says that she enjoys talking about the war and will take me there someday soon, I hope. It’s really incredible how all these people are connected. Living in such a small country during a civil war really seems to have connected everyone in such a profound way.

It’s really crazy how I’m leaving in a place where America and money seem to be such high and mighty topics when just twenty years ago the entire country was a battle ground for a bloody civil war.

Days 2: Saturday

Okay, so I can’t really top the events of day 1, but getting back to my day to day life, the workshop has been going well. It’s actually been really helpful on a variety of levels. I’ve learned a lot of good teaching techniques that can be applied to a variety of subjects and I have bettered by relationship with my English teacher. We both have been motivated to work together in order to better the quality and diversity of teaching English in our school. I feel good and I hope to utilize these new techniques to motivate our students. Time will tell if we can really make some changes. Wish me luck and I’ll cross my fingers.

Day 3: Sunday

Today. We will be presenting unit and lesson plans that we worked on yesterday, reviewing several more teaching topics, and heading home after lunch.

The End.


All in all,I’ve had a good weekend that didn’t involve the capital. Haha. Now, I’ve just got to hold on to this positivity, because it doesn’t always show itself often.