GNRC INTERRELIGIOUS CAMP, EL SALVADOR
Reiterating our commitment to a culture of peace.

The GNRC Interreligious Camp - El Salvador, 2010 took place on June 5th and 6th. There were 35 participants from the Catholic, Lutheran, Evangelical and Roman Churches, as well as the Muslim and Bahá’í communities.

The weather during the event was warm and sunny, after a week of dangerous weather and uncertainty caused by the storm Agatha, which left a trail of 10 deaths and more than 11,000 surviving disaster victims in El Salvador. The many material damages included the partial destruction of the Sumpul River bridge, whose waters we had to cross to reach the retreat center in the town of Arcatao, Chalatenango Department in the northern part of the country and where we’d be spending the weekend.

The program started with a ritual on the bank of the Sumpul River. According to the Commission on the Truth’s report to the United Nations published after the Salvadorian war, no less than 300 people – including women, boys and girls – were massacred while trying to cross this sadly famous river. We reflected upon the need to honor their memory by committing ourselves even more towards building peace.

HE WHO FORGETS ONE’S HISTORY IS CONDEMMENED TO REPEAT IT.
George Santayana.


In the town of Arcatao, we visited the Memorial Museum, an endeavor by various organizations to recover the town’s historic memory in its fight for survival and to ensure that the war shall never repeat itself. Our guides were two women survivors who told the youth about their painful experiences from those times. In her address to the youth, one of them said: “As of the age of 14, I had to keep running through the mountains and hiding from the aerial bombings. I did not enjoy my youth. Now you have the opportunity to live your youth, study, prepare and ensure that this story may never repeat itself.”

We reflected as a group on how this issue impacted each one of us, and we concluded that our generation’s battles are of a different nature. Our battles are to wage peace, not war; however, this battle also requires personal effort, sacrifice and a firm conviction to work in spite of the apathy, indifference and hopelessness that rule the world today. It also is a spiritual battle against our own weaknesses.

After such an intense and emotional day, we moved on to cooperative games. Each youth had the opportunity to experience his or her own catharsis by means of games, recreation and laugh therapy.

Among the last activities of the day was a performance based on Mercedes Sosa and Calle 13’s song Hay un Niño en la Calle (There’s a Child in the Street) presented by the Youth Cell from the Bartolomé de las Casas Center. This performance consisted of participative theater which allowed the youth to have an interactive experience with a focus on the topic of poverty.

The last workshop was The journey of colors. A variety of work areas were set up in a multipurpose room and its surroundings. Nature conspired with the facilitators to create an ideal environment for introspection among participants: under a constellation of stars that one could almost reach out and touch in the sky, the soothing river danced, crickets and frogs sang in joyful concert, and a soft breeze rocked the tree leaves. Each facilitator led the youth on a journey within, to the rhythm of soft instrumental music, by guiding them through colors: green, under the canopy and by firelight; blue, over a surface that reminded them of the color of the sea and a bright morning sky; red, the color of blood and life, of love and forgiveness; white, as a peace intermediary and one’s encounter with the Divine; and black, the reflection on death, as the beginning of a new life in the soul’s journey.

The first day of Camp had ended. In spite of a 17 hour day that included a 4 hour bus ride and many emotions, and thanks to the participants’ inexhaustible youthful energy, many carried on with songs, guitar music, laughter and conversation well past midnight.

The second day of Camp began at 4 a.m., as facilitators had warned the adventurous late-nighters. Each one was true to his or her commitment to the process and got up without the need for much encouragement. At 5 a.m., we began our hike towards La Cañada, one of the mountains that served as refuge to Arcatao’s inhabitants during the years of repression of the civilian population in the Salvadorian war. As we walked up the steep path, we were painfully conscious of the many people -- boys, girls, women, young and old men -- who were forced to flee en guinda on these same paths. En guinda is a Salvadorian term meaning flight and is a reference to the Armed Forces’ attacks which forced inhabitants to flee from their homes and residences in order to save their lives. The purpose of deploying operatives during the civil war was to apply the land razing technique. Aside from destroying homes, crops and killing livestock, it included massacring a population that was deemed as potential collaborators with the guerrillas. Upon arriving at the old hamlet La Cañada, the youth had the opportunity to hear about the experiences lived during those years from a war survivor’s own mouth. They saw the foundations of homes that had been destroyed by aerial bombings, the crater left by a 500 pound dynamite bomb, and the exact site where many people’s mortal remains are still buried without a funeral or dignified burial. Without a doubt, one of the most impressive experiences for each one of us was to enter the tatús and see for ourselves the conditions of those subterranean tunnels built by country peasants with the same tools they had used to sow and harvest their crops.


Upon our return along the same path, we walked perhaps a bit faster and easier down than during our ascent. However, our hearts and minds -- filled with images, emotions and feelings -- made us reiterate our commitment towards building a culture of peace, with the firm conviction that such dark pages of Salvadorian history should never repeat themselves.

Photos..

Written in Spanish by:
Gabriela Velis