Arrival in El Salvador

The final trip through the mountains of Guatemala was just as breath taking as the first day we drove through them to Xela and I was definitely sad to say goodbye. I don’t know if it was because I was anticipating a change but it seemed as though literally the instant we crossed the boarder into El Salvador everything was night and day different. The temperature increased by at least 10 degrees and the terrain was noticeably different. El Salvador is much more tropical than Guatemala. In the beginning it was also very obviously flatter than Guatemala’s highlands and you view stretch for miles unobstructed except for the lone tree every couple of miles or so. Trees that look like they belong somewhere in the African planes. (says the girl that’s never been to the African planes:) ) We arrive in San Salvador in the early afternoon and boy oh boy is this another world from any city in Guatemala. The American influence actually sits right in front of you. Every corner, and the streets in between for that matter, are covered with US fast food chains and stores. The wider busy streets could have come strait out of a bustling American city. We’re all staying together here, instead of local home stays, and our house is 3 blocks away from the largest mall in Central America. The house is beautiful though and its nice to be all together for a while.

While in El Salvador we are taking a course on Liberation Theology (in English). Over the past two weeks we’ve been taking class in the morning from our instructor Sister Peggy and then going out to various Universities and Church sites in the afternoon to hear presentations about the history of El Salvador and the Liberation Theology movement the emerged from this turbulent past. Sister Peggy is a catholic nun from New Jersey but has been living in El Salvador for the past 25+ years. She is 72 years old but has more energy than all of us 20 somethings combined. She is an amazing woman with tons of fascinating life experience and I’ve really enjoyed learning from her thus far. So far we’ve hear testimony from a couple of historians who’ve told us about the 12 year armed conflict that occurring here in the 80’s and took the lives of over 60,000 Salvadorans. We’ve visited both the public National University of El Salvador and the private University of Central America. The UCA is also the site of some of the most infamous murders of some of El Salvador’s most prominent martyrs during the war time. We have also met with the 2nd in command to the Catholic church of all El Salvador and the presiding director of the Lutheran Church of this country.