Student At Large

San Salvador, El Salvador

El Salvador is a mess, from it’s shit strewn streets to the crimson-rimmed bullet holes in the clothes of long dead priests. The roadside advertisements are faded from the sun, by the entrance of every bank there is a man leaning languidly on the barrel of his scarred pump action shotgun. For the past few days all I’ve witnessed here are signs of conflict, from the blood stained robes of Arch Bishop Romero to stories of rebellion and torture told to us by a former guerilla. The worst part is there is little to balance these gruesome sights, the Capital San Salvador is a bleak eyesore of decay and cat piss that winds it’s way across the land in a series of malls and highways. There is no real center like the ones in most Central American cities, only dirty streets and the plush tennis courts of the American Embassy.

What seemed to have affected me most are the symbols at the Jesuit University here in San Salvador, the UCA. Walking through the airy, tropical campus I can’t make sense of the fact that on these well-manicured lawns six priests were executed by the El Salvadorian army less than thirty years ago, rose bushes now guarding the plot their innocent blood one stained. On your way to the universities museum one passes a fence that the hit squad scaled to access the compound and a small rock that marks where the Jesuits housekeeper and her young daughter were slain by a vicious slew of bullets to the head. Kyle leads us around the compound and tells us about the men who died, how they came from Spain to help El Salvador and ended up face down in the mud. To back up what he’s saying an American Jesuit showed us piles of photo albums taken the day the priests were murdered. The bullet holes in the walls, bodies slumped in never-ending sleep, those photos I will never forget, should never forget.

Confronted by the sight of such brutality and lost goodness I am filled with an immense sadness and sense of futileness that I don’t think anyone of conscience can truthfully ignore and put out of mind. In this strange land emotion runs wild and the most surprising people in my group cry without warning, probably trying to rationalize the incomprehensible. Later, sitting in an air-conditioned room in the American embassy I wonder why those responsible for El Salvador’s decline seem so unrepentant. Three U.S representatives in almost identical suits talked to us for an hour about GDP growth and political polarization, not once touching on the history of American involvement in the area. The question is of course, if I was in their position would I do any different, could I do any different?