Gifts

It was hard to get up this morning. It was Sunday and my alarm went off at 6:30--after a couple snoozes, I rolled over, put my feet in my sandals and got up. As I was slowly getting dressed, my friend Angel asked me why I had put a skirt on. Weird, I thought: "Why not?, its comfortable." "We're playing soccer this afternoon," she informed me. Somehow I had missed the memo about the details of the day's activities. All I knew (and needed to know) last night before I went to bed was that there was a "convivio" of the women's groups from 4 different base communities. And it was to be held in Las Mesas, a community that until today I had not visited. The direct translation of "convivio" is "a live with," but since that doesn't make sense, I say that it is a "get-together," an opportunity to pass time (a.k.a. live) together. So, I was mumbling something about playing soccer (which is not my favorite sport, though I DO NOT pass over an opportunity to play any sport here), asking why we were leaving so early, and saying that I had also wanted to go to the "mass of the people" at the Cathedral today, which would not be possible. And Angel, in her ever so astute manner in the mornings (she is used to getting up at 5:30 to 6:00 because she lives sometimes in one of the rural communities where the daily schedules are quite different) said: "But its important for the women to get out of their houses and have some fun and something special." That made me smile, remember why I'm doing this, and get my act in gear.

It’s important to realize that the women that hung out together today almost exclusively have very limited scopes of the range of their activities. I realized part of this when I was working in Texas this summer at Mission Waco (shout-out to Mission Waco-- thank you for providing many experiences that helped inform my work here in El Salvador!), and as a learning exercise about the conditions of the world, we visited a farm and were required to prepare our own meal from scratch. And when I say "from scratch" (I think of biscuits, which they don't have here, and I miss, but alas, more importantly:) I mean from chasing the chicken around the yard to walking an hour to get water to picking the vegetables from the garden. That's how most of the world lives, and who bears the brunt of these responsibilities (at least in Latin America)? Women. (It took 4 hours to prepare our meal in Waco, by the way, and 4 times 3 (meals a day)….you do the math). Women's activities here are also limited by childcare responsibilities and sadly, in more than a few cases, by the male-chauvinist differences in women’s and men’s roles and expectations (called “machismo”). Also, travel to and from many of these communities takes several hours, including a long way on foot, so the women’s activities are limited by the sheer fact that it takes a long time and a lot of planning to go anywhere outside the community. So, when we got on our way this morning in a bus full of happy women, I did indeed realize that it was a special occasion for us all to be together to spend time together and enjoy the day.

“Equipo Mujeres” (“Team Women,” as I began calling us, you will understand why when I explain more) ran into (literally) our first teamwork activity about 45 minutes along into our bus journey down a long, hilly, rutted dirt road to Las Mesas. This road was inaccessible to vehicles until about 2 weeks ago when it sufficiently dried after the rainy season ended. I understand the problem we had with vehicles because my first car was a Mitsubishi Eclipse that rides close to the ground. Yep, you guessed it, when going down in a steep dip and then trying to come back up the other side in our bus (like a school bus in the US), we got stuck. Stuck enough to require an hour, pushing of all 25 women on the bus’s rear, and a Jeep and a chain pulling in front to dislodge it. Moreover, when we dislodged the bus the first time with all our teamwork, sweat, and pushing, the bus got stuck again in a different direction! There is something about difficulties that catalyzes bonding, because by the time we celebrated the “victory” of the dislodging with shouts of “Vive las Mujeres”, we knew it was bound to be a fun day. While I’m on the topic of our awesome bus, I’m going to skip ahead to our return journey, when, you guessed it, we got stuck again in the same place (there really was no way to get a big long bus through this steep and wide dip), requiring more teamwork in the rear of the bus and another tow vehicle. But the more interesting thing was that when the bus got stuck this time, all of us were outside the bus watching it try to make it through the dip. Why, you ask? Because half-way down the long dirt road, the bus developed a strange smell and a steady oil-drip, requiring the assistance of a mechanic (remember we were 45-minutes down the dirt road away from a main highway) and left at least some of us wondering if we were going to get out of this hole by night-fall (we did!).

I share this because its just one of the examples that I have had of how a crazy situation in this country can turn into a highlight of a trip (I’m writing about it on my blog, aren’t I?): an experience of teamwork, a source a lot of laughs and A LOT of time to literally sit beside a road or stand behind a bus making new friends, and even teach me a thing or two about making the best of a situation, not complaining, and looking for little acts of provision. We played A LOT of soccer today in the heat of El Salvadoran summer. For the women, organizing ourselves in teams and playing on the respectable soccer field was empowering. After the games, I was talking to the husband of my team’s goalie and asked if he thought she had a good time playing. He not only said yes, but also said that today was the first time that his wife had played soccer like we did!

Before I get off track with the point of my story about the women, let me reiterate that we played A LOT of soccer today. Also, you might need to know that one of my greatest “fears” is being thirsty. Thus, on one hand, I am not found without my water bottle (especially in a place like Las Mesas where there is no purified drinking water), but on the other, I understand thirst and am not going to say no to sharing my water with someone who is as thirsty as I am but has no water. So, after sharing my water and not having any more accessible to buy, I was really, really thirsty all throughout the soccer game, not to mention hours later when we were sitting beside the bus or pushing it out of its hole. And everyone else was thirsty too, but the crazy thing was that no one complained or even got down about our condition or the bus situation in general. In fact, I felt self-conscious because I was the one trying with complaining-thoughts running through my head (regardless of the fact that I felt socially persuaded by the ánimo [encouragement] of the group not to say anything). After a couple hours sitting beside the bus, we noticed a pick-up selling fruits and vegetables trying to detour its way around the bus through the woods (because the broken-down bus was taking up the road). I saw watermelon in the truck from a distance, but then we determined that there was no way to cut it easily (drop it on the ground and hope it splits?). Nevertheless, when the truck came closer, we realized that a solution to our water-shortage problem had arrived in the form of “10 mandarin oranges for $1.” I initially saw this as just a tide-us-over thing, but the women I was with were genuinely happy and THANKFUL for the arrival of these oranges to re-hydrate us. I wish I could have taken a picture of this orange-eating fest to show you the contentment (“this was just what we needed”) and the thankfulness (“thanks be to God, this was just what we needed”), but like our good ole bus, my camera was out of power by this point the day.

“True liberation is freeing people from the bonds that have prevented them from giving their gifts to others…the best I can do is probably not to give but to receive. By receiving in a true and open way, those who give to me can become aware of their own gifts. After all, we come to recognize our own gifts in the eyes of those who receive them gratefully. Gratitude thus becomes the central virtue of a missionary.” Henri Nouwen wrote the words in his book “Gracias!” (pg 16), in which he shares with readers his experiences and reflections during his time in South America living and working with the people to discern if he was to become a full-time missionary. I saw Nouwen’s words lived out in my experience today with the women. Sure, because of the situations I mentioned earlier in this post, as well as because of poverty, oppression, and other forms of injustice, the El Salvadoran women are deprived of their dignity to life a full and abundant life. But today was not some excursion provided by FUNDAHMER to entertain the women; rather, the journey proved to be just the opposite: with all its ups and downs (no pun intended, oh, you ruts and dips in the road :-) ), I realized some great gifts the women have to give: their ánimo [encouraging spirits], their hard work, their sharing even when they have little [as was true with the water today], their general happiness despite their tough situations, their thankfulness, and their optimism (in other words, HOPE). These gifts were particularly obvious today when the women were outside of their normal spheres and encountered both some difficult and very happy experiences. Although I doubt if the women consciously noticed the gifts they were sharing with each other and with me, but because I was a recipient of their gifts (both a difficult and very happy experiences for me too), their dignity (liberation) was realized a little more.