We headed towards Santa Lucía de Los Palones. We took the highway towards the airport and exited on the road towards Los Planes de Renderos. Roberto took advantage of his captive audience to practice his English. I asked him if he’d lived in the States. No, he said, I learned it at school. His English is actually not bad. He talks about everything he could possibly think of, from TV shows to places to visit in El Salvador. I think he would like to be some sort of tour guide. He’s constantly suggesting places for us to go see or visit, as well as restaurants where to eat.
Roberto began to drive up the hill; the volcano was totally covered by clouds. I made the mistake of mentioning that fact and Roberto took the opportunity to lecture, both in English as well as in Spanish, about the many volcanoes in El Salvador, their charm as well as their powerful eruptions.
Camila and I, at the Mirador (look out point) in Planes de Renderos. According to Roberto the Renderos family had planned to keep the area as an ecological preserve, ergo "Planes" de Renderos.About half hour later we took the road towards Santa Lucía de los Palones. As it is often the case, Marcela stopped to pick up the teacher, Evelyn Cruz de Cortés, who would be our guide to each one of the homes of the “associates”, as they call the students. The teachers are actually called “facilitators”, so Evelyn is the facilitator of that literacy class. The literacy class is called a “learning circle”.
Evelyn has had that circle for three years. Evelyn, as well as a few others, was baptized by elder Ramírez in 2006 after a crusade in the community. For a short time a small group met every Saturday but one by one they all left and Evelyn ended up being the only Adventist. Sister Dimpna Martínez, one of the literacy leaders in El Salvador, comes every Saturday to visit her and together they go out and do Bible studies in the community.
Camy and I had to help each other to go down the muddy pathway to the bottom of this gully. A small creek runs through here and the young man was a few feet away from here doing his laundry.Evelyn is 28 years old. She finished her studies to become a secretary. She met her husband, Oscar, at a church meeting. They have an 8 year old son, Oscar Jr. One day, while out giving Bible studies, Dimpna asked her if she’d be interested in becoming a teacher for the people in the community that don’t know how to read and write. “I wasn’t working at the time,” Evelyn told me, “so I decided to help.”
The first thing she had to do was to get some training, Evelyn attended a half day of training at the literacy offices and she was giving a few instructions about what to do next. “I came back home and I began to visit my neighbors,” she told me. “I have lived in this community for quite a while. I moved here after we got married. My husband grew up in the community.” Her family doesn’t live too far away, just up the hill in Planes de Renderos.
Santa Lucía de Los Palones is a hilly community. A few houses face the roads but most houses are built on the slopes, which means that there is a lot of climbing down and up to get to the homes of the people. This is the rainy season and the slopes are slippery at best. These “homes” consist of little more than some sticks covered with mud. The roofs are formed by piling all sort of things on top of the “walls”: wood, metal, tires, doors, sticks, tree branches, etc.
Walking up the hill, after visiting the home
of one of the students.
Camy is on my right
and Jason on my left.
So Evelyn when from gullies to ravines, visiting those she felt could benefit from learning to read and write. She began with her own husband’s family. Quite a few of his relatives were illiterate. Some of them were completely illiterate, needing to stamp their thumb in lieu of a signature on any official paper, others had had some elementary education. Most of the latter were so old that they had forgotten what they had learned as children.
Her class of 28 students is divided in levels one through three. In partnership with the Ministry of Education of El Salvador, the literacy program makes it possible for people to finish their elementary education in three years. Every year, or level, is the equivalent of three years of elementary school. She teaches from 8 in the morning, after she takes her son to school, until 11:30am. She comes home to feed her son and goes back to her classes from 1:30 to 5:30 pm. Monday through Friday. “But not everybody is able to come to the class,” she tells me. “So I go to their homes. Sometimes I go on Saturday and on Sunday.” “So you teach every day of the week?” I asked her. She just smiled and nodded.
Evelyn began teaching people in her community to learn to read and write in 2007. “I had 12 students my first year. The second year I had 18, and this year I have 28,” she tells me proudly.
Camy and I, walking downto visit the home of another
student. In this case, there is
a short section of steps. Before
and after this short section
there's only a muddy pathway.
Not too long ago she received a visit from the local police. They offered her an administrative job. “This was a great opportunity. I was right here, so I wouldn’t have to travel. I haven’t worked since my son was born, so this would help my family. It was a great opportunity,” she repeated. “I talked to my class. I had talked to another woman in the community that was willing to take over my classes. I talked to them in group and I talked to them in their homes. Their response was: If you don’t continue the classes we won’t continue either. Sister Dimpna visited and talked to them, she tried to convince them to continue their classes. They wouldn’t budge.”
“When was that?” I asked her.
“A few weeks ago.”
“So what happened?”
“I turned them down.” She said this with a serenity that indicated that she knew it was the only sensible thing to do.
We got off the vehicle and headed towards one of the student’s homes. It was a bit overcast and the weather felt good. Contrary to what I expected it wasn’t muggy and a cool breeze was blowing. The first two households had easy access but then we started visiting the homes of the people that live in the gullies and the ravines. It had rained all night and the ground was very wet and muddy. It made me wonder how they managed to go up and down those hills without breaking their legs or their necks. A young man was doing his laundry by a creek at the bottom of the gully and we headed to a house with two women and about six children.
I'm talking here withAna Elisa Ramírez, 27,
her parents were too poor
and too "set in their ways"
to send a daughter to school.
She had to work since
she was 13.
What stands up in all their cases is the same: poverty, parents unconcerned for their education, lots of children of their own, and dogs. Plenty of children and dogs. The students are mostly women and very few of them talk about a husband. In most cases the women appear to live alone, with their children and their dogs. It made me wonder if the dogs make up for the lack of men or husbands.
By the time we got back up the hill I was completely soaked with sweat. We continued visiting the students. A few times I had to help Camy to go down one of the pathways and a few times I had to get help so I wouldn’t end up belly down on the mud. Matt and Jason were taking pictures and I talked to the women. After 10 houses and, it seemed, as many gullies and ravines, it was almost noon.
The next to the last visit was heart wrenching. The son of the student, a 50 year old woman, has been killed the week before. They found his body three days after he was killed. They didn’t know the details of the killers but she couldn’t control herself from crying. Marcela and Evelyn told me that the entire class accompanied her for the funeral. “He was a good boy. He had just acquired a job. Don’t worry mother, he had told me, know we are going to be in better shape because I have a good job…” She sobbed. I had a word of prayer with her while she continued crying. It was one of the saddest moments of my life.
Here I'm praying with Ana Julia Velazco, 50, whose son was killed a week ago. Her parents were only able to send her to school for one year. She's already able to sign her name.We walked back to the vehicle around one o’clock. It had been only four hours but it seemed like we had been in that community for days. We had seen poverty and need. But we could see that they felt that the literacy program is providing them with something so precious they can’t contain their glee. “Now I can sign my name,” Rosa Amelia Ramos Pérez, who is 42, told me with pride. “All this time I had to stamp my thumb because I couldn’t write. I don’t have to do it anymore.” Her eyes sparkled when she told me, “There are some people that make fun of you if you don’t know how to write. But that will not happen to me anymore.” And to prove it she wrote her name on my notebook.
A young mother, María Carrillo, 27, surrounded by her children while I talk to her. She wasn't able to go to school because she had to take care of her younger siblings.Literacy restores the people’s confidence. It unlocks a future that, until not too long, seemed very dark. Thanks to the ministry of Evelyn and many other men and women like her, these women no longer feel ashamed, no longer are defenseless for not being able to read a sign or write their names. It seems to me like I have always known how to read and write, now I know what it really means: freedom.
