El Salvador
Hello everyone--
Soooo, I've been pretty terrible at keeping this thing up to date. I accept full responsibility for my actions and would love to blame it on how busy I've been and how little time I've had for anything in the past month, but that just doesn't cut it. As I may have said before, I wanted to post my last two entries from last semester before posting anything for this semester, but they still are not completed, as I didn't have time at home to finish them and even tho I tried to finish them here, just didn't happen. So, you will get entires on my six days in Morocco and my four days in Prague at some point, just not right now. I imagine some people may be interested in my current surroundings and experiences. I have cool stories about those two places, especially Morocco, but the more pressing issue is my current status, not to be self-indulgent.
So, first let me explain the set-up for those of you who aren't familiar with the program itself. We take four classes, basically different subjects on El Salvador--ie history, poly sci, theology, sociology, etc., and two days per week we go to a different community in the city or its immediate suburbs (note: the same community for the whole semester, along with one or two partners). We also have a seminar one day per week with this experience--what we call our "praxis" placement--so it counts for class credit. It's called the Casa Program because we live in three houses, in "intentional community," together with some Salvadoran scholarship students, "becarios." My house is the largest, Casa Romero, but with the most single rooms, with about 12 people total, I believe, including one Community Coordinator (a graduate of the program and of college, who comes back for a year to help with the community. Anyway, we have three cooks who cook for each house daily for every meal during the week (lunch and dinner when we’re not at praxis eating), but we clean everything in the house ourselves, do all our laundry by hand, and take care of our house. There are 24 of us total, mostly juniors from Jesuit colleges across the US (from U of San Fran to BC to Loyola Chicago and Loyola Marymount in LA to Saint Louis and Marquette in Wisconsin and even Creighton in Nebraska). It's an awesome group of people who have many things in common, ie concern for others and social justice causes and strong devotion and faith, but we also have many differences and ways of viewing things.
More details about my specific experience. My sitio de praxis is a community called Mariona, of more than 250,000 people (I believe that stat is correct, but we were having some confusion through language about what I was asking and what they were saying). Much of our time will be spent just talking with people in the community; we'll be giving minimal English classes one day per week; we'll be passing a good chunk of time in a cooperative for women making artesanal goods, like clothes, fabric stuff (bags, blankets, stitching things, etc.) and other crafts (wooden and painted thinigs, much more than I know right now). I'm paired with two girls, one from Fordham with me and one from St. Louis U, and we will be spending much of our time with a close friend to the Casa, Otilia (Oti, for short), this woman who works for the cooperative and will be helping us the most and accompanying us along the way. I'm really looking forward to the rest of our time there this semester. I discovered that instead of "helping them" as many people would assume (and I did initially), we'll spend time being with them, listening to the stories of various community members, and trying to immerse ourselves in the realities of this country.
Just to give you a perspective at what we have been doing. Today marks the first time we'll have a class twice, so we only started last Thursday. Before that, we were visiting everyone's praxis site as a group, for a few hours, to see where everyone will be and how the communities are set-up. We also visited Archbishop Romero's old home and the church in which he was assassinated saying mass. We saw the site in which the Cleveland nuns were found dead in 1980 and also the place where the military assassinated a group of Jesuits in 1989, here at the university. On two weekends thus far, a group of us (similar each time in people), took a trip one day to a lake nearby for the afternoon; the next weekend, we went hiking on these cliffs and paths nearby the city. It was just a breathtakingly amazing view. The country is scattered with mountains, and with all the blue skies we have right now, it just makes for an incredible environment. It's such a contrast though, a terrible dichotomy, when you see this precious site with all the ramshackle homes that still exist from war refugees. More to come on that later. But, we do have some free time and get to experience the country for ourselves. Later in the semester, we will be spending a weekend with in our praxis communities and then a full week out in the campo (country), actually during Holy Week. Also, we have a group trip to Belize and a 10-day spring break as well, of which everyone's still thinking what to do for that time.
There are some really great people here, whom I've come to admire already, both in our program and in the communities. It's shaping up to be a different experience than what I thought (kind of), but so fulfilling in so many ways. At the same time, I feel that it will be a difficult and challenging four months for me, which is not a bad thing at all.
My internet access will be limited, as we don't have anything at the houses. There's an internet cafe down the street that's only open till 8 pm, and our campus here at the UCA (where we take our classes) has free wireless access, so I'll be able to send email basically every other day. It's a long walk down here and back up the hill, so I'll really only be using this when I have classes. I should be able to respond every other day to emails, if you feel so inclined to send them. And I promise to make a better attempt to post entries here and/or pictures.
I wish everyone my best, and I'll be holding all of you in my heart. Paz y amor desde una distinta parte del mundo--
AMDG,
Anthony
Soooo, I've been pretty terrible at keeping this thing up to date. I accept full responsibility for my actions and would love to blame it on how busy I've been and how little time I've had for anything in the past month, but that just doesn't cut it. As I may have said before, I wanted to post my last two entries from last semester before posting anything for this semester, but they still are not completed, as I didn't have time at home to finish them and even tho I tried to finish them here, just didn't happen. So, you will get entires on my six days in Morocco and my four days in Prague at some point, just not right now. I imagine some people may be interested in my current surroundings and experiences. I have cool stories about those two places, especially Morocco, but the more pressing issue is my current status, not to be self-indulgent.
So, first let me explain the set-up for those of you who aren't familiar with the program itself. We take four classes, basically different subjects on El Salvador--ie history, poly sci, theology, sociology, etc., and two days per week we go to a different community in the city or its immediate suburbs (note: the same community for the whole semester, along with one or two partners). We also have a seminar one day per week with this experience--what we call our "praxis" placement--so it counts for class credit. It's called the Casa Program because we live in three houses, in "intentional community," together with some Salvadoran scholarship students, "becarios." My house is the largest, Casa Romero, but with the most single rooms, with about 12 people total, I believe, including one Community Coordinator (a graduate of the program and of college, who comes back for a year to help with the community. Anyway, we have three cooks who cook for each house daily for every meal during the week (lunch and dinner when we’re not at praxis eating), but we clean everything in the house ourselves, do all our laundry by hand, and take care of our house. There are 24 of us total, mostly juniors from Jesuit colleges across the US (from U of San Fran to BC to Loyola Chicago and Loyola Marymount in LA to Saint Louis and Marquette in Wisconsin and even Creighton in Nebraska). It's an awesome group of people who have many things in common, ie concern for others and social justice causes and strong devotion and faith, but we also have many differences and ways of viewing things.
More details about my specific experience. My sitio de praxis is a community called Mariona, of more than 250,000 people (I believe that stat is correct, but we were having some confusion through language about what I was asking and what they were saying). Much of our time will be spent just talking with people in the community; we'll be giving minimal English classes one day per week; we'll be passing a good chunk of time in a cooperative for women making artesanal goods, like clothes, fabric stuff (bags, blankets, stitching things, etc.) and other crafts (wooden and painted thinigs, much more than I know right now). I'm paired with two girls, one from Fordham with me and one from St. Louis U, and we will be spending much of our time with a close friend to the Casa, Otilia (Oti, for short), this woman who works for the cooperative and will be helping us the most and accompanying us along the way. I'm really looking forward to the rest of our time there this semester. I discovered that instead of "helping them" as many people would assume (and I did initially), we'll spend time being with them, listening to the stories of various community members, and trying to immerse ourselves in the realities of this country.
Just to give you a perspective at what we have been doing. Today marks the first time we'll have a class twice, so we only started last Thursday. Before that, we were visiting everyone's praxis site as a group, for a few hours, to see where everyone will be and how the communities are set-up. We also visited Archbishop Romero's old home and the church in which he was assassinated saying mass. We saw the site in which the Cleveland nuns were found dead in 1980 and also the place where the military assassinated a group of Jesuits in 1989, here at the university. On two weekends thus far, a group of us (similar each time in people), took a trip one day to a lake nearby for the afternoon; the next weekend, we went hiking on these cliffs and paths nearby the city. It was just a breathtakingly amazing view. The country is scattered with mountains, and with all the blue skies we have right now, it just makes for an incredible environment. It's such a contrast though, a terrible dichotomy, when you see this precious site with all the ramshackle homes that still exist from war refugees. More to come on that later. But, we do have some free time and get to experience the country for ourselves. Later in the semester, we will be spending a weekend with in our praxis communities and then a full week out in the campo (country), actually during Holy Week. Also, we have a group trip to Belize and a 10-day spring break as well, of which everyone's still thinking what to do for that time.
There are some really great people here, whom I've come to admire already, both in our program and in the communities. It's shaping up to be a different experience than what I thought (kind of), but so fulfilling in so many ways. At the same time, I feel that it will be a difficult and challenging four months for me, which is not a bad thing at all.
My internet access will be limited, as we don't have anything at the houses. There's an internet cafe down the street that's only open till 8 pm, and our campus here at the UCA (where we take our classes) has free wireless access, so I'll be able to send email basically every other day. It's a long walk down here and back up the hill, so I'll really only be using this when I have classes. I should be able to respond every other day to emails, if you feel so inclined to send them. And I promise to make a better attempt to post entries here and/or pictures.
I wish everyone my best, and I'll be holding all of you in my heart. Paz y amor desde una distinta parte del mundo--
AMDG,
Anthony
posted by Anthony Damelio at 11:21 AM
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