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Published: February 28th 2008
well this is day four in el salvador and so far so good.
classes have been a little on the abstract side, which means it's been over my head. all in all we've had good class discussions and lectures from my professor. the deal with liberation theology is basically that it looks at jesus as a subversive person and focuses more on the preferential option for the poor that should exist. this form of catholic theology really came to fruition out of the salvadoran civil war from 1980 - 1992. archbishop oscar romero was a huge icon for liberation theology and is still revered in el salvador. obviously there must be more to it than that, otherwise we wouldn't be cramming a semester's worth of classes in 5 weeks.
yesterday we met with a woman who gave us a more up to date history of el salvador. she mentioned that last year, salvadorans in the u.s. sent back $3.8 billion; that's more than three times the national budget. she also mentioned the level of corruption within san salvador is just ridiculous, especially recently as there is a presidential election next year. apparently the Arena party has been in power mostly because other people are too scared to vote for the opposition (FMLN). members of the Arena party will go into rural communities to give gifts to the people in a way to buy their vote. also, SUPPOSEDLY, there are 14 families that basically run the country. SUPPOSEDLY, one of the family's owns a mall in el salvador and told all the employees that if they vote for FMLN they will all be fired. For a Salvadoran who earns about $170 a day, that's a huge intimidation tactic, especially when they really need to be making $700 a day to support their families. but again, that is just what i heard.
this is another story that we heard that i don't have time to explain, but it's worth reading if you're interested in some of the corruption involved within the elite of central america. apparently the salvadoran congressman were involved with drug trafficking themselves and were ordered to be killed by members of the guatemalan upper echelon. the killers, who were guatemalan police as discovered by the FBI, were then placed in a maximum security prison and began to tell who they received there orders from when masked men entered 18 locked doors in a maximum security prison untouched with machine guns and killed them.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/05/world/americas/05guatemala.html?ex=1330750800&en=3e5fcbe9649d9257&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=all
it's all pretty crazy.
well, I need to run.
Happy Birthday wishes to Nana today, Grampa and Sean Johnson on March 4th
Also, i heard my cousin Caroline took a bit of a tumble and had to have surgery? Get better soon, Caroline!
Cape Cod just won't be any fun this summer if you can't run around Uncle Joe's Beach Club.
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Ev
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Hey Joe - Miss you lotssss love EVVVVVVVVVVVV but, seriously. hope all is well - and stay safe man. See you when you get back.