Returning to the Village and Dia de los Muertos
Having kids made me start my inner tracking journey in earnest-- that and the passing of my father (see more about him here http://ataraya.blogspot.com/2012/01/my-fathers-eulogy.html ). It all culminated during a trip to the Redwoods a few years ago. I was hiking alone, just wandering and I felt a flashback experience to being in the mountains of El Salvador collecting wood for the meal. Those trips to collect wood tied me to the natural world around me. On the way I’d pick mangoes, bananas, and sugarcane. I saw iguanas, coyotes, and boa constrictors and talked to them like my friends. I was only 7 years old but I felt so proud to be helping with something meaningful. Then I remembered I was in Santa Cruz and I looked at burnt base of a grandfather redwood. It reminded me that redwoods take advantage of fire to grow. The roots that the older trees create are tapped by the younger trees. The young trees take advantage of the clearing of smaller less fire resistant trees to shoot up. Another image came to mind. I was 39 years old. My father’s stomach cancer had returned and he had gone to El Salvador to live out the rest of his shortened life. All of my aunts and uncles gathered around him and we celebrated what was to be his last birthday. I had not returned to the village where I was born since we left from El Salvador in 1980. We had to flee because my father was placed on the Esquadron de la Muerte’s (Death Squad) blacklist. My village had been utterly decimated during the war. On previous visits I had been told that it was too dangerous to return to Los Monges. One of my uncles said he’d been back to the village and knew of a trail that we could take (free of landmines). We all packed into the flatbed of a truck and headed on a mission to visit the ruins of our village. As we walked my tias y tios told their stories and memories of the place.
It was amazing many of them hadn’t been there in 30 years yet they knew which trees would be where. The trees were family to them. We macheteed our way down and finally found the ruins. There wasn't much, the jungle had overtaken everything -- only some stone wall foundations remained.
I feeling of grief and joy washed over me-- I had finally returned to Los Monges. Along the way my Tia Doris told me a story about how another group of Monges had lived down closer to the Rio Lempa shores. During the 70s they had been displaced due to the building of El Salvador’s biggest hydro-electric plant. A young priest Chencho Alas had organized the community to fight this.
Not only were people being displaced but sacred sites would be flooded. In the end the lost the fight and Lago Suchitlan was created and it flooded the banks were some of my family lived. Luckily Chencho had helped our family gather some funds and they bought some land higher up and created a Cooperativa La Bermuda. About 20 families designed themselves a new community. The houses were placed in a circle with large central field in the middle. There was a common eating area. At night the families gathered and told stories, played music, and kids played games. They worked the fields together and were able to live off the land w/out having to buy much from the outside. This success story bothered some of the powers that be. They didn’t want examples of cooperation. It was at the heart of the cold war and it was important to crush anything that smelled of socialism. One day while the kids were at school and the men were in the fields a military truck came by and gathered the elders. They told them that there was some military conflicts nearby and that they were evacuating people. Everyone complied-- they didn’t notice that the men had dug a large pit nearby. They lined my great aunts and uncles and massacred them in cold blood. This was the first time I’d heard this story. During the war it was too dangerous to mention this. This crushed me-- how could this be? A wave of grief hit me. What could cause people to do this to each other. How could we change the world to avoid this kind of grief? How can I help my family/country/community grieve for this? These are questions that haunt me. It’s what drives me find solutions and to bring up my kids in a way of peace and harmony. Along my path I ran into a wonderful tool for redesigning our way of life. Permaculture is a design science that asks that we look at nature to model our systems. It injects a few simple ethics into the design process: earth care, people care and fair share. I had thought that Permaculture would be a great tool for helping El Salvador redesign itself. Much to my surprise I found that there was already a Permaculture Institute in El Salvador and it was based out of Suchitoto, my hometown. I went to visit them and took some of my family. My aunt said this is the same road where the Cooperativa La Bermuda (Monge) used to be.
I felt that rebirth and pain of fire of that Redwood tree. The roots that my family had set were still there and I was tapping into them as a younger tree looking for sunlight. The fire was the war and destruction. Maybe from this we can redesign a better future. Ever since that day I’ve been working as the north american coordinator for IPES (El Salvador’s Permaculture Institute). They have been working hard for 10 years and have been training local leaders in this holistic design methodology. They have impacted hundreds of families in the area but it’s slow work that happens farmer to farmer. None of the campesinos can afford the class so at the moment they rely on donations to pay for the training and on-going support. Please help me keep this vision alive. In order to move forward it’s also important to heal the ancestral grief. Dia de los Muertos is a celebration of the ancestors. In El Salvador we gather at the cementaries and bring food, music and stories. Everyone has the day off and the cemeteries are packed. The stories flow and we hold space for this grief so that it doesn’t not build up.
On Nov 2nd Celebrate Día de los Muertos in memory of my father and all of those who went before him. To grieve and celebrate him so that he can become a good ancestor. We have done this every year since my father passed away and we've reinvigorated the tradition within my family and local community. Please join us, bring an ancestor and introduce them with their picture, a favorite dish or a story.
Pura Vida
Roberto
It was amazing many of them hadn’t been there in 30 years yet they knew which trees would be where. The trees were family to them. We macheteed our way down and finally found the ruins. There wasn't much, the jungle had overtaken everything -- only some stone wall foundations remained.
I feeling of grief and joy washed over me-- I had finally returned to Los Monges. Along the way my Tia Doris told me a story about how another group of Monges had lived down closer to the Rio Lempa shores. During the 70s they had been displaced due to the building of El Salvador’s biggest hydro-electric plant. A young priest Chencho Alas had organized the community to fight this.
Not only were people being displaced but sacred sites would be flooded. In the end the lost the fight and Lago Suchitlan was created and it flooded the banks were some of my family lived. Luckily Chencho had helped our family gather some funds and they bought some land higher up and created a Cooperativa La Bermuda. About 20 families designed themselves a new community. The houses were placed in a circle with large central field in the middle. There was a common eating area. At night the families gathered and told stories, played music, and kids played games. They worked the fields together and were able to live off the land w/out having to buy much from the outside. This success story bothered some of the powers that be. They didn’t want examples of cooperation. It was at the heart of the cold war and it was important to crush anything that smelled of socialism. One day while the kids were at school and the men were in the fields a military truck came by and gathered the elders. They told them that there was some military conflicts nearby and that they were evacuating people. Everyone complied-- they didn’t notice that the men had dug a large pit nearby. They lined my great aunts and uncles and massacred them in cold blood. This was the first time I’d heard this story. During the war it was too dangerous to mention this. This crushed me-- how could this be? A wave of grief hit me. What could cause people to do this to each other. How could we change the world to avoid this kind of grief? How can I help my family/country/community grieve for this? These are questions that haunt me. It’s what drives me find solutions and to bring up my kids in a way of peace and harmony. Along my path I ran into a wonderful tool for redesigning our way of life. Permaculture is a design science that asks that we look at nature to model our systems. It injects a few simple ethics into the design process: earth care, people care and fair share. I had thought that Permaculture would be a great tool for helping El Salvador redesign itself. Much to my surprise I found that there was already a Permaculture Institute in El Salvador and it was based out of Suchitoto, my hometown. I went to visit them and took some of my family. My aunt said this is the same road where the Cooperativa La Bermuda (Monge) used to be.
I felt that rebirth and pain of fire of that Redwood tree. The roots that my family had set were still there and I was tapping into them as a younger tree looking for sunlight. The fire was the war and destruction. Maybe from this we can redesign a better future. Ever since that day I’ve been working as the north american coordinator for IPES (El Salvador’s Permaculture Institute). They have been working hard for 10 years and have been training local leaders in this holistic design methodology. They have impacted hundreds of families in the area but it’s slow work that happens farmer to farmer. None of the campesinos can afford the class so at the moment they rely on donations to pay for the training and on-going support. Please help me keep this vision alive. In order to move forward it’s also important to heal the ancestral grief. Dia de los Muertos is a celebration of the ancestors. In El Salvador we gather at the cementaries and bring food, music and stories. Everyone has the day off and the cemeteries are packed. The stories flow and we hold space for this grief so that it doesn’t not build up.
Pura Vida
Roberto
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