El Salvador Group Letter #1

Hello to all our friends and loved ones at home in the states!
Our Regis delegation is currently residing in San Salvador at the beautiful Casa Oasis. We arrived without any problems on the night of Jan. 3rd at around 9pm. Upon our arrival we were greeted by Matthew Eisen, our trusty group guide and Brother Agustin of the Maristas order who took our 13 bags of donated shoes and school supplies to the far off mountain village of Talnique. From the airport, we had a beautiful 45 minute drive into San Salvador and arrived at the casa. As you can imagine, we were all pretty tired so we got a good night´s rest to start off the trip. Thursday was a very eventful day: We started with a brief overview of El Salvador´s 500+ year history followed by an analysis of the current political and
economic situation here. This was presented to us by a gentleman from the non-profit organization Equipo Maiz named Carlos. The main event of the day was our pilgrimage to Divina Providencia, the cancer hospital/chapel where Archbishop Oscar Romero was asassinated. We recieved a wonderful talk from Sister Bernita, who gave us a bit of Romero´s history. After that, we swung by the national cathedral to see the memorial where he is buried. Later in the afternoon, we took a drive outside of San Salvador and up into the surrounding hills to La Perta del Diablo, which is a beautiful mountian hike which ends with amazing scenery from surrounding volcanoes all the way to the ocean in the south! Again, very exhausted, the group returned to the casa for another night´s rest. We woke up this morning and headed out for a very very emotional day. First we met with the co-madres, or the mothers of the disappeared, who gave us their testimonies from the civil war. They are a group that is committed to finding the disappeared or murdered victims of the violence which just ended in the early 90´s. We heard personal stories of torture and murder from this country´s recent history. Following this powerful presentation, we met with a group of marginalized youth from the parish San Fransisco de Asis where we began and almost completed our first community mural project under the master artist Tony Ortega. At the parish, we heard about gang violence in the country and the problems that Salvadoran youth face today. That´s pretty much the highlights for now. The food is delicious, the people are friendly and welcoming and the stories are breathtaking.

Much Love,

Your brothers and sisters in solidarity

ps. please forward this on to other friends/family who would like to know about our adventures. we will keep you updated as the days continue.