March 2, 2015
Elections in El Salvador; the Will of the People
There is, no doubt, that the American media has reported that there were elections held in El Salvador yesterday, Sunday, March 1.
The polls here in Puente Arce were closed early because two women were fighting! The rest of the family went early to the high school up the block and around a corner to vote but George was too late mostly because he focused his attention most of the day on the store room where we organized and categorized my load to be re-packed in the van.
There is a little more to the story, of course. George has been making all the moves necessary to get an official driver’s license. It has meant already two trips to Santa Ana on the motorcycle which takes about a three hour round trip and the bureaucratic hoop jumping added in. On the second trip, he learned that he would have to get a newer birth certificate.
It was necessary to make a trip to the other side of El Salvador to the mountains near the Honduras border. Nefta, his 70 year old father, Deanna, an 18 year old cousin and he went on the bus beginning their all day trip about 3 in the morning to his birth place where his family once lived several generations on the land.
What George learned filled in a lot about his very early life and the life and times of his father and mother. Seems they once owned much land in this area. When the Sandanistas began their pillaging of the people and when the resistance of the guerillas, the people righteously affronted by the criminality of that regime, set the whole of the state aflame both figuratively and in some places literally, it became necessary to flee.
Seems George discovered that his dad is a hero to many people. As they walked through the town there to do their business, there were many people who recognized the now much older Nefta and came to greet him. He is revered because he literally provided transport and money for them to leave, often with nothing but their lives, their children and the clothing on their backs. He brought them here to Puente Arce where there they have been able to begin again to build a town simply through a lot of hard work and the come unity spirit that lives in them to help each other.
So the personal family history forms a side bar to the elections going on across the state and the gathering in the high school cut short by contentious ladies acting out.
I do not know the official outcome but I am certain that the guerilla factions that formed a political party have prevailed once again and the will of the people rises to support their efforts.
The result is a united country. People support and help each other. All the family system is supported and everyone is housed, everyone eats, everyone shares the work that is needed to make it all be what it becomes. Here, when George brings home a fee from his work assisting English speaking people to navigate the border, there is food for everyone, even the stranger in the alley who is another one of the family for a while. This is their culture.
Be yea mindful of strangers in your midst, for you may be entertaining angels