El Salvador, Friday November 11th

Today began with a tour of the chapel (capilla del Hospital de la Divina Providencia) where Oscar Romero was assassinated and his home.

As I said before, Oscar Romero was an archbishop that represented the people of El Salvador. He lived with them, united them, and maintained a level of peace that kept the country from breaking out into a full blown war. On March 23, 1980, Romero openly challenged the army with this sentence: “No soldier is obliged to obey an order that is contrary to the will of God. In the name of God then, in the name of this suffering people I ask you, I beg you, I command you in the name of God: stop the repression.”

On March 24, 1980 around 5pm, Oscar was giving a homily to a small church group. The church doors were open. A car drove up to the front of the church. Without leaving the car, his assassin shot a bullet straight to his aorta, killing him almost instantly.

I took this picture standing at the front of the church. If you imagine that the doors are open, you can see the distance that the bullet traveled and the skill of Romero’s assassin.

The view of the chapel from the outside.

“Nobody has more love than he who gives his life for friends” The offering of love to generations of family. This plaque was put up on the 7^th anniversary of Romero’s assassination. When Catholic representatives later visited the location, they demanded that the plaque be removed because they had a problem with the word filial. But later, when these individuals left, the plaque was reposted.

Although Romero traveled a lot, he lived on the grounds of a hospital for terminal cancer patients. The hospital offered the comforts of life to those with illness so they could pass away in comfort. Romero spent time with each of the patients and enjoyed living there. As a birthday present, the nurses built a house for Romero. Knowing that Romero would not accept the house if given to him as a gift, they brought all the patients to the house before presenting it to Romero. They has a patient hand him a key. They knew that Romero would not be able to refuse a gift given to him by the patients of the hospital.

This fountain did not exist while Romero was living in the house, although we were told that the garden always had flowers in bloom, no matter the season. After his death, Romero’s heart was saved, put in a plastic bag, and buried in the yard. A fountain was built to mark the spot. The heart is still there.

Romero’s bedroom.

In another room of his house, a wall of pictures and objects from the day of his assassination filled the room. The pictures were graphic, but serve to help people remember the horror of the event and what it meant for the future of El Salvador.

Here is Romero’s car… a Toyota Corona

After our visit to Romero’s home, we headed to Parque Cuscatlán and the memorial wall built there. The memorial wall was entirely organized by the people of El Salvador. The government at the time offered no help or money. The wall is much like the Vietnam memorial in D.C. It is a wall full of the names of those whose lives were lost in the war. There are 4 different sections to the wall.

One section honors all those who are not written on the wall… the people that were lost and killed and who did not have friends or family left to enter their name.

Another section lists all the massacres that occurred during the war. In this picture, you can see listed the massacre that happened at the San Salvador Cathedral.

The largest section of the wall lists all the names of people who died and disappeared during the war. The names are listed by year, and separated into categories of Homicidos and Disaparecidos.

Here is where Oscar Romero’s name is listed. For many years, his name was so dirty you could not read it (as a result of people running their finger over his name to honor him and pay their respects). Just this past year, the named was cleaned.

The fourth part of the wall is a “3D” mural that depicts the history of El Salvador and the struggles the country has gone through. Cristy gave us a very detailed description of what each part of the mural represents, but I’ll spare you all the details.

We then headed back to SOYA to have lunch. From there, we drove to Estanzuelas, a rural community with which CIS works closely.

CIS has a scholarship program for students that live in Estanzuelas. We stayed with these scholarship students and their families for the weekend. It was an incredible experience that showed me a new example of hard work and dedication.