The following notes have been edited to correct errors and to add explanations and updates. Parenthetical notes and remarks from the original are enclosed in parentheses. Present day [2022] updates are italicized and enclosed in square brackets.
Wednesday, 16 October 1991 - 2:30 PM - Comunidad Rutilio Grande
The road into Comunidad Rutilio Grande is as bad, if not worse, than the one coming out of Comunidad Ellacuria last year. In fact, "linear mudhole" would not be an inaccurate description of it. We get stuck several times on the way in and even more frequently on the way back out. Twice people along the road stop to help push us out, and we do a lot of walking while our driver fishtails the van through the worst spots.
It is with a certain sense of triumph and relief that we assemble in the community office to speak with representatives from the directorate. These include V., who works with human rights, J., a health promoter, and R., the coordinator for production. After introducing themselves, they ask for introductions from each of us.
"This community is called Rutilio Grande (after a well-known priest who had served that area until he was assassinated by the military in 1977). We didn't know that you were coming to visit, so not all of the directorate is here. The president is in San Salvador, accompanied by the director of finances. And another is out in the region. [St. Oscar Romero, who was Archbishop of El Salvador, was good friends with Fr. Rutilio Grande. Romero’s decision to hold a public funeral for Fr. Grande – a controversial and provocative move at the time – is considered to have been a clear early signal to authorities that he sided with the poor.]
"We have three related communities here, one of displaced persons and two of repatriated. Our school has five 'people's' teachers and one who has graduated from university, who teaches the others. This school has been built since June.
"This whole place was completely destroyed by the war. The UN High Command for Refugees is building a well for us. Right now the UN brings in water every day in a truck. We will have to go at least 150 meters down to find water. They have been drilling for twenty days, and the well will probably take three months to complete.
"Right now we have sixty-one families living in the community, and another ten are requesting to come and settle with us."
At this point we meet a religious worker who is responsible for the youth.
"Catechism instruction is very important here. It serves to link us with other communities. It also shows us our links to the gospel, as we remember that the first Christian communities were formed by work and by concern for human rights. To be Christian and to advocate for human rights is the same thing.
"The army has never respected the rights of Christians or of non-Christians. If one says one is a Christian, one must be a respecter of human rights. When they talk on the radio, they speak in the name of God, as if soldiers are the only ones who know who God is, but they are still killing people.
"But now we are in a new reality. We are planning to write the biography of Father Rutilio Grande from our own perspective and to build a monument for him in El Paisnel. Our community will celebrate its first anniversary on 12 March 1992, and Father Rutilio Grande was killed on 15 March, so that is when we hope to dedicate the monument."
The woman named V. walks around the village with us and out into the fields, describing the building which has taken place and what has been planted. They own the land on which the houses stand, but they are renting the fields. One of their concerns is with the severe deforestation that is occurring in the country. They have decided to rent cropland rather than clear any of the wooded land that they own.
The houses are neat and sturdy. Vegetable and flower gardens proliferate. V. shows us a newly-completed school house which also serves as a community gathering place, telling us that they have just celebrated a wedding here with a big fiesta.
Near the edge of the village we come to a building project, where two workmen are smoothing a newly poured concrete floor. V. tells us that they are making an organic latrine, which will have two cabins. They will use one until it is filled, then close it up and use the other. After nine months the first one can be opened and the residue used for fertilizer. A woman sitting near the workmen maintains that they have learned this from the Bible, because when the Israelites wandered for forty years in the wilderness, they were commanded to leave every campsite as clean as they had found it. As we walk away from the work area, V. laughs and tells us that this particular woman can justify everything with a Bible passage.
We return to the office and make our presentation, unpacking the contents of one suitcase and leaving two others, plus a soccer ball. We are back on the van about 4:15 PM, retracing our path and then on to El Paisnel and the Buenas Nuevas Lutheran Church.
The pastor is waiting for us. He had expected us at 4:00, and we are an hour late. We enter the church, displacing a youth group which had been meeting there, and have a conversation about the work at this location. They have been here three and a half years and serve sixty-one families. This pastor serves six small communities, the farthest being San Francisco, about fifteen kilometers away. He is very worried about that particular community, because they are very poor and isolated, and when the cholera epidemic comes, they will be hit very hard.
He tells us that he studied anthropology and liberation theology in Mexico. I ask him if he is familiar with the writings of Elsa Tamez, and if so, what is his opinion of them. He responds that his Bible study group right now is using one of her pamphlets, and he thinks it is very nice.
Betsy asks if the youth group will come back inside and sing for us. Song books are distributed, guitars are tuned, and we sing together two songs, "God of the Poor," and one about singing with thousands of friends. Then we make the presentation of two suitcases and a soccer ball, and leave in deep dusk, about 6:00 PM. We have had trouble crossing a stream on stepping stones on the way in, and I am very concerned about several of our older delegates, but we all make it back across the stream with no more soaked feet.
Though we don't get stuck again, we do manage to flood out the engine going through a series of deep pools in the road near Aguilares. We know we are going to be in trouble when we see the headlights disappear under water! We all pile out of the van one last time and stand along the side of the road while our driver and two young men to whom we are giving a lift get the engine going again.
The guest house is a welcome sight when we arrive just before 7:00 PM. Felicita has a delicious supper prepared for us, after which we have a brief reflection on the day's events. Very soon we are ready for showers and bed.
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