Update on El Salvador: Commit to Accompany Us

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I had to start this a few times, as I am not home, the computer is not so good, and the electricity is failing...so, I must stop as soon as I can

DO NOT FEEL SORRY FOR US, but please, be about the seeing and the listening, commit to accompany us, not with relief, but by transformation of the structures that demand all of us to be about constant relief.

Dear sisters and brothers, thank you for your concern and love. Today as I write the cold is deep, a new cold front with lots of rain is here, one more cyclone we call it. The people are stranded, thousands of them in chest deep coastal areas. The four major dams, which provide electricity to those who can afford it, and which are mostly the industries-- oh God, the story of electricity and the dams is such a terrible colonial expression--are so full, that they are allowing the water to be released. I have seen the reports, the army trucks, with people mostly kids and women and the soldiers, stranded, the water raising. Women are holding the little one, on containers, above the water. I have seen the worry and anxiety in the tearful eyes of the people. The men saying good bye to the families, even as the families are stranded right before their eyes and this is not because the people are dumb, the system of development is dumb. It has been dumb from the beginning, and we all have known it, we died knowing, we starve knowing, we might not know the names, land grab, food security, green economies.. blah blah, blah, but we know, just as the Native American people and the African descendant people in the USA have always known why, by whom and for whom is their exploitation and their suffering.

I am so sad that the world of the so called developed civilized is such, that they can not see that we are not talking about help, we are talking about the need to shift their paradigm, for they are eating us alive, we live for their excesses, for their gumption's to be fed.

Yesterday we buried the 16 year old boy, that was a complete odyssey.. from office to office, begging for help..in these conditions, very little help..my sister driving the pick up truck in the rain, in the mud. So we were given the body, and the two older brothers and myself, carrying the body, my sister and I cleaning it, dressing it, placing it in the casket, doing all needed to comfort the family, holding the viewing and we remembering those stranded, those in the coastal areas, who have to deal with the rains, the floods coming from the dams, and we all knowing why and asking of the Global North why for even our corrupt governments and dictators are the Global North.

I do not write this in anger, or resentment, but so sorry, that we do not remember the spiritual call, to have eyes to see, to have ears to hear.. and we all must.. do not feel sorry for us, for we do not have anything else but to face the calamity. Look at your role. CHANGE IT. BE ABOUT THE NEW WINE, THE NEW CONTAINERS, WE ARE ALL IN THE NEW ERA, LET US NOT BE SHAPED BY IT.

I HAVE HAD TO START THIS A FEW TIMES, AS I AM NOT AT HOME, THE COMPUTER IS NOT SO GOOD, AND THE ELECTRICITY IS FAILING.. SO, I MUST STOP..

But please, be about the seeing and the listening.. commit to accompany us, not with relief, but by transformation of the structures that demand all of us to be about constant relief.

much love..marta