Price They Paid

As the trip begins to wind down and we spend more and more time in the city, I cannot stop thinking about Morazán. The time spent in the villages of La Hacienda and El Junquillo  is something that just keeps lingering in the back of my mind and I wonder when it will stop, if ever. From poverty to hospitality, everything we experienced there was to an extreme. When I went to Peru, I felt that I experienced a level of hospitality that I had never encountered, but we were building a home for a homeless woman. There, we were taking up beds, eating food, playing soccer, and not to mention making them haul luggage up hills. It amazes how the poorest of the poor so willingly give up what little they have with a smile on their faces.

The thing that has stuck with me the most was the children of El Junquillo. Not to take anything away from the kids in La Hacienda but that group was considerably older that those in El Junquillo and were a bit shyer. Those little kids were the cutest, funniest, and hyper children I have ever seen and they were a blast. I remember on the night of the dance, after two sleepless days in La Hacienda (hammocks), I felt absolutely miserable and as I walked through the gate leading to the school I was swarmed by screaming seven and eight year olds. My first instinct was to say ¨Niños estoy cansado, no más¨, but then Mr. Broyles came in the back of my head, chanting ¨throw yourself into this experience, boys...¨. 

I picked up two of the kids and put them over my shoulders telling them ¨Americanos eat children! ¨, and began running. A herd of children all screamed and followed trying to retrieve their captured comrade clinging on to my chest and legs. All I could think of was how much I loved it when I was their age and a big guy would horse around with us, and by the looks on their faces I think that was exactly how they felt. I still remember the face of the teachers´ assistant who played soccer with us in elementary school. 

Those two kids that I picked up randomly would stay glued to me the entire night and the entire next day. The funny thing about it is I never knew their names and they never knew mine, and while I wish I had gotten their names I still have their faces plastered to my brain. When we left for the hike to the bus, those two insisted on holding my hand for the mile walk, something I can´t forget. They were so happy just to be with us and the Mr. Johnson quote entered my head, ¨Those kid won´t be hungry once you get down there, they´ll be full off you¨. At the time it sounded like another out-there Johnson quote, but as I am finding more and more often, the man is right.

When we finally reached El Mozote, it was like getting hit by a truck. As we stood and listened to Fidelia Amaya tell the story of her mother´s survival of the massacre, all I could think of was the people we had just left. It was people like those in the villages that were slaughtered.  Of the more than 900 people killed, 140 were under the age of 12, The thought of what occurred there made me sick to my stomach. Reading the book on the massacre was difficult, but seeing it for myself was ten times harder. Those thousands killed were finally given a face in my mind and it was a revolting thought. 

When we went to the Garden of the Innocents, the feeling in my stomach got even worse as I read the long list of names with their age next to them. I saw two and three day old babies, three year olds and four year olds. How was that necessary? How can any human look into the eyes of a newborn and say, ¨Combatant¨? Worse than that, throw that baby in the air and impale it with a bayonet?

To think that the 70,000 known civilian deaths, innocent deaths, were carried out by men supplied and trained by the United States government has caused me to seriously question the greatness of our nation. I always knew that America has its dark chapters in foreign policy, but before it was just a bullet in a history presentation--"America intervenes in Latin America." But this? America, the nation of morals, funding one of the largest human rights violations in Latin American history, all in the name of defending democracy? The fact that a tragedy on the scale of El Mozote was only one of hundreds just like it truly shows just how unimportant the value of a human life has become. This idea will be something that will be on my mind for some time.

To Mom, Pop, Jordan and Dallas I love you guys up to the moon and back again and I can´t wait to see you all.

With love,

Connor