Walking With El Salvador

Today we are not winding down the hill below Suchitoto to catch a boat on the shore of Lago Suchitlán .  Today we are not going to hear a grandfather's story while bumping along on the road between Aguilares and Suchitoto. I realized today that Suchitoto appears as a character in several of my stories, but never as the main character. So today, it's time to actually go to Suchitoto. Central Plaza in Suchitoto (©2023 Linda Muth) The city of Suchitoto is situated between the Guazapa volcano and the Lempa River valley, on the western edge of the Department of Custcatlán.  The name "Suchitoto" originates from a Nahuat word meaning "bird-flower." Archeologists believe the town was established as a Pipil (indigenous) settlement in the mid-11th century CE. Near to the city (and within the Suchitoto municipality), Spanish colonizers  established what is known as the second "Villa de San Salvador" (the capital of San Salvador) in 1528 CE. Although the town...

One day, we went on a mission to the old house. We went to find a basket - Enma's basket. No one was currently living in the house. Enma's daughter had left some years before to keep her young son safe from gang activity.  He was only seven, but the big boys were already trying to manipulate him, to recruit him to spy. The young mom abandoned their home, taking their clothes and what they could carry. After some difficult times, the daughter and her son settled safely in the countryside.   When she left, the daughter had been unable to take the basket. She hoped she would find it in the house. Her father and her younger sister sometimes stayed there. The daughter unlocked the door. Lots of memories rushed into the daughter's heart, and my heart too, like the water that once rushed into the home when it was a simple lean-to snugged up against the dirt hillside. In those days, Enma and her husband would gather up all their belongings and pile them onto the beds, along ...

Up in the cloud We walked around the block, found Oscar and then drove 'up to that cloud.'  Those were the only directions we had, given to us by the museum guy. The road was not car-worthy, but we made it up the 10 km trek of rock and ravine and slippery gravel. Once we had a scare, when the car died.  The cord that Oscar had removed for overnight security of the car came unplugged going over all those bumps! (though it took a bit to discover that was cause of the aforementioned dead car.) We finally made it. A man with a machete met us and said, $2 each to get in and an extra $5 to go to the river. Of course we paid the extra $5 - because we never say NO to an adventure! I found them.  In the middle of a plain, brown journal, in between stories from the previous year, there are two pages written in small, neat script. The title at the top of the page says "RANDOM PAGES, October 2014." Well, when you run out of pages at the end of a journal, you have no choice but to...

On March 24, 1996, an organized group of homeless families marched up the hill to plant a cross, to plant a church, to plant their roots as a new community.  This action was taken just four years after the end of a 12-year civil war. The negotiated Peace Accords, signed in 1992, called on the newly formed government to facilitate Land Reform.  Community organizers, like those in the Lutheran Church, worked with refugees and homeless families, to help them find places to live. Just enough light before sunrise to put up the sign: Aniversario 25   "We came walking from Tonacatepeque. We entered by the way where the school is now, we climbed up this hill, and that cross of iron that is up there, we planted it here on this little corner, on this mound of rock. We imbedded it in concrete.  And it stood there for 12 years, because the church was a little church for 12 years, and it was made of laminate, because as long as the people lived in little houses made of laminate, ...