A Report from El Salvador
I’ve been in El Salvador for the past week, and I’m reminded of what Harvey Jackins said—that the more you know a person, the more you love them. I think that is also true of a country and its people. This is my seventh trip to this country.
I got to spend time with Lorena [María Lorena Cuéllar Barandiarán, an RC teacher in San Salvador], sitting and talking in her garden. I learn more from her all the time.
I led a five-hour men’s workshop with Joel and Salvador, whom I’ve known for several years, and two men to whom they have taught RC one-to-one. (Last year I’d done a class on one-to-one teaching.)
Before the new men arrived, I worked with the experienced men on the role of men’s oppression in a class society and how we men are trained to defend the owning class in rebellious times. We looked at how Gay oppression and homophobia reinforce men’s oppression, sexism, conformity, and our agreement to be society’s soldiers. We talked about how sexism is not only about inequality but also about domination. Using Harvey’s article “Nationalism, Patriotism, National Pride, and National Liberation” [see pages 27 to 50 of A Better World], we worked on the difference between nationalism and national liberation. The men were ready to discharge.
Then the new men arrived, and they did a good job of sharing about themselves. A few of us experienced men discharged tears in our turns, which seemed to increase the safety in the group. I gave a talk on basic RC theory and the project of RC. Joel collected contact information, and the men discussed getting together again as a group.
The next day I led a four-hour class for three experienced Co-Counselors. We addressed (1) what the civil war had been like for a woman leading in the revolutionary movement, (2) what the war had been like for a mother, (3) what it’s like being a father in a country with a violent history of imperialism, (4) building an RC Community when parents’ oppression is heavy and resources scarce, (5) nationalism and national liberation, (6) being a Salvadoran immigrant to the United States, and (7) climate change. People told powerful stories, and discharged deeply. It helped that I had been Co-Counseling regularly on Skype with two of the participants. After my talk on climate change, Lorena counseled me on my numbness about the situation we face. What worked for me was to illogically deny that the worst-case scenario could happen. I laughed. Then I started crying about what could happen. People in the group discharged, too.
As I do every year, I visited my friend Rubén’s family in a rural area. Little rain has fallen there, and the harvest has been small. The same seems to be true elsewhere in the country. People have to buy food from other countries at prices they can barely afford. One of Rubén’s sisters talked at length about how important it is to listen to people. A priest who says mass in their village has been visiting local families and just listening—which is now recognized as a valuable addition to sermons. I said that sometime I’d like to do one-to-one listening time with everyone in the family, and no one declined.
C— has been working with young people, older people, and others in his community living in extreme poverty, to improve their quality of life. He feels it is the first step before introducing Co-Counseling. He and I did some mini-sessions in which he discharged hard distresses. We’ll also be doing monthly phone time. He has accomplished many things, at a young age under difficult circumstances.
Rolando and I did many mini-sessions. He said that he learns new things whenever we talk about RC and listen to each other. He was happy to receive another Present Time, which included a mention of him, and said he was talking more and was less shy since we had been Co-Counseling. He is glad to be connected to everyone in the RC project. I asked him if he’d consider teaching RC at some point, and he was interested, so we did some strategizing. I encouraged him to try one-to-one teaching as a next step.
Los Angeles, California, USA