god i love my students

the students are preparing to leave, and it is a sad time. i'm just gonna miss them a lot. they are an incredible gift to me and i am so grateful for the relationships i have with them. i know people often say that communities would not be the same if it were not for each person in them, and i sometimes doubt that. but in this case it is very true. in the larger community and in our romero community, more specifically, it just would not be the same or as wonderful, if even one of them was missing. it's hard to believe how quickly you can fall in love with people.

(the foto is of almost all of our house, minus efrain and lydia, but i'll get another with them in it)

today i felt the fragility of life.

i have not written for quite some time now. the main reason is because i have been unable to determine what it is i have to tell you all. feelings i have been experiencing have certainly been profound but also mixed. however, the the overwhelming feeling is a thought i guess; it's that people all around me are suffering and struggling and i want to find a way to be with them. i want them to know that they are loved, that they do not struggle alone, and that sometimes life fucking sucks but that most other times it is the greatest gift we could ever experience. and that's why we are here, to grow in and enjoy life together.

the last time that i wrote was one week before my grandfather passed away. he died from a cancer of the blood on october 8, 2008. he was an incredible man who lived a hard and beautiful life. i had the opportunity to travel home, be with my family and be present for all of the celebration of his life.

because of his life and dedication, i had decided to volunteer at the divina providencia hospital. he was an oncologist and was passionate about serving the patients and families affected by the disease. (i posted his death notice in the other post)

in the past few months i have had the great, distinguished gift and pleasure of accompanying my friend Concepcion, she was diagnosed this year with a terminal blood cancer, like leukemia. her name, for short, is Conchita. but all of us at the hospital got into the habit of calling her Mama Conch or Mama Con (both worked). the reason that i spent time with her is that she, unfortunately has no family here in el salvador and was close to abandoned by her community. but everyday that i was with her, she would walk around and greet every single person in the small hospital. she gave me a lot of love, and i, her.

i visited her every wednesday and friday and last went to visit her on friday november 31. while there, she recounted stories of her youth. one in particular was about her husband. she has told me about how madly in love with him she was. and she told me "we shared everything. we always ate from the same plate and we drank from the same cup. and, we shared a bed a little smaller than this twin size bed." and, in response i said, "que amor."--"what love." to which she responded, "que pobresa."--"what poverty." the womyn knew suffering, she knew loss, and she knew poverty, civil war and cancer. she knew love, patience, her God, and death.

today when i arrived to her room, she was no longer there. i was told that i could go see her down below. i sat with her body in the morgue until the pick-up came to take her home. she was from Ciudad Arce, El Salvaodor. she, like my grandfather, was 82 when she died of blood cancer just this morning at 6:30a.m. i hope to share the gifts she shared with me with people who i come to encounter. i will tell you more stories about her, i promise. because as trena tells me, the only death that is a death is the forgotten death. that won't happen to conchita. although she was scared when she became close to death, she was ready to go. i had no idea it would be so quick.

buen viaje amiga mia. no voy a olvidarte, has tocado mi corazon.

she was a beautiful womyn and deserves the world.

conchita and me ("la gringita, kati") the last day that i saw her

life is fascinating

i write this entry from st. louis, missouri. this past wednesday, at 5am i flew back home to be with my family at a time of need. around 12:30p.m., while i was still en route, my grandfather gallagher died a peaceful death after many tough days of struggling and suffering.

neil ignatius gallagher, m.d. died an ironic death. after dedicating his life to serving patients who were terminally ill with cancer, the very disease took his life. he was a courageous man who taught me a number of invaluable lessons. the first, that giving the gift of compassion is one of the greatest ways we serve others and, second, we must laugh at ourselves and at those we love. just recently, when i told my grandpa that i'm taking a class called the philosophy of suffering and solidarity, he responded by asking me if i wanted him to be a guest speaker...afterall, his entire life he accompanied those who suffer. and, just a few weeks before his death, he sent me two articles to read about the value of suffering. One quote in particular spoke to his ability to walk with those who suffer, it reads, "Not everyone who suffers experiences the flow of compassion, but those who do become more understanding and generous human beings." Passion implies suffering and my grandpa's shared experience of suffering showed how beautifully human suffering and the gift of compassion can be.

my grandpa loved life in a different way than most people do. he loved the consolation and goodness found in great food, BBQ, nature, foot rubs, family and hard work. but my grandpa loved the consolation and goodness found in suffering and compassion innate to life. he loved the goodness found in accompanying and serving those who needed his help most. very few people blossom in giving the gift of compassion quite like my grandpa did.

and finally, a few years ago, when i returned from my first semester at santa clara, he jokingly called me a communist and couldn't believe that the same jesuits who had taught him to be so rational and wise had taught me to be such a socialist liberal. we always shared good laughs, we will always share good love.

--
A beloved husband, brother, father and grandfather, and highly respected physician, educator and researcher passed away after a courageous battle with a chronic blood disorder. Neil Ignatious Gallagher, M.D., a St. Louis University educated and trained hematologist-oncologist, spent his entire professional career devoted to the education and training of medical students and physicians in the St. Louis region. He was 81.

Dr. Gallagher was born in Cleveland, Ohio on October 12, 1926 to Francis Joseph Gallagher, M.D. and Frieda Marion Gallagher (nee Dresp). He grew up in Tucson, Arizona, earning a BS in Biology from Santa Clara University (1947), an MA ED from the University of Arizona (1951) and his MD from St. Louis University School of Medicine (154).

Dr. Gallagher lived his life in the true Jesuit tradition, the tradition that his four uncles and his brother Frank Gallagher, S.J. exemplified: Dr. Gallagher was truly a man for others, committing himself wholly during his 40-year career to the art of healing and providing quality healthcare to the sick and their families, and compassionate, palliative care to the dying. Dr. Gallagher continued to visit his sick and dying friends even while terminally ill himself.

Dr. Gallagher worked at: St. Louis Veterans Administration Hospital-Physician, 1955-86. Associate Chief of Staff, Research 1963-66. Chief of Medicine 1966-68, 1973-74. Chief of Staff, 1973-74.

St. Louis University Group Hospitals-Staff Physician and Instructor 1959-70. Professor in Internal Medicine 1970-86. Vice-Chair Dept. of Internal Medicine 1970-73. Emeritus Professor Internal Medicine 1986-94.

St. Mary's Health Center, St. Louis, MO., 1959-94. Section head of medical hematology and oncology and associate in medical education, 1986-94. Teacher of the Year House Staff Award 1987.

Dr. Gallagher was a member of numerous professional organizations and recipient of many awards during his professional career. Most notably he was a member of: the American College of Physicians, American Medical Association, the American Society of Hematology-Emeritus status, the Society of Internal Medicine, and a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA) national medical honor society. He was the recipient of the 1991 John Krey III Memorial Award for outstanding clinical efforts in cancer control in the Missouri Metropolitan St. Louis area.

He is survived by his wife Pat, his four children Mary Pat, Terry, Peggy, Neil and their spouses, his eleven grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, his three sisters, and his mother-in-law.

Dr. Gallagher will always be remembered for his compassionate healthcare, his quick wit, his love of nature and his beautifully manicured gardens.

Hold the physician in honor, for they are essential to you, and God it was who established this profession. From God the doctor is given their wisdom. Sirach 38: 1-3


Dr. Gallagher requested contributions be made to three of he and Pat's favorite organizations: The Franciscan Sisters of Mary, The Retired Jesuits-Missouri Province, and The Little Sisters of the Poor.

some effects of socialized capitalism...

i don't pretend to know a lot about the economy, but it feels as though the global economic dependence on the U.S. market is being felt more than ever as our government begins the process of a $700 billion bailout. i do know that economic instability in the US is causing the price of gas, food, education and transportation to soar; which makes way for pain and suffering in El Salvador and around the world. our government is seeking to help the biggest corporations and fails to invest in its own workforce. if you'll allow me to commodify life, human capital is (for me) without question our greatest untapped resource. and it is a mutually beneficial relationship. a friend emailed me the article below. it illustrates how we treat such life. all things considered, it's an insanely eye-opening and incredibly sobering article to read...it's not long, and is certainly worth it.

http://www.truthout.org/article/twenty-questions-social-justice-quiz-2008

secondly, the following is part of a transcript from today's DemocracyNow! interview with Marian Wright Edelman. the civil rights activist and advocate for children and education, wright provides her opinion in regards to the current crises at hand. it's an inspiring and
insightfully real view of for change...

AMY GOODMAN: And it’s particularly important to talk to you in these critical times, when, as you write, the gap between rich and poor in the United States is the highest ever recorded and higher than in every other wealthy industrialized nation, and we’re seeing perhaps the largest bailout in history passed for the wealthiest corporations in this country.

MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN: And the real crisis in America is not the real bailout on Wall Street; it is what we’re doing with our children and our failure to invest in our human capital for the future. What is happening in our country, where a child is born into poverty every thirty-three seconds, and we have seen an increase in child poverty, 500,000 in the recent—in the last three years.

AMY GOODMAN: Half a million?

MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN: Half a million children between 2005, 2006, and that’s before the downturn in the economy; where we have a child who is born without health insurance every forty-one seconds, is neglected or abused every thirty-six seconds, is having a child every minute; and where we have got one in three black boys who are seven years old today who is going to go to prison in his lifetime, one in six Hispanic boys likely to go to prison in his lifetime, one in seventeen white boys to go to prison in his lifetime—we’re the world’s biggest jailer, and we’re spending three times more on incarceration than on public education per pupil—and where we’ve got ten percent of our—children drop out of school every ten seconds of every school day; and where 65 percent of all of our children are not reading at grade level in twelfth grade if they’ve stayed in school, and a half of them have not; and where over 80 percent of our black and Hispanic children cannot read at grade level in fourth, eighth or twelfth grade. The real economic downfall and the—is in these figures, and we have got to begin to get our heads screwed on straight and to begin to invest in the future and in our young people today.

AMY GOODMAN: And yet, we’ve been told that we can’t afford that.

MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN: Well, we can’t afford not to. We have seen, in effect, an ideological and economic coup d’etat over the last decade, where we’ve taken from the poor, taken from children, and given in massive tax breaks to the rich and in prosecuting several wars. And, you know, this is just—we are upside-down.

We have got to reset our moral compass. We have got to redirect our attention to our internal human infrastructure, because I am convinced that what we are failing to do today in educating our children, providing them very basic health care, is going to be a moral and economic Achilles’ heel that is going to topple America’s leadership in the world in the future.

....more continued at the website if you so desire. democracynow.org (24/9/08)

entre amigos y la divina providencia

this past weekend, the students spent their first weekend in their praxis sites and are beginning to build relationships with the salvadorans they are coming to know, learn from and love.

similarly, starting a few weeks ago, i began my search to find the site(s) where i will be volunteering. i have been grappling as i've tried to decide between working with an LGBT organization or an organization which provides for more corporeal needs i.e. organizations that provide services like food, shelter, education, health, etc.

working with LGBT individuals and advocating for their personal safety, mental health and ability to be her or his own true person, gives people life. and it is essential, no question. but i see the need to work against the more visible struggles which poverty provides as well.

i do wish that the two did not appear so separate to me, but in my mind i form binaries, assign importance and give preference to the more corporeal needs, after all what good is advocating for LGBT folks if they cannot even eat and be healthy? but then again, what if everybody took that point of view? the issue for me lies in what needs present themselves and make a claim on me and my ability to work with others.

the places where i have passed time are:
1. la divina providencia:
a hospital run by carmelite sisters for economically poor people with cancer. mostly campesin@s, these salvadorans come from rural areas for treatment in the city and stay in this hospital so they have a shorter commute to the hospital. the hospital is famous, or infamous, if you will, because archbishop Oscar Romero was living at divina providencia and was murdered in the chapel of the hospital while presiding over a mass. i've gotten to know some of the patients pretty well and while it is hard to accompany people who are suffering, it's also a joy to accompany these patients who do not have families to visit them.

(the photo above is a collection of images from the evening when Romero was martyred & the image below is of the womyn's wing where i'll be spending lots of time.)

2. entre amigos: is a salvadoran NGO which advocates for gay men and people who identify as transgender. yesterday i went to a meeting with entre amigos and was in a situation i never would have imagined. i was with 16-20 gay men and trans salvadorans who were being interviewed by a doctor from the united nations who is working for the UNDP, a united nations program for human development in el salvador. the UN is seeking to combat the AIDS epidemic and the lack of education surrounding LGBT health and identity issues; they had come to do some interviews and i was able to connect with them about some ideas that i've had.

it was incredible to see the community that these folks have formed and i was blown away by the fact that a government agency is actually interested in the well being of the gay community in el salvador. the community is very strong, as are many which face great amounts of adversity. however, i'm not sure how much i can identify with the group and do not think that i will be spending all of my time there. a ver...

both places are very personal to me and for that reason it's been a challenging discernment. therefore, in a cop out manner, i have decided to work with both organizations. it seems like the right balance for me. in theory, this way i'll do a couple of things (a) be able to accompany salvadorans who are living with and some, dying from, cancer and (b) balance out the lack of hope which comes from seeing lots of death and suffering with working for change in the treatment and reality of LGBT Salvadorans...

...i'll keep you posted on how well i embrace and meet that ideal balance i seek.

finally, if you're interested in more information about the hospital divina providencia feel free to check out their website: http://www.hospitaldivinaprovidencia.org/EN_Hospital.html

obama is slightly less transparent than mccain

congratulations to mr. mccain on his laughably transparent v.p. nomination. good move, sir.
in the words of hillary, "no way, no how, no mccain"

here's to mr. obama. check out the video below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3p1LNq_uRt4

campo time with allie and beth

a few weeks ago, i returned to el salvador. i spent my first week passing time in a place called Tacuba, it is near Auhachapan, which is located on the Ruta de Flores, which is very close to the Bosque Imposible. tacuba is a beautiful place. but this pueblito tacuba is sooo very different than any part of el salvador that i have ever experienced. it was mostly untouched by the civil war, and there is little to no political propoganda, which anyone who has been to el salvador would tell you is VERY rare, the gangs do not control the land, and most of the men are still in tacuba. which is also super rare because typically men (and womyn) must leave to bigger cities or the US for the survivial (income) of their families.

while there, i was visiting with two friends, Allie and Beth who are doing a very cool research project on various topics regarding fair trade, organically grown coffee. they were looking at the differences between fincas (coffee farms) which export their coffee and ones which only sell within the country. further, they were trying to garner some understanding of the effects which cooperatives, fair trade certification, and organic certification have on communities, womyn, and overall livelihood. i'm grateful to those two and a team from UVM which taught me a great deal about agroecology and agroeconomics here in el salvador.

while i was just tagging along with them, i did learn a great deal about fincas, fair trade certification, and the very real life challenges involved in living a life farming. upon leaving the community, i could not believe the sacrfice and work that goes into food cultivation, production and food security. while there learned a ton and experienced some things i really don't want to forget...a few things i'd like to share some of that with you all...

1. never before have i seen such rural poverty. i have traveled to the campo before, in fact i have lived in the campo for a short week, but where i was this past week, there was no drinkable water, and in most places there was no running water, lights or electricity. it appeared that the people i spent time interviewing lived in a seriously different epoch of time. a young womyn named Rosa was one of the salvadoran field assistants who worked with allie and beth. i got a chance to spend a short amount of time with her but in that short time she shared a perspective which was completely new to me. Rosa is 16 years old and cannot remember the last time that she had a glass of milk. it is most probable that she last consumed milk while nursing 15 years ago. she's certainly not alone, most children who get milk only get breast milk for the brief period that their mother is not with another child. which is rare, because, in order to care for a farm and have enough workers to produce a good yield, a family must have tons of children. this is a photo of Rosa's cousin. when i went to interview Rosa's grandmother, i met two of her young cousins and gave them both a piece of the gum i had in my fanny pack. little did i know that she had 12 other cousins who all lived in the same three houses where we were. some how though, like the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, i had enough orbit and trident to get all 15, a piece Rosa included. it was like i had given them the most deliciously fun treat-toy they'd tasted in weeks.


2. as MLK Jr. tells us, "by the time you eat your breakfast, you have already relied on half of the world." sure we all know that we are insanely disconnected from the nourishment which helps us to live, but who knew it was such a great distance? as we drove 45 minutes up hill and then hiked the 45 degree angles they call fields, i fell on my ass at least five times a day and tried my darndest to not squish the small tomato plants or frijoles that were growing everywhere. and even though these farmers spend every day of their lives working in the fields, most of them have to purchase over 50% of the food their families eat.

i still have no idea the road that our food travels. and am amazed by my own ignorance.

3. i learned, again, that people in the campo are some of the most humble people you will ever meet. and, if you ever need a good dosage of humility come to the campo.

as i tried to keep up with Rosa, we got stuck in a huge storm and, after waiting it out failed, we ventured out and had to cross a rising creek. she in her plasticky flip-flops and me in my heavy-duty chacos. she crossed the rising water with grace and i just about ate-it into the water. she gently smiled, i laughed, and then she let out the chuckle she was keeping in. she had very little when it comes to material richness but was blessed with a rich knowledge of the mountains, of the goodness of the earth, and of how to make even silly, bumbling gringas feel special and welcomed.

4. please learn from my mistakes:

a.) never start peeing near running water, because once you start the sound of the flowing water does not permit you to stop. i mean you cannot stop. (and if you have trouble popping a squat, use a servicio...located on the right...)

that very day, standing just above that very creek, while taking a pee, i accidentally flashed 3 salvadoran men and one little boy. obviously i walked-ran away as fast as i possibly could, but noticed that the little boy quickly was on my tail. so i booked it back to the house we were doing interviews only to find that he lived there. when we got back, he couldn't stop laughing and whispering to his big brother. oooops, hopefully it was my first and last salvadoran peep show.

b.) please, never try to make it alone from el salvador through guatemala to belize and back again in less than 36 hours...unless you can apparate, and in that case i encourage it.

the trip didn't end exactly as i'd planned. by the time i actually got to san salvador, where i'll be spending my next little bit of life, i had been through Tacuba, Ahuachapan, Las Chinamas, Guatemala City, Puerto Barrios, Chiqumula, and on the side of a couple of roads; all in an effort to get a much desired tourist visa which i did not get. which was incredibly frustrating.

i did, however, experience central america for the first time alone. and that was beautiful and challenging. it is very different than the casa program. it's uncomfortably without community. i think that i may live for community.