Taking Note
MLD
Of Bombs and Boys TACA, THE SALVADOREAN AIRLINE, IS UNusually proud of its new 767. "El Widebody" gets touted in frequent newspaper and TV ads. Unlike campesinos in other parts of Latin...
...One of my colleagues likes to remind us now and then that to do what we do at NACLA well we have to stay angry...
...On one of my first days as teacher I asked them to draw their homes for me, so I could learn a little about the lives they recently lost...
...The campesinos told me that when the bombing started in December, they had sought protection in their underground tatus, surfacing only for water and food when it was safe...
...The blood of Jesus Christ...
...They stood on tiptoes, stretching to see out over the top of the trucks' tall white sides...
...Afternoons I spent with a group of thirty 9-15 year olds in the Oscar Romero School...
...The question was shocking, but over the next three months I was to learn just how logical his question was...
...Operation Phoenix, and a similar bombing campaign in northern Chalatenango province, had swelled the number to 700 by the time I left...
...They made me take off one and add it to the bonfire...
...I went to El Salvador to learn about the conflict from those who know it best-the tens of thousands of peasants who've been forced to flee their homes and tiny parcels of land, to escape the bombs and Army sweeps...
...I hope I can keep some of that anger...
...The kids love to draw, and having crayons and paper to do so was a real treat...
...It's experiences like these that come to mind as I begin my new job as editor of Report on the Americas...
...Does it carry bombs?-the small boy next to me asked on one of my first nights in the camp...
...A few Sundays ago I stood on a hill high above the camp waiting with five or six kids for the weekly afternoon mass to begin...
...My arrival coincided with the first of what were to be many visits by the Red Cross...
...I asked pedagogically...
...Often the pictures and vocabulary were far removed from the life of a campesino child from Guazapa, and I would try to bridge the gap...
...As the bomber flew over our heads back to Ilopango Air Base, the kids told me that the helicopter was now "finishing things off" with machine-gun fire...
...But when refugees at the Calle Real camp outside San Salvador gathered round the wooden box on stilts that houses the TV, ads for TACA's new wonder machine provoked an unexpected response...
...We climbed up higher for a better view and I watched, fascinated and horrified, as the kids served as my guide...
...The pages were soon full of brightly hued champas, little houses surrounded by colorful flowers and lush trees...
...The camp is due north from San Salvador, midway between the capital and Guazapa...
...They knew exactly why the A-37 dipped down like that, where it would go next, how much time would pass between when we heard the boom and saw the smoke...
...Their enthusiasm was boundless as we plunged through the Salvadorean equivalent of Dick and Jane...
...Helicopters and A-37 bombers filled the sky...
...they shouted proudly in unison...
...They forced me to confront who I am, the biases and experiences with which I face life...
...Do you know what wine is...
...The bombing had begun at 10 that morning, and though I'd witnessed other bombing missions-usually twice weekly-that day it was particularly bad, shaking the ground and rattling the corrugated metal roofs...
...I was to laugh a lot over the next few months, often at myself...
...Any 10-year-old can offer detailed descriptions of at least three planes and what they can do, and pronounce the tongue-twisting Push-and-Pull in English...
...Their grade level was described as "un poco," meaning they could read and write a little...
...I had been thinking more of Bordeaux or Micon...
...My sister Carmen who died," is scrawled next to a supine stick figure...
...Lleva bombas...
...Until Operation Phoenix--the military's latest attempt to clear the rebel-controlled Guazapa Volcano of combatants and "their civilian supporters"-the camp's population was at 120...
...They said there was no room in the helicopter...
...But the children's memories included other realities...
...she asked, looking at the people around her...
...THEY ARRIVED AT THE CAMP EMOTIONALly battered, but with their Christian faith and sense of humor surprisingly intact...
...A white jeep came tearing up the steep hill, red light flashing, followed by huge cattle trucks carrying peasants "rescued" by the military...
...But the bombing went on for weeks, and finally, exhausted, starving and demoralized, they emerged to the waiting muzzles of the Army's guns...
...Two figures embracing at a dance are among the happiest, but next to a tree is an underground bombshelter, reality always at hand...
...It makes me angry," I answered...
...I didn't think too long before telling her no...
...From the hill the refugees have a good view of their home...
...While they watched, soldiers burned "todito," every last house, piece of clothing, tool and kitchen utensil...
...I was wearing two pairs of pants when they picked me up," one barefoot father of nine told me...
...Pedro hiding in a corn field," says another, of a boy cowering from machine-gun fire from above...
...I hadn't been at the camp too many weeks when a German reporter interviewed me...
...I now know why a small Salvadorean boy can ask if a 767 carries bombs...
...Vino cropped up on the vocabulary list when we got to the Vi-Vo-Vu series of phonemes...
...Doesn't it depress you living here...
...I would spend three months working in Calle Real, a camp for displaced people run by the Archdiocese of San Salvador...
...Unlike campesinos in other parts of Latin America, Salvadorean peasants know all about airplanes...
Vol. 20 • July 1986 • No. 4
