[Ruby] Poco a poco (little by little)

I want to talk a little about how what it's been like, recording the history of Co-Madres, or as they say, rescatar su historia. First of all, this kind of thing is not in my repertoire. I'm an elementary school teacher. I teach little kids how to speak English, and how to read and write in Spanish. Usually, though not this year, I'm surrounded by smiling children all day! I spend my time thinking about how to organize lessons, how to make learning relevant, how to show my students that they're important and smart. I'm troubled by how to help a student get it (what ever "it" is that day), or how to motivate another kid. I'm moving and talking and listening all day. I wore a pedometer at work for a while, and found I walk between 2 and 5 miles a day at school. I do NOT spend my time sitting, writing and doing research. Especially not the sitting part.

And as for Inez- when we started this, she was between her freshman and sophmore year at Haverford College. She was 18 for crying out loud! What was I thinking, dragging her into this project, when I myself had no idea how I what I was doing?! But I knew I couldn't do it alone and that she'd be a great partner. Besides, her Spanish was way better than mine. and she was a lit major. That might come in handy.

Maybe it's clear by now- we really had no idea how we were going to accomplish this or what we were getting ourselves into. I was following what Quakers call a leading, that is, a voice inside me telling me to do this thing, a voice I couldn't ignore. At many points in the process I've been terrified- how could I say I'd help these amazing women write their history? Or more precisely, how could I say I'd get their  history published? Before starting, I was terrified at the prospect of making a promise that I didn't know if I could keep, from a logistical point of view. But this leading... like I said, I couldn't ignore it. I had to try.

After we began, I think Inez and I both realized that the greater terror is in facing the content of the stories.

As we got to know some of the members of Co-Madres and began to hear more of their testimonies, I think this is when we began to realize how emotionally difficult this project was going to be. There have been so many times when I've had an image rumbling around and around in my head, an image of torture, an image of sorrow... I've woken up at night from a dream about a particular, painful moment in one of the madre's life. Usually when something is bothering me, I'll call a friend or talk to my partner about it. But when I can't get these thoughts out of my head, I don't know what to do. It seems unfair to burden anyone else with these images. I can hardly bear to even speak the stories out loud, let alone cause someone else the pain of hearing them. And then to transcribe and edit these stories- we have to listen or read, over and over and over again. Painful, unthinkable acts. There have been times when I've just had to stop, for a day or a week.

But the women of Co-Madres want, they need this history to be known. So we keep plugging away, slowly slowly, poco a poco. It's such an honor to be doing this with and for them.

"Demanding truth and justice for our children, disappeared, assassinated."

[Inez] Transcribing: Day One post-El Salvador 2012

On our trip to El Salvador last week we met six new madres and one lisiado (I am still not sure how to properly translate this; it means roughly "injured," "crippled," or perhaps "handicapped") of the civil war from the general population -- that is, he was not a member of the guerrillas or the armed forces. We recorded 9.3 new hours of interviews, more than doubling the amount of transcribing that remains to be done. In this one week we recorded approximately as many hours as we have in past trips of 2-3 weeks each. It was an extraordinarily productive trip.

I'm so thankful to have been able to spend a week with Pati/Patty, who has been suffering terribly from cancer for two years now. I am also extremely thankful to have had the opportunity to meet new members of the organization, who are not active on a daily basis due primarily to a lack of funds. Ruby is on her way back to Minnesota now, and I'm sure she will have a lot to say about the trip.

I've been home for a few days now, myself. I really want to work on transcribing these new interviews while they are still fresh in my mind. It will be easier to pick up hard-to-hear words, and I may be able to add some notes about body language and gestures that will be lost in the recesses of my memory in a couple weeks.

There was one testimony that affected me greatly. I felt physically ill as I listened to her story and in fact had to excuse myself to splash off my face and let the sweat that had broken out over my entire body dry a bit. I knew I wanted to start transcribing soon after I got back to the US and I knew I would have to transcribe this testimony. The question was whether I would start with this testimony and get it out of the way, or end with it and know that after I finished it I could take a break before tackling the older interviews. I decided to go with the rip-the-bandaid off method and started transcribing this particular testimony this evening. I hope you'll wish me well. The testimony is nearly 75 minutes long, which means it will likely take me at least 450 minutes (7 1/2 hours) to transcribe, if not (likely) longer. I'll be hanging out with this testimony for a long time. These stories need to be shared.

[Inez] Preparing for lunch

Yesterday I sat on the back step while Patty prepared chicken for lunch. She had a whole chicken, butterflied and minus organs in a bag. First she laid all the pieces on the left side of the pila and began to cut it into individual servings. Thigh, breast, drumstick -- each one a swift chop and a little wiggle with the knife. We talked about types of meat. She told me that some people raise rabbits here, but she doesn't like the meat. I told her my favorite is duck. She said it smells too much like duck for her. She asked me if I had had venado. "Venado?" I repeated back to her, my incomprehension on my face. "Bambi," she said. "Oh..." I wrinkled my nose. I don't like how it smells, I told her. She explained to me that you have to take guayaba leaves and cut them up really small, rub them all over the meat. Then rub it with lime. That takes away the smell, but it still tastes delicious. "Sabe rico," she told me, smiling.

With the chicken cut into manageable pieces, she began to cut off the fat. Cut, cut, cut, the little yellow blobs going into their own bag. Patty told me about one time during the war, they had gone to rescue a couple of orphans. It was night time, and they fell into a trap -- a large hole in the ground. My eyes went big, picturing a tiger in a hole standing on top of the palm leaves that had previously covered it. "We didn't carry armas, but we always carried a spoon or a fork. All night we dug into the side so there was a little space for us to hide ourselves. The next day, some soldiers came by. They passed a light over the hole to see if anyone was in there. We told the children to be very quiet and we held still." Thank God they weren't babies, I thought to myself, remembering their stories yesterday of mothers accidentally suffocating their babies as they held their hands over their mouths to keep them quiet. If one baby had cried everyone would have been killed. After the military passed by the mothers were left with the realization that their infants were dead in their laps.

"After two days in the trap we heard someone else come up to the hole. 'Is anyone in there?' we heard. 'You don't have to be afraid, we're here in peace.' 'Ah,' we said, 'are you blue or green?'" [Colors belonging to the military and to the police.] " 'Neither,' they said, 'we're red.'" [FMLN -- the guerrillas.] Patty today, cutting the fat off the pieces of chicken. I put the collected fat into the hanging grocery bag that collects the leftover food scraps they would prefer the stray cats not get into. She told me that the guerrilleros took them and the children to their camp. First they gave them a little bit of water. The guerrilleros had three monkeys with them, she said. They went to prepare some food for them and the children. In the distance they heard the monkeys screaming. "I wonder what's going on with those monkeys," they thought to themselves. Then the monkeys were quiet and they shrugged it off. Eventually the guerrilleros came back with soup for them. It was mostly vegetables but had some meat in it too, and they ate it gladly. Later on they went to the creek to wash the dishes and there on the bank of the creek they saw the heads of the monkeys, their skin, and everything. "We had eaten the monkeys," Patty told me, with a face of pure disgust.

She rinsed the chicken again and then rubbed it thoroughly with lime. She told me about another time they were en el campo and a woman brought them some rice with little pieces of meat in it. Patty said that she was very hungry, but the meat didn't smell right. She ate only the rice and a tortilla and avoided the meat completely. Another madre was there with her and asked her, "Aren't you going to eat the meat?" "No," Patty said, "It doesn't smell right." "Oh, in that case I'll eat it," said the other woman, and she ate it all. Afterwards the woman who had served them the food asked them if they had liked it, "Oh yes," Patty told her, "it was delicious." It turns out the meat they had been fed was snake meat. Another look of disgust from Patty.

A few stray pieces of fat -- cut, cut. "The chickens here are like us," she told me, "small and skinny." We both laughed. She rinsed the lime off of it and put it into una olla. "If you go to the super, though, they're a lot bigger." I said "Yeah, but they're full of chemicals and hormones. Even though they're smaller, I'd rather have this chicken that is natural." "That's true," she said, "that's true."

[Ruby & Inez] How we got started

The first year that we met with las madres, we spent time getting to know them and letting them get to know us. The women who we worked with that year were Alicia, the director, Patty, Transito, and Magda. They were so kind to us, took such good care of us- even cooked great lunches for us every day. One day we were treated to river crab.

That year we talked about how we might write a book of the history of their organization, we learned about El Salvador, and we saw some sights.

One of the things Alicia, who was the director then, showed us was the Monument to Truth and Memory.

This monument contains the names of the civilians killed and disappeared during the civil war. Monsignor Romero's name is included on this monument, as are the names of Alicia's son and nephew. They were both killed during the period after the civil war when the Truth Commission was collecting information about atrocities committed during the war.

Seeing this monument drove home the enormity of the injustice that the civilian population faced during the war that lasted from 1980-1992. All the names on this wall are civilians!

This first year was a mix of true delight in getting to know these incredible women, and also beginning to come to terms with the tragedy they and many others have lived through.