Morazán Reflection

Reflection from the weekend of Dec. 10-11:

A few weekends ago, I spent a magical and moving weekend in Morazán.  My principle reasoning for going was to attend the memorial of the massacre of Mozote.  The memorial occurs every year so no one will ever forget the hundreds to thousands of civilians, who were massacred on Dec. 11, 1981. 

To give a little context regarding the Mozote massacre:

The El Mozote Massacre took place in and around the village of El Mozote, in Morazán department, El Salvador, on December 11, 1981, when Salvadoran armed forces trained by the United States military killed at least 200 and up to 1000 civilians in an anti- guerrilla campaign during the Salvadoran Civil War (taken from Wikipedia).

Now back to just a few weeks ago.  My journey up to Morazán began Friday, Dec. 9, when I accompanied Jose (a lawyer at Cristosal) and Casey (the trip coordinator at Cristosal) to San Miguel to attend a forum against dams and mines.  Once the forum came to an end Jose dropped me off at a bus stop and from there I traveled on my own, first on a bus from San Miguel to Gotera, and after in the back of a pick up truck to a gasoline station in San Luis, Morazán, where my friends were waiting for me.  The magical part began with my bus ride as I watched the sun set over the mountains that we were slowly climbing up.  Once I got to San Luis, we grabbed some pupusas for dinner and then went to bed early to the lovely (sarcastic) sounds of the campo (roosters crowing and dogs barking). 

On Saturday we woke up early to get a hike in prior to going to the Mozote memorial.  We hopped into the back of a pick up truck and were dropped off at a trailhead in Perquin, where we hiked up a very steep slope (no switch backs).  I deff worked up a sweat but it was well worth the view.  Can I just say, the mountains in El Salvador are absolutely magical.  Check out my pictures as I’ve uploaded the pics from our hike (I may have gotten a bit carried away). 

After the hike we washed up, using a bucket (no showers in el campo) and then hitched another ride in the back of a pick up truck to El Mozote.  When we first got to Mozote, there was a mass followed by a small break in which we hiked up to a water tower where you could see a panoramic view of all of the mountains that surrounded Mezote.  After this we watched the various performances (live music, traditional dance, a dramatic performance by a university group), which continued until 11pm.  Once the performances finished everybody got a candle and preceded to do a memorial walk, which was beautiful. 

After this we headed home to sleep and on Sunday we spent some time swimming in a nearby river (which was very clean and beautiful) before heading back to San Salvador, which is about a four-hour ride.