Memories of El Salvador

In 2005 I was invited to join a medical mission to El Salvador as their photojournalist. It was, without exaggeration, a life changing event.

Clinic was held in an abandoned hacienda in the rural region of El Paisnal; it was estimated that in five days the doctors treated over 10,000 patients. The medical team also received a lesson in Salvadoran politics -El Paisnal was the center of insurgency and rebellion during the long and bloody civil war of the 1970's and 80's, and patients suffered from deep depression and had lost many members of their families. A poor region in a poor country, El Paisnal was infused with a lingering sense of sadness accentuated by its notoriety; this was the parish of Father Rutilio Grande, an activist priest and ardent supporter for the poor who was murdered by the military less than five miles from the clinic site. His brutal murder so enraged his friend, Archbishop Romero, that the Archbishop became a leading activist for the poor. He, too, was assassinated by the military, in church while saying mass.

This Friday I will be exhibiting a few of my El Salvador photos in a small photography show in downtown Tucson. Among the photos will be the face of Father Grande, along with the faces of Salvadorans whose eyes reflect the sadness, determination and resilience of their beautiful, battered and proud country