Jerry's Personal Journal, Sent from El Salvador

 

San Salvador, Friday 11/13/09

I was part of a delegation of Albuquerque area representatives which met with Fr. Dean Brackley, head of the theology department at the Jesuit University of Central America (UCA) to discuss his perceptions of the impact the new Salvadoran government headed by Mauricio Funes is having on this desperately poor country.  Brackley is a North American who has worked at UCA for twenty years and who is a close observer of the social and political climate in Central America.
 
Others on the delegation included Mark Peceny, UNM political science professor; Meghan Kamerick, journalist; Keith Bierbaum, teacher, and Michelle Trujillo, graduate student. Brackley is very optimistic about the developments and is confident that corruption which was the hallmark of the previous right wing government, will soon be eliminated.  At the same time, he is concerned that the worldwide economic recession may make true gains very hard to come by.
 
San Salvador, Saturday  11/14/09

Our delegation was interviewed on a community radio station.  As with the interview with Fr. Brackley yesterday, the interest is in knowing how the US public views the new progressive government in El Salvador.  Tonight we will join another five members of our delegation who have been working with teenage recipients of our scholarship program at the UCA along with twenty or thirty thousand others from around the world who will gather to commemorate the murders of six Jesuit priests and their housekeepers in 1989, an event which rapidly led to an end to the thirteen year Civil War. 
 
On Tuesday we will meet with the Vice President of the country, Sanchez Ceren, and on Wednesday we meet with the Mayor of a large suburban community.  We return to Albuquerque on Friday, 11/20 and I plan to write one or more columns about our trip and our findings upon our return. 

 

Jerry