Day 3 - Understanding the El Salvadoran Civil War

     Today we spent the day connecting with and learning about the history of the El Salvadoran Civil War. This bloody conflict lasted from the early 70s until the peace accords in 1992. We visited the site of the bloodiest recorded massacre during the Civil War in El Mozote and followed that up with a visit to the Museum of the Revolution which explains the Civil War from the guerrilla side. At the museum, we were also given the opportunity to explore a recreation of a guerrilla encampment to better understand how these guerrilla soldiers lived and survived.

Monument to the 1,000 men, women and children who were massacred at El Mozote. The silhouette of the family is meant to represent all the families that perished that day.

The Garden of the Innocents. This garden has been planted on the site where over 400 children (ages 3 days to teenage) were summarily shot and burned. Most likely the children were shot in the church next door and then their bodies were thrown into the nunnery next door which was subsequently burned to the ground.

Picture from below the Monument to Peace and Love built outside of El Mozote. The monument is meant to symbolize the importance of communicating and listening with one another to avoid another war as bloody as the El Salvadoran Civil War.

At the Museum of the Revolution (guerrilla side) we learned more about the guerrilla plight and their fight for freedom from oppression. Our tour guide actually assisted the guerrillas during the war by guarding their injured soldiers.

View of the recreated guerrilla encampment outside the Museum of the Revolution. Our group toured the site and saw recreations of an underground radio station, a campground "kitchen," a medical tent and bomb shelter.

Our tour guide at the guerrilla encampment was a former guerrilla himself who started serving in the guerrilla forces at age 15, two years after he watched his parents murdered at the hands of government forces. Here he is telling us about some of the "artisan" grenades and bombs the rebels would make from discarded materials.

     Overall, the day was an eye-opening and sobering experience. These men and women endured and suffered so much, but they chose to fight to save themselves and their families. It's one thing to read about what they went through, but it's another thing entirely to actually see, and in some small way, experience what they went through. But through it all, many of these people kept their faith in God and the Church. We could learn a lot from their example and we can only hope to emulate that level of devotion.

-Robert Lyons, Soph. (now Jr.) @ Simpson College