Prep Returns to Tierra Blanca in 2014
Since February 2010, Fairfield Prep has been bringing a group of students to Tierra Blanca, El Salvador, during February vacation week. Tierra Blanca is a small village, near Usulutan, located about 90 minutes from the country's capital city, San Salvador. While on this trip students, under the supervision of Prep faculty and administrators, live as the El Salvadoran people live. They eat like they eat, sleep like they sleep, and work like they work. Prep students also meet and hear the stories of a number of survivors from the country's civil war (1979-1992). A large part of this trip is visiting different villages, learning about the life of Archbishop Oscar Romero, visiting the University of Central America and other sights in San Salvador. There is a rich, Jesuit history in the country of El Salvador that Fairfield Prep's students who attend this trip learn.
Relection by Daniel De Andrade '15, February 2014 - The El Salvadorian Dream
Too many times in our lives we focus on what we don’t have instead of what we do have. This is a widely circulated fact, and is mostly shoved in our faces by our parents, but we never really grasp what it means. That fact never truly entered my heart, and wasn’t something I really understood before leaving to Fairfield Prep’s cultural immersion trip to El Salvador. While our group was there I felt the presence of a spiritual journey not going on only in me, but in all the Prep students during the trip. That spiritual journey could have been sparked by visiting Oscar Romero’s assassination site, or visiting the site of a massacre that took the lives of 600 civilians in one week, or maybe even visiting the site of the killing of four North-American women; whichever it was, it changed our lives. As we learned of the horrific past of the El Salvadorian civil war, and the persecution of the poor and their survival through the civil war up until now, we saw the will of the poor of El Salvador to fight for their rights and come together even in times of suffering. We saw the fruits of death and the ability for beautiful things to bloom from cruel and tragic circumstances. These people not only started their own local health fund to help those that cannot afford treatment for illnesses, but also a ride to the doctor’s office. They started land cooperatives where everyone works for the benefit of the community and breaks their backs dusk till dawn to provide education and food for their loved ones. The American dream is to rise financially and work your way up to the top individually, but the El Salvadorian dream is to live, let social justice thrive, and cooperate. After my trip to El Salvador I can honestly say that I would choose the El Salvadorian dream, because living altruistically and humbly is truly the life that God intended for all of us to live.