Pupusas and Liberation Psychology

Last night Dr. Leticia and I ate pupusas with our friend Chacón and his girlfriend Jennifer. I have such admiration for Chacón’s passion about Ignacio Martín-Baró’s work and liberation psychology. He has been part of a project aimed at collecting everything Martín-Baró ever wrote, including poems, newspaper editorials and journal articles. He has put together such an impressive collection (and he has clearly read every item). He shared his opinion that many people know and admire that Martín-Baró was a psychologist and writer (and that he was murdered for his ideas), but few people have read enough to know why they murdered him—why his ideas were so powerful and thus threatening to those in power.

We learned during our last visit to El Salvador last June, that as is true in all countries, in El Salvador there is the range of political stances falling between conservative and liberal values. For example, we talked last night how not everyone here is happy that Pope Francis supports a nomination of murdered Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero for Sainthood. I don’t know why it surprised me last time, but also not everyone here is a fan of Martín-Baró. I am being more careful not to assume that this time. Of course there are different factions.

Four of our participants arrive today and the others in the morning. We will spend tomorrow at the Universidad Centroamericana "José Simeón Cañas" (UCA) orienting everyone to Martín-Baró (and Romero's) work and history.

Here is something I haven't experienced before. Today we took a taxi to make some copies for our welcome packet. The driver asked if we wanted him to come back for us. I explained that I wouldn't have a way to call him. He said "no problem" and took out his phone and gave it to me (after entering "yo" into the directory. At first I thought "Free phone! But repented and called him when we were done. 

We’ve only been here a day. This is what I am grateful for so far; learning new things, meeting good people, eating delicious things, thinking new thoughts and being inspired.