September 2009

Youth from Takoma Park and Silver Spring traveled to Suchitoto, El Salvador, this summer for cross-cultural exchange and to teach videography.

The Gandhi Brigade goes international

by Richard Jaeggi

Gandhi Brigadiers Neto, Israel, Juan, and Shade bond in El Salvador.

Teens hold a discussion on the veranda.

Neto made friends quickly with his North American guests.

Richard Jaeggi: Gandhi Brigade mentor.

Neto and I and fourteen young people crammed ourselves into a creaking passenger van for the one hour ride from urban San Salvador to rural Suchitoto. Ernesto, as he introduced himself, sat next to me. He spoke only a little English and I was equally lacking in Spanish, but Daniel, sitting in front of us, was willing to translate.

In his early twenties, Neto was wearing jeans and an iconic Che Guevara t-shirt. His round buzz cut, thick eyebrows, and mischievous smile made him look like an impish monk, and in fact his last name Monge means monk in Portuguese.

I was smart enough to know that soccer was the obvious way to break the ice with a young man from El Salvador, but my opening question would have made him pause.

“In a fight to the death between Pele and Beckham, who would score the first touchdown?” I made a mental note to start reading the sports page when I returned home and switched topics.

“We have a lot of Salvadorans living in Silver Spring. Do you think living in America changes people?” He didn’t miss a beat, despite the impertinence of my question.

“You can’t expect too much of a person living in the jaws of global capitalism,” was his answer. Without wanting to offend me, he let me know that my question was something like asking him if he thought people were much harmed by living in the ninth circle of hell. In America people became materialistic and lost their connections to each other, he explained.

Our van arrived in the ancient town Suchitoto. I had come with the young people of the Gandhi Brigade to work with two youth groups, Quetzalcoatl and El Centro Arte para la Paz. Our mission was a cross-cultural exchange that included teaching our partners how to make videos.

Our delegation was the picture of diversity, though, in another age, we would have been labeled, less gloriously, a motley crew.

Shade from Nigeria had a spirit of adventure about everything except pupusas. Rhys from Takoma Park was an expert cartoonist and had a talent for being able to sleep anywhere. Carlos, whose family came from Bolivia, was the gentle wrestler.

Fatima, from Sierra Leone, was nicknamed Sabor (Flavor) because she bought spice to the mix. Shy Bronte turned out to be the life of the party. Hawa from Guinea, regal and poised, inspired respect in any culture. Logan, Rhys’ older brother, came with three wasted years of high school Spanish, only to discover that he had actually learned something.

Douglas, born in Columbia Heights of a Salvadoran mother, was on a mission to discover his roots. Michael, our tech guy, came with video and break-dance skills (the latter more appreciated by our hosts.) Heather, the only one who actually knew anything about El Salvador, was the fearless leader who had convinced us all to join the Great Exchange.

I came along as the pater emeritus, but my pitiful Spanish prevented me from playing anything like the role of the wise old man. It should be noted, however, that when the whippersnappers succumbed to the local gastric flora and fauna, spending a couple of wrenching days in the baño, I was the one who made the rounds every six hours, fed them pills and water and nursed them back to health.

Our video plan was insanely ambitious. In the space of eight days eighteen young people would form four teams and each make a video. Our teens were going to teach Salvadoran teens with no experience in video production. Only two of our teens spoke Spanish, and to make it interesting we were going to have to teach an editing system we had no experience with.

As they used to say back in the day, “The plan was so crazy it just might work.”

Our friend Neto really liked the members of the Gandhi Brigade, but not equally. He was especially fond of the young ladies. He never missed an opportunity to have his picture taken with one of them. Or two of them. Or all of them. Neto had a poet’s soul. He loved life. He loved women. He loved justice. He loved parties and now and then a good fight.

He also admired Cuba. He espoused a Pan-Central Americanism and explained to me that at one time these countries formed a single nation. He was moved by a solidarity with El Pueblo.

He made it clear that his belief in socialism was consistent with his belief in God. The image of Arch Bishop Romero was near ubiquitous in the neighborhoods that were strongholds of the leftist FLMN. I told him that in the United States it was the Christians who were most against socialism and the socialists who were most against Christianity. This didn’t make any sense to Neto.

It is absurd to seek the essence of an entire country in the character of a single person and yet somehow Ernesto Romero Monge became for me, perhaps not a window, but a peephole to the soul of El Salvador. The more I learned about El Salvador, the more I realized that my first impressions had been incomplete. Its layers obscured still more layers below. Its contradictions were simply part of the whole.

What to make of this beautiful country called The Savior? How to make sense of the conflicting impulses that shaped her history — unspeakable cruelty and “calor humano?” That history of pain and human warmth inspires many, like Neto, to a deep love and faith in the future of El Salvador and at the same time drives others to risk everything to start a new life in a strange land.

Our trip sparked in me a desire to understand more deeply this country, which is linked so inextricably with my own by our shared history, politics, and economics. I have only just begun to sort this out in my mind, but on our last night there Neto wrote us a poem that convinced me that our crazy plan really had worked:

Reflections on the end

In eight moons I understood what my books did not say about your culture.

In eight suns I saw 
that neither the color of your eyes, my skin, or my stature makes any difference.

We were three distant tribes when we arrived. 


Only a few short moments were enough to
make us one.

Now I will walk thinking about your future. I am very sure, that at the very least, you will remember my name.

Let me make something very clear to you, my friend from afar.

For eight moons, for eight suns and a few moments you became someone with whom I walk my path.

— Ernesto R. Monge

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