Finding Faith in El Salvador

So my counterpart Don Alfredo just stopped by my house asking for some of the anti-allergy pills I gave him a few weeks ago.  He keeps bees, and got stung on the face and got all puffy.  I left him waiting on my porch, and when I came out again, he was looking at the little metal cross that I have taped next to my front door that reads, “Protect Me”.  It was a gift from my friend Caren before I left.  I explained what it was and what it said in Spanish, and he looked at me like he’d never seen me before.

That reaction better than anything else shows how used to gringos my community, or at least my counterpart, really is.  You see, Salvadorans will often push American volunteers a lot on questions of religion or belief, because they’re big believers themselves.  Be they Catholic or Evangelical, they’ve got some of that good old-time religion going on.  People in this country are used to talking about God, and it’s a rare day when a conversation with someone here doesn’t include the phrase, Gracias a dios.  Thanks to God.  Did your parents make to back to the States ok?  Gracias a dios.  Did your trip go alright?  Gracias a dios.  Did you get back into your house after being locked out?  Gracias a dios.

You get the idea.

Separation of Church and State doesn’t really exist in this country the way it does in the states.  It’s not uncommon to see references to God in schools, or to start a meeting of the local ADESCO with a prayer.  People here don’t have pena talking about their savior, because it’s generally assumed that the person they’re talking to share their beliefs – and they usually do. 

Gringos aren’t like that.  For the most part, Americans don’t talk about religion (or politics or sports) with people they don’t know well, because you just don’t know who you’re going to offend.  Even people very comfortable with their religion often don’t talk about it, because so many of us consider our relationship with God (or Allah or Buddah or Whoever) a private thing, nobody else’s business.  Salvadorans are very community-oriented in their spirituality; it’s a thing meant to be shared with any and everybody.  Certainly many Americans are like that as well.  But many aren’t.  And as Peace Corps volunteers, we’re especially careful to stay neutral on religion and politics, because we’re coming from a country of vast beliefs into one that has a lot less variation.

I’ve noticed that my community is a little different than a lot of others.  Not in their religion, but in their attitude towards mine.  I haven’t had to field many questions on my beliefs, and I think that’s because the people here have gotten used to gringos being closed-mouthed about what they think about God.  That’s more or less how volunteers are taught to be, and it makes sense.  You don’t want to alienate people that you’re trying to work and live with, and a good way to do that here is to tell them that you don’t follow their belief system.  My community’s had two volunteers before me, and has certainly worked with other Americans from different organizations.  I think they’ve gotten used to the idea that gringos generally slide around the topic of religion and God.  So they’ve stopped asking.  Maybe they’ve even come to believe that Americans in general just don’t have any type of real religion.  My counterpart’s reaction certainly implied that last part.

I’m not a terribly religious person anymore, but as my former priest said in a song he wrote, “Everyone believes in something, even if that something’s nothing.”  I may not attend church or pray or read the bible like I used to.  I may have stopped believing literally in Noah and his ark or Jonah and the whale or Joseph and his coat.  I may have started to look at the story of the immaculate conception as awfully fishy.  But part of me still wants to believe something, anything.  Part of me wants to think that there’s someone watching over me tenderly.  Part of me misses that surety of childhood.  And that’s the part of me that crosses itself when I enter a church, mutters a quick prayer when I hear an ambulance go by, and puts a tiny cross at my door.  It’s not belief, exactly.  It’s the desire to believe.  The wish that I did believe.

Besides, in a country with a crime rate like El Salvador’s, it certainly doesn’t hurt to cover my bases.