My first attempt at a poem in several years!

Hello Crispaz community!

 I finally wrote my first attempt at a poem in several years! Though I spend nearly every day facilitating writing processes for others, I rarley create space for me to undertake this same process J  Below is a poem that expresses the one-on-one poetry workshops I carry out in the male youth detention center in a way that prose just can´t capture. Every Tuesday I am blessed with the chance to accompany and learn from the lives of the youth who find themselves locked up in this particular “Rehabilitation” Center.

Tuesdays

Only their plastic kites

manage to escape

the confines of infinity

where their youthful spirits

live trapped in a mud-coated hell

Where I write their words

but not my own

listen to their hearts

but rarely my own

and bathe them in a love

that is not my own.

It comes some days

overflowing

from God

knows where

and others it is all dried up

but mostly

it is always there

at least subtly

soothing sages

who long to be heard

though it can offer

little hope,

just a gaze

that has never seen them

slice or shoot

and thus embraces

their tired eyes in a tenderness

that on a good day

transcends the surrounding filth

in moments that will stay

at least with me

until my mind

quits remembering. 

Jenna Knapp CRISPAZ LTV

The story of a girl

Hello again CRISPAZ family!

I want to share with you one truly amazing thing that happened recently.

In a workshop on self-esteem, my women’s group in San Rafael opened up to tell personal stories of violence. In a group activity to create a story, either real or based on real events, one woman told us about her personal experience and how it has affected her. Here is her story, titled “Story of a girl that was raped,” translated into English.

“One day, Margarita went to work really excited because it was payday. When she was walking down the path, she was distracted because it was late. When suddenly, an armed man came out of the bushes, stopped her and told her to take off her clothes. Heartbroken, Margarita started crying, but no one heard her because it was in the middle of nowhere and hardly anyone passed by there. So, the man sexually assaulted her, and then left Margarita crying and desperate. She got home and told her mom what had happened. They decided to tell the police, but since she didn't know the man and there wasn't a witness, they couldn't help at all. Due to this situation, Margarita was left pregnant. She had been abused and didn't want to keep her baby. She cried bitterly without being consoled, but her parents supported her and she moved forward and had her son. Today, she loves him and values him, but never forgets this bad experience.”

Now, although the events in this story don’t seem wonderful at all, like I may have led you to believe, it shows that these women are beginning to trust and confide in their community members (and me)! It shows that through difficult situations, they can overcome, and they have. Little by little, telling stories like these will help them to heal and build confianza within their community, so that if something like this ever happens again, the community will rally behind that individual and support her. And THIS is amazing!

I will close by saying that stories like these are not uncommon, even today, and although I wish I could eliminate violence, I can’t. I can, however, empower women in Suchitoto to have confidence in themselves and their community and to know that they are not the only ones carrying these heavy stories, they are not alone. 

Emily Engel  CRISPAZ LTV

Dehumanization and neglect rather than rehabilitation and transformation

Hello Crispaz supporters! 

I hope this blog post finds you well wherever you might be.

I wanted to share an experience that happened recently to a family in my community, as it illustrates the way in which prisoners´ lives here in El Salvador (and world over I would argue) are marked by dehumanization and neglect rather than rehabilitation and transformation.   

Five of my dearest friends in my community have been waiting for 6 long years for their father (I´ll call him Hector) to be released from prison. Hector worked at a mechanic shop and was locked up for working on stolen cars. The details remain quite blurry as to whether or not he was aware that he was working on stolen cars, but since he could not afford a lawyer, he was sentenced to 7 years in prison. 

Hector began his sentence in a prison designed for 2,000 inmates which is “home” to more than 8,000 men. Prisoners sleep on the floor and constantly suffer from fungal skin diseases as well as malnourishment and abuse from fellow inmates. 

Legally, prisoners have to be assigned a social worker, a psychologist, and a legal advisor. However, as the number of detained persons here has skyrocketed, the number of staff working in each prison has remained the same, leaving startling ratios of staff to inmates. In Hector´s prison, there is one social worker and one psychologist assigned to 2,000 inmates. Since it is impossible to provide professional attention to so many individuals on a regular basis, the majority of inmates have never met once with any professional staff member.

Hector was given a psychological exam shortly after being imprisoned 6 years ago. The results characterize him as a violent person who neither works nor studies in order to make the most of his time in prison. This is not surprising given that imprisonment in itself produces depression and violent behavior in individuals who have been uprooted from their communities and (justly or unjustly) forced to face any number of years in places that must look just like hell, should hell exist.  

In the last 5 years of his imprisonment, Hector has dedicated his time in prison to woodshop. He constantly makes tables, mirrors, benches, and picture frames for his wife and 9 children to sell. Since his wife makes 3 dollars a day on a good day selling his wares at the market, his children have been forced to drop out of school because they can hardly afford food, much less schooling. Hector began to study for a time in prison, but he dropped out because he would frequently faint from hunger in class.

Though he has a 7 year sentence, the judge gave he and his family hope that he would be able to get out on parole after 6 years. Since last Monday was his long awaited follow up court case, his family spent all weekend cleaning their small home preparing for his arrival. 

When the day finally arrived to go to court, his children and grandchildren waited anxiously to see him. He was brought into the courtroom, handcuffed and chained at his feet. The judge proceeded to tell him that his psychological report (which was taken 5 years ago) declared that he was a violent individual who neither worked nor studied and was thus not apt to reenter society. The same psychological report has been used repeatedly as grounds for his continued imprisonment, though he has never had a follow up exam. His wife yelled out through her tears that he works, and that she sells his woodwork, but the judge wouldn´t believe her since she didn´t have “proof”. No one in the prison system had thought to write on his record that he has been working in woodshop for the past 5 years. He is another number. Another offender. Another criminal unworthy of living his life. He will be released, at best, 1 year after his sentence is completed, since the justice system is so backlogged here that inmates often wait at least a year after their sentence to finally be released. This is the cherry on top of the psychological torture that is long term imprisonment. 

Hector´s children, wife, and grandchildren walked up to meet him, crying after the trial and were told by the guards that they were not allowed to touch him. They couldn´t believe how skinny, grey haired, and worn he looked. Hector managed to hold back his tears and ask the names of the five grandchildren he was meeting for the first time. They asked him innocently why he was tied up by his hands and his feet and he responded that he played in the street too much (their most frequent offense as small children). 

He was quickly led back to his holding cell where his wife got in line to leave food for him. The guards revise the food and eat anything they wish to eat (generally all of the meat left for inmates) before passing it along to them. When Hector´s food reached him, the guards refused to take off his handcuffs, and he was forced to eat with his mouth, kneeling on the ground as if he were a dog. 

Prison, in theory, is a place for rehabilitation. It is supposed to serve to prevent recidivism. Hector receives no psychological attention and no character evaluations. He was not allowed to touch his children or grandchildren. He ate handcuffed on the ground like a dog. Rehabilitation? Transformation? Prison here (and most everywhere) serves to break the human spirit by inflicting people to a life of constant humiliation. Inmates are deemed criminals. Period. Black and white. We are the good guys, they are the bad guys. Yet these individuals were almost certainly victims far before they were perpetrators. They almost certainly were plucked out of marginalized communities that we prefer to drive through with our doors locked and our music blaring, so as not to enter their world even in our imagination, much less with open, compassionate hearts willing to invest our lives in the struggle to end this segregation and incessant incarceration. 

As Hector´s family trudged back to the bus stop to head back to the home they had again cleaned with high hopes only to have them dashed, his youngest grandchild Paty tugged at his wife´s sleeve. She set her big brown inquisitive eyes on her grandma and with the heartbreaking innocence that only a 3 year old can muster she asked in a timid voice, “Grandma, did they kill grandpa yet?” Hector´s wife broke down sobbing. In the logical mind of this 3 year old, if a man with an assault weapon escorts your grandfather away from you, chained by the hands and feet, he is going to kill him. 

Though Hector´s wife tearfully responded that no, they were not going to kill her grandfather, she likely wondered if Paty had discovered the secret of mass incarceration here in El Salvador. In many ways, these years of dehumanization have already killed him. They have killed his hopeful spirit, as well as those of many who love him and continue to wait for his return.

If you have a moment, volunteer in a prison near you! You will find similar stories that will surely break your heart and call into question the practice of imprisonment that many take for granted as just and necessary.  If you are interested in learning more about prison reform/abolition I recommend you read Are Prisons Obsolete? By Angela Y. Davis. 

Jenna Knapp CRISPAZ LTV

“Communities of Suchitoto”

Hola CRISPAZ family and friends!

What’s new with me? Well... I recently started becoming more active in the communities of Suchitoto, especially San Rafael. Two weeks ago, I gave my first workshop on the importance of organization at the communal level. The following week, I gave a workshop on “future aspirations,” and next week will give another workshop on “self-esteem and self care.” During the workshop about future aspirations, the group of 20 women talked about their desires to find a fair paying jobs, join together as a community of trust, a community that would stand behind one another, and a community that fights the violence they receive. At the beginning, it was difficult to get them to participate and speak up, but by the end of the workshop, they had a wonderful discussion on how their aspirations can be put into action to transform San Rafael into the community they desire. They also talked about the need to share this information with the many who were not in attendance to form a San Rafael rooted in trust, respect, and kindness. I will accompany this community of women, giving workshops every other week, until I finish volunteering with CRISPAZ and APDM.

San Rafael is not the only community I will be accompanying throughout my time in Suchitoto, simply the first. I have plans to start teaching reading and writing to another women’s group in a small rural community called, La Pita. I visited La Pita a couple times learning how to lead my own workshops, but was surprised to find that only 3 out of 15 could read and write. I offered to teach them and they gladly accepted! I am excited to visit La Pita every week until they can read and write sufficiently, and then will continue giving workshops, like those in San Rafael, throughout the year.

The same day that I organized visits to La Pita, a woman who works closely with APDM and the Concertacion de Mujeres asked me what I was doing with APDM. I began to tell her about everything I have just written above, when she replied, “Why don’t you come to my town and give these workshops to teenage girls? A lot of young women dropped out of school because they became pregnant and don’t receive vital information that they need to lead a healthy lifestyle. They don’t know that they deserve better because they stay in the house and don’t receive the formal education that tells them machismo is not okay. Instead they buy into social norms and don’t have the chance to learn right from wrong.” I agreed to lead workshops for the young women in her community of La Mora and am excited to start there in the coming weeks.

And, when I’m not in the communities, I am doing lesson plans, getting materials ready, joining meetings, and participating in all day conferences to learn how to properly attend to a woman in violence that needs my help. These conferences are once a week for two months and are more geared toward women leaders who will then go back to their communities to listen and help women in need. Although I am not the leader of my community, the information we learn serves me just as well because I will be leading workshops of women where we may talk about delicate subjects that evoke emotions within them. With the tools I’m provided with at the conferences, I can aid women in my small groups whenever they need it.

Thanks for reading and supporting CRISPAZ!

Con amor,

Emily (CRISPAZ Compañera LTV)