This story was originally told in Spanish, therefore, I included the transcript in Spanish, as to preserve the story as best I can.
Context: O was a church member in my congregation. I managed to interview him recently, right before his unexpected passing. He grew up in El Salvador and lived through the Salvadoran Civil War, which inspired him to immigrate to the US in the 80s. The civil war was between the US backed Salvadoran military and the Rogue FMLN guerrilla fighters.
Story:
” En el tiempo de la guerra contrataban a los jóvenes y a los niños pobres del vecindario para contratarlos en la guerrilla. estos eran los niños más vulnerables los que más corrían riesgo de ser contratados y mandado a la guerra punto esta época era bien peligrosa extremadamente violenta y cada día más y más niños y jóvenes fallecían como resultado de las balaceras. en nuestro cantón, surgió una leyenda de un señor que se metía a las escuelas secundarias y primarias a secuestrar a los niños y mandarlos a la guerra. esta leyenda se popularizó después de muchas desapariciones de jóvenes y niños que desaparecían al azar. muchas madres temían la seguridad de sus hijos y no los dejaban salir y a la escuela. en nuestro cantón era bien común ver a los guerrilleros entrar y salir con sus armas y con sus compañeros uniformado. como estábamos en lados, de fmln, teníamos una odio total a los militares y a los soldados. los escuadrones de la muerte comúnmente rodeaban nuestro cantón invadían a los pueblos con gente indígena y niños jóvenes. era un guerrillero quien la gente pensaba que era el responsable de toda la desapariciones punto al fin nunca se descubrió quién estaba alrededor ni detrás de estas ocurrencias. muchos niños desaparecieron y se presumía que estaban muertos hoy en día tengo muchos compañeros que nunca los volví a ver después de los 18 o 19 años hasta ahora no sabemos lo que pasó con ellos ni Cuál fue su destino en esa época tan difícil.”
Analysis/YOUR interpretation:
O’s story discusses the Salvadoran Civil War and the many disappearances that happened in his village. He mentions that he grew up on the guerrilla side, an FMLN (socialist guerrilla) occupied section of the country. As is known, the Salvadoran Civil War was a bloody battle between the US backed military and rogue guerrilla fighters. The military was known to go into the impoverished indigenous villages where many vulnerable youths were, and recruit young men to enlist in the army. They would brainwash the, imposing their nationalistic points of view onto them. The Civil War originated from a division between the dominating high class who monopolized Salvadoran agriculture, and the Farm Workers who maintained it alive.
In his story, O mentioned that there was a legend told in his village that one particular man would go into their village and kidnap kids who would never be seen again. It was presumed that these kids were drafted into the military, killed and never seen again. O saw many disappearances in his time during the war. The trauma from this era still haunts him to this day until the day of his death. There are still friends that he had that one day disappeared never to be seen again. This appears to be some sort of urban legend that originates from a very traumatic point in history for El Salvador. In the case of O’s, a truly did affect his life and whether or not there was somebody behind the disappearances has nothing to do with the validity of the emotional trauma. At the end of the day he did experience as many losses in this time, and the war was simply a catalyst for these Unfortunate Events to occur.