2009 Law Student Immersion Trip to El Salvador

"First, it breaks your heart, then you fall in love, then you're ruined for life...." Dean Brackley, S.J.

Gemma Daggs '09 and our new friends Jose and Maria on the family pickup truck, headed to town.

From January 1-10, 2009, twenty law students participated in what many have described as the most intense experience of their law school career, if not their lives-an immersion trip to El Salvador to study human rights.

Hearts were broken our first day as we listened to Father Paul Schindler describe what it was like to be one of the first persons called to identify the bodies of the four church women who were brutally raped and murdered during the civil war in 1980. That was followed immediately by a visit to an extremely poor squatter community on the outskirts of San Salvador, where we interacted with hungry children and saw the flimsy, corrugated tin-roofed shacks that served as shelters for almost 500 inhabitants. We listened attentively as the community leaders described their struggle for land rights and explained the issues surrounding the lack of medicine even when they were lucky enough to see a doctor.

By the second day, we had fallen in love with the people. Their warmth, their hope, their gratefulness for our presence were conveyed through their willingness to share incredulous accounts of the suffering that is so much a part of their daily lives, all without any expectation of anything being given in return. The genuine hugs shared so often captivated our hearts.

Yes, we are all "ruined for life" in a good sense. You cannot undergo an experience as intense as this without changing. Each of us has changed in his or her own way, but we each have re-committed ourselves to continue to walk in solidarity with our sisters and brothers in El Salvador and in other parts of the world where hunger, homelessness, strife, corruption, and illness are so prevalent. We have a new appreciation for how the majority of our world lives. We will go beyond empathy; we will take action.

-Cynthia Mertens, Professor, Santa Clara Law

The group with Maria, a guerrilla fighter whose entire family joined her in the jungle, at Santa Clara's student center in San Salvador.

Click here for reflections from a few of the students who experienced this journey.

Click here to view a photo album from the El Salvador 2009 immersion trip.

All photos on these pages: Daniel Murdock '09.