Suffolk University Alumni Magazine 2008/2009 - (Page 41) Below Left: After a friendly soccer game with their hosts, Kaitlyn Winegardner and Christina Seibert take a break with the cheering section. Below Right: Christina Seibert hauls debris during the clean-up of the Concha Acoustica, “acoustic shell,” in preparation for El Sitio’s annual Festival for Peace and Social Justice. PHOTOS COURTESY OF TOM GEARTY “ one of the big pieces of who we are at suffolk is giving back to communities—and that doesn’t always mean your own backyard” ONE HAmmER, mANY HANDs each day, in the bright sun and 90-degree heat, the students walk the half mile to the Concha Acoustica and throw their bodies into the service project. They face two compelling deadlines: not only are they in el Salvador for just two weeks, but on the last day, thousands of people will arrive at the Concha to celebrate the festival for Peace and Social Justice. The students split into teams to finish the arena's enclosing wall and to create concrete posts to hold new gates at the front and back entrances. It is backbreaking work. There are few tools and no power equipment; rakes are made from sticks, brooms assembled from straw and tree branches. Luis Castillo, a junior history major, is astonished by Salvadoran resourcefulness. “on the whole site there was only one hammer—and it was a raggedy hammer at that—but they put it to use,” he says. “We dug a huge hole using limited tools. All we had was a bar and a shovel and a pickax. We were over there sweating and just working real hard to get the hole big enough to fit the frame for the column.” COmING TOGETHER AT THE CONCHA on the morning of the festival, the gates are installed as the last brush fires fill the arena with smoke. one section of wall is not yet complete, but the student crews have accomplished a lot. “I'm really proud of the students. I don't think some of them have ever done hard manual labor that many days in a row,” says rodriquez. “They worked hard. even when their bodies gave out and they had health issues, their spirits kept going.” As evening approaches, spirits are rising. hundreds of Salvadorans from around the country arrive. vendors set up tables to sell fresh fruit, french fries and fried plantains. There is a brisk business in t-shirts depicting Che Guevera and revolutionary slogans. At the stage, the crowd presses in to hear local folk music, Salvadoran hip hop acts and even two Suffolk students—Luis Castillo and Jeffrey Pomponi—who are invited to perform. Castillo, who is of dominican descent and speaks fluent Spanish, takes the stage and tells the crowd that because of this trip he is now Salvo-dominicano. They love him. “I really loved that, because I’m American and they see me as an American, but they also see me as a fellow hispanic because I speak Spanish and english,” Castillo says. “And I think they really understood my poem I'm glad that they felt what I had to get across.” Pomponi, a Suffolk junior and a musician, backs Castillo by playing bluesy riffs on a guitar. “The lead singer of one of the acts was actually the patriarch of my [host] household. he just handed me a guitar. I didn’t even bother to see if it was tuned or not. I just plugged it in and walked on stage,” Pomponi says. “for the next hour I was on a high. My heart was racing and I just enjoyed myself.” Soon after, fireworks fill the air—a donation from the Suffolk students, who took up a collection to buy them. It is the first time the festival has had fireworks, and the community leaders are pleased with the gesture. They walk through the explosion's settling smoke and the students say good-bye to as many of their hosts as they can, because in the morning they return to San Salvador at sunrise. THE TRIP ENDs, bUT IT Is NOT OVER Back in Boston, the students and staff from the delegation are still working for their new friends in el Salvador. They organize a supply drive to gather medical and school materials to ship to el Sitio in May. They send money to Marta, their guide, to pay for english lessons. And they have ambitions to create an endowed scholarship in honor of Moakley that will enable Marta and other young Salvadorans to attend Suffolk from el Sitio and other communities close to the Congressman's heart. “you build a connection with people down there. Marta. The families,” says francisco Peguero, a junior at Suffolk. “I don't want to be one of those guys who forms that connection but who forgets about it for the rest of his life.” Thomas Gearty is a freelance writer living in cambridge, Ma. SUFFOLKARTS+SCIENCES//2008/2009 www.suffolk.edu [41] http://www.suffolk.edu
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