The Refugee Camp in Mesa Grande, Honduras
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plain
published
2022-05-17T21:20:19-07:00
The camps in Mesa Grande, Ocotepeque, Honduras were formed with support from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), international organizations, and sister churches. It was a place where the Salvadorans in search of survival found refuge in Honduras after passing the terrifying scene of the guindas and massacres of the 1980s.
Mesa Grande took in more than eleven thousand people. It was made up of seven camps, and each camp had a support committee that was in charge of ensuring the needs of each family. These committees put into practice egalitarianism by supervising the distribution of resources, the work teams, the cooperative workshops, and shared interests. There were work teams for the construction of dwellings, classrooms for classes, latrines, and water systems.
Here were work teams to carry out cleaning, cooking, and the distribution of food, and to work in cooperative workshops like carpentry, tailor shops, shoe shops, welding, and others. Also, the families contributed cooperatively to the communal vegetable gardens located in the surroundings of the camps.
Inside the camps, a popular education system was also initiated. Some people, despite having little formal education, were in charge of sharing what they knew with the rest of the people. This way people became literate and exchanged knowledge. Also, the classes served to promote knowledge of the history and current situation of struggle and suffering, which strengthened a collective political conscience. These experiences were expressed through theatre, poetry, art, and music.
But still being outside the conflict in El Salvador, they did not stop thinking of what was happening in their home country. They worried for their family members and friends that continued in El Salvador, some who were incorporated in the guerrilla, others in guindas, displaced, and persecuted. Nothing was known of them; if they were alive or dead.
The war was made eternal for some, but others were already getting used to living in the environment of camps. Music became the language used to express what each Salvadoran lived through in Mesa Grande, where they asked for solidarity, justice, and return to their homeland, El Salvador.
