I have no part in this

I was an idiot if I thought hiding out in my house on election day would excuse me from intense political conversations.

PC is strictly, very seriously, 100% apolitical. You kinda have to be in a country that's very polarized. Walk around in a red t-shirt and you could lose (or gain) all the support of your community. Election time has turned up the political tension, and unfortunately I've been subjected to some very politicized debates and conversations. Now that there's going to be a run off election in March, I have to sit quietly and nod as more and more people tell me how their party will save the country.

Today I had two very different conversations with two very important women in my life. They couldn't have more different political views, and that's what made it so interesting to listen to them. Both women are mild mannered, but they are die-hard supporters of their chosen party. I honestly never would have guessed it until today when each woman decided to share their positions with me, whether I wanted to hear it or not.

I won't get into the positions of FLMN or Arena, and I won't give you a laundry list of the ridiculous sweeping promises they both made leading up to election day. FLMN is left, Arena is right. Google can tell you the rest.

What is more interesting to me is why these women support the side they do. The first woman is dirt poor. Literally, her house is made of mud and bamboo. Her husband passed away recently, and with him went the small amount of income the family depended on. She's an illiterate small business owner, but it's hard work and she's barely making it. She supports FLMN because she knows that with a little push she could get herself above the worst of poverty and her kids could know a better life. She's suffered in poverty all her life and supports the party that would give free school uniforms to her children and subsidios for her home.

The second woman is very devote. She believes that the lord God our savior provides her with three square meals a day, the clothes on her back, and her good, solid home. He provides for her- not the government. Those who would have the government support them are Godless and/or lazy.

Now, I've been known to throw shade on the Evangelical church. I simply don't agree with what they preach. So imagine my dismay at hearing this woman I care for very much disregard the backbreaking work her husband does to harvest the corn and beans she eats, the plentiful remezas she receives from her children in the US, and the substantial land she inherited from her father. All because God. The guy who frowns on women in pants.

But then the conversation changed. She started talking about the war. It's a very sensitive topic around here, especially because I live in northern Morazan where it all began and where the most people were killed. She told me stories that would have given me nightmares if only I hadn't heard such terrible, terrible stories before from other Salvadorans. The worst was a story about when her brother was taken in the middle of the night from his bed, had every single tooth pulled out, then was forced to lie face down in the street next to his father as they were pumped full of bullets from a machine gun. That happened in front of my house 30 years ago.

She remembers what frente meant back then, and no amount of campaigning will ever help her to forget. It pains her to see her nephews and nieces wear red to support the left. "They don't know what it's like to suffer. I do. I'm always suffering."

So there you have it. Two women who suffer. One sees the front runner FLMN as a solution to her pain, the other sees it as the source.

This is hardly the last political conversation I will have here in El Salvador. I know it isn't because my community is completely polarized and everyone suspects the other of misleading me. They all think they have the responsibility to enlighten me, even though I tell them time and time again that I have no part in this. I cannot care either way. 

And after hearing these two women's stories I don't think I would choose a side, even if I could.