Resurrection in El Salvador - Travel as a Political Act - page 154

fectly in tune with the peoples' struggle). Enjoying their performance, I thought of the
guerillas who once lay flat on the floors of their shacks under flying bullets. Strumming
guitars quietly on their bellies, they sang forbidden songs. Music is the horse that carries
the message of poems—the weapons of a people's irrepressible spirit.
Listening to their music—love songs to their country—I stared at the musicians and
considered the ongoing struggle. Watching those slender Latino fingers crawl between the
frets like guerillas quietly loping through the jungle, I thought of the courageous advoc-
ates of the people throughout the developing world, not running from the forces of glob-
alization but engaging them.
They sang, “Our way of life is being erased…no more huevos picados , we now have
omelets…no more colones , we now have dollars.” They wondered musically, “How can a
combo meal at a fast-food chain cost $8, while $20 gathered at church feeds 200 hungry
mouths? Why did God put me here?”
Wrapping up my El Salvador visit with this inspirational concert, I considered how
the superstars of nonviolence (Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., John Lennon, Oscar