The Real World

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Many would consider it hardly deserving of the name, "home." It consists of deteriorating, unpainted boards and corrugated metal and dirt floor. It is only a few feet from a main highway whose heavy traffic includes huge trucks that make a continual, disturbing roar as they pass. “How do they sleep, or even think?” I wondered.

On the opposite side of the house - which I’m guessing has about 400 square feet of space – is a small but seemingly impenetrable jungle of tropical growth. We sat in the front “patio,” furnished with plastic chairs.

This was the house where 20-year-old Samuel – a name I’m giving him to save embarrassment – lives with his mother and two siblings. A senior in high school who got a late start but has obviously applied himself, he speaks pretty good English. But his struggles to learn and earn are formidable.

Relationship of Solidarity

I recently returned from a four-day trip to El Salvador, where my Catholic parish hopes to establish a relationship of solidarity with a rural community whose youth need help in completing high school and college. I was accompanied by our peerless priest and a wonderful Salvadoran couple who lives part-time in El Salvador.

By way of background, I have been to El Salvador many times, a couple of times with a small group of doctors from Iowa to help treat victims of devastating earthquakes in January and February of 2001. An estimated 1,200 people were killed in the two quakes and 8,800 injured. We set up small clinics in the effected communities. I was facilitator and translator. The other times, I was there to visit scholarship recipients like Samuel, and their families.

An important note about El Salvador. A catastrophic civil war raged from 1979 to 1992. ChatGPT describes it as one of the bloodiest conflicts in modern Central American history, killing an estimated 75,000 people, displacing hundreds of thousands of others and having a profound impact on the United States, the Catholic Church, and the political development of Central America.

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The Church was affected by the thousands of martyrs who lost their lives because they promoted the social justice teachings of the church. They include St. Oscar Romero; six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter at the Central American University; three American nuns and a lay woman who were abused and murdered, and thousands of lay pastoral workers.

What has changed in El Salvador since I last visited about 10 years ago? A lot. The president, Nayib Bukele, elected in 2019, has made the country, which had been devastated by criminal gangs for years, much safer. But at a terrible price.

Among other things, he established the infamous “Terrorism Confinement Center.” Described as one of the largest and most severe prisons in the Americas, it’s designed to hold 40,000 prisoners. It has been criticized for overcrowding, limited access to lawyers, severe restrictions on family visits, and human rights abuses and incarceration without due process.

Changes I noticed include increased cleanliness and orderliness in San Salvador, the capital. There’s lots of construction and recently completed buildings and infrastructure. But the parts of the countryside we saw appear to be as poverty-stricken and underdeveloped as ever. We visited many homes like Samuel’s.

We also visited a school with which I became familiar in several previous visits. It is run-down and strewn with trash and weeds. It’s obvious the current government has done little to improve rural schools, at least the rural school we visited.

What's the Point?

So, what’s the point of all this?

First, to remind readers that global poverty is alive and well. According to 2026 estimates from the World Bank, approximately 811 million people worldwide live in extreme poverty. For these people, the “real world” means no, or miserable, housing, lack of food, health care, education, security and other public services.

If you’re searching for God - the loving father who values every human being - and are not currently contributing in some way to help the poor in other parts of the world, you should consider doing so. Faith, after all, isn't just about believing. It's also about doing. If you would like to help the organizations we support in El Salvador, visit their web sites, CIS | El Salvador or Corazones Solidarios de El Salvador.