While riding the bus here in El Salvador, one can experience many things: loud ranchera music (or english songs from the 80s) blasting in your ear; the regular beggars that tug at your heart-strings with their sad stories and appearances; people trying to sell you everything from food, toys for children, or vitamins that can ¨save your life¨ (along with every possible thing you can think of, in fact that could be a blog entry in itself); and finally what this entry is all about deeply zealous religious people trying to save your soul.
Recently we experienced a 2 hour bus ride to our community where 3 nuns and a minister boarded with a mission. Their mission, as they told us, was to use this time to share to us the Glory of God, Alleluia. The trip began with some brief speeches about why we needed saving and we are all sinners who have no hope without the belief of God in our lives. From there they mixed in some songs which were all sung with the support of an electric portable speaker, although none of them sung very well. Throughout this time the rest of the people on the bus went along their business not really paying to much attention those pleading with us to ¨connect to God¨ right now, and not let another moment pass us by.
I found myself interested with what they had to say, because as a non-Christian who has found much more of a spiritual connection with meditation and Buddhist teachings, I was curious how they would discuss other spiritual beliefs. Yet not surprisingly I found what they had to say limiting and pinpointing a one-dimensional directional path to God. The group may have sensed the disinterest on the bus and felt they needed to take a quite frequently practiced bad parenting approach… ¨If they don’t seem to hear you, TALK LOUDER!¨ When the bus started to fill up and people standing had no room to move the group, who had positioned themselves early on in the ride toward the middle of the bus, brought out a mega-phone or loudspeaker normally used outside at large gatherings. Only a few feet away from us and right next to some people on the bus they began to sing, preach, and cry out stories of pain and punishment they had received and how turning to God had saved them.
I really have endured many a loud music bus but the sound of a mega-phone on a stripped down bus (which really has nothing more than metal that the sound reverberates off) of was deafening. I had my fingers in my ears as did many of the Salvadorans (which I had never seen before). I told Melissa I think I need to tell them that if they don’t cover up the loudspeaker with a shirt or something to dull the sound, they might find many of God’s children deaf from their own message. However a older Salvadoran man beat me to the punch to ask them not to use the mega-phone, which is a big deal many Salvadorans are genuinely to polite at the cost of their ears or other discomforts. Nonetheless he was blown off by the group much to the chagrin of myself and other passengers who asked him of their response.
