Sweet fifteen
Chapter 14. Grandfather Jairo’s funeral
Jujyua, Sonsonate, El Salvador
My name is Francisca Diaz. I was born in León, Nicaragua. It has been said that I was born during troubled times, by people who didn’t know what they were talking about.
“When you climb aboard the boat, sit in the back, where I am; the boat rides smoothly from there, and you won’t feel it move as much. Now, don’t you go and worry that head of yours. I can make it to El Salvador with my eyes closed.”
As promised, we arrived to the Salvadoran East Coast, dressed in our Sandinista garb. I had stayed awake for many nights in fear of this moment, and finally the time had arrived. In Nicaragua, the war was over at last. The Sandinista Movement was internationally recognized, but not in El Salvador, where the bloodshed raged on still.
Hardly two months had gone by since I had celebrated my fifteenth birthday. That was such an easygoing, magnificent day, accompanied by friends and family. All the same, standing on that sandy beach and staring at the ill-tempered sea, those days seemed like a wonderful, far away dream.
The fishermen had managed to sneak us past the Yankee’s Air Force patrols that their planes overflew in the Gulf of Fonseca, landing in the Union Bay on their overfull boats, on the Salvadoran side. We sheltered ourselves in the jungle growth next to the beach, and waited for the night to cover our tracks.
In the land of volcanoes’ Chapters Purchase the book