Rich & Lily at Logan Airport...

It’s 4:34am, Sunday August 6, 2017. Lily and I are sitting at Gate B-36 at Logan Airport in Boston, waiting to board our 6am flight to Miami, heading for San Salvador. I awoke at 2:30am and the car service picked me up at 3, then Lily at 3:15. We got to the airport at 3:45, and found it amazingly crowded. The lines for check-in and security were very long, but the good people of American Airlines and TSA were on their game this morning, and checked us in rapidly. We have our tickets and we’re ready to go – now we have an hour wait at the gate. The only problem so far is that Lily’s hair care product did not clear security and had to be left behind. This is not a small issue.

We are on our way to the sixth Bread Loaf Peace Literacy Network International Conference, this time hosted by ConTextos in Santa Tecla, El Salvador. The first one took place in Karachi, Pakistan, back in 2000, hosted by the Aga Khan Schools and the Institute for Education Development. In 2002 we were at the Mzizima Primary School in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania; in 2009 at the Agha Khan Schools in Nairobi, Kenya; in 2014 at the Bridge School in Port-au-Prince, Haiti; and in 2015 at the Aga Khan High Schools in Mumbai, India. Over the last 17 years, we have remained committed to using the power of literacy to communicate intentionally across difference, connecting teachers and students at the grass-roots level. We travel to learn as much as to share, and to build the network. We believe that this is how to build a more peaceful world.

I am excited for this trip. The idea for this conference goes back several years, to then Lou Bernieri first got in touch with Gabriela Poma, his former student, who now serves on the board of ConTextos, a teacher-training organization in El Salvador. Conversation led to a partnership, and in the summer of 2014 Jennifer Correas became the first ConTextos staffer to attend ABL. That summer we talked about the idea of an ABL-El Salvador Conference, and hoped to put it together for 2016. The next summer, 2015, Jen headed to Bread Loaf Vermont, and Carlos Recinos spent the summer at ABL. The more we learned about ConTextos and their work in El Salvador, the more enthusiastic we became about the partnership, and about putting together a conference. In August 2015, Jen and I sat down with Bread Loaf Professor Damian Baca in a second-floor classroom in the Barn at Bread Loaf Vermont, and sketched out the basic plan of a week-long conference. We didn’t know if we could pull it off or how we could fund it, but we knew we wanted it to happen. We hoped to run the conference in the summer of 2016.

As often happened, issues arose. Logistical and funding questions remained unanswered. A third ConTextos staff, Enrique Quintanilla, hoped to attend ABL in the summer of 2016, but visa issues scuttled that plan. The decision was made to delay the conference until 2017.

In August 2016, I flew to San Salvador for a week to visit ConTextos and understand the work more fully. I met with Carlos, Jen, Enrique, Zoila, and many others. I visited schools and toured Santa Tecla. At the end of the week, I knew this conference could happen.

In January 2017, I flew to Chicago to meet with Jen and with Debra Gitler, a driving force behind ConTextos’ work. Through a delightful weekend of social and professional activities, we deepened our understanding of each other’s goals and cemented the partnership. During the spring of 2017, Jen, Anne Ruelle, and I began a series of Skype calls to further plan.

In the summer of 2017, the conference began to take shape. The team of teachers from ABL changed composition frequently. A number of folks who were enthusiastic about the project ran into scheduling and logistical issues and had to drop out. New members were recruited. Plane tickets were bought, passports renewed. Plans were adjusted. Funding sources were located. As usual, Dixie Goswami of the Bread Loaf Teacher Network provided invaluable emotionally, intellectual, and financial support.

Prospects brightened when Enrique was able to join us for ABL 2017, and proved a dynamic, creative teacher. Jen Correas spent the summer at Bread Loaf Oxford, continuing her pursuit of a Bread Loaf Master’s degree. On the ground in San Salvador, Anne Ruelle did the hard work of coordinating logistics and working out the plans, and staying in touch. The conference does not happen without her work. 

And so here we are, Lily and I, sitting at Gate B-36 at Logan Airport, waiting for our flight to Miami, where we expect to meet up with Maria Tejeda, a New York City teacher traveling in from the Dominican Republic. Rex Lee Jim of the Navajo Nation in Arizona has already arrived in San Salvador, joining Jen, on her way back from Oxford. Alan Nunez will fly direct to San Salvador later today from New York City. The five of us from the US will pair up with ConTextos staffers, Starfish folks, and Salvadoran teachers to form a team of 15 who will work this week to visit schools, teach classes, conduct a workshop for 100-plus teachers, and run a writing workshop for students. We are ready for the adventure!

Amaryllis’ Writing: It still hasn’t hit me that we’re en route to El Salvador. I’m feeling all sorts of emotions right now; nervous, but calm but also excited, as well as a tad bit tired. I think I’m mostly nervous because of my extremely embarrassing lack of Spanish skills. A Puerto Rican who doesn’t know how to speak Spanish… years of being a possession of the US will do that to you. I think the calm is coming from this newfound confidence I’ve grown to realize as an ABL Writing Leader. Because ABL has been apart of my life for almost more than half of it I tend to forget the impact that ABL really has on  me and education and the youth in general. I’ve grown to love and trust ABL so much that I’m willing to travel above and beyond to share this family of mine with the world.  The excitement is my natural caffeine and it’s keeping me going for now…or maybe that’s the anxiety. Speaking of lack of sleep, probably nothing I’m writing is making sense or grammatically correct but that’s ok, this blurb, this trip, and ABL in general is all about the process and the message. And now here I am waiting for the flight and the message and process that El Salvador will gift to all of us.