Lucas Camilo

Last night was the CISPES 30th anniversary party here in Washington DC and since we were both participating in the festivities – and didn’t have a nurse – we decided to bring Lucas along.  Of course, he’s not quite ready to cavort with 100 people in an auditorium with blasting music, so we planted Lucas on the couch in the CISPES office, upstairs from the party but close enough to watch it all go down from the balcony, soak in the bumping music of the dance party, and for us take turns hanging out with the crowd down below.  Lucas also got a stream of visitors, and a number of friends met him for the first time.

CISPES will always have a special place in our hearts: not only did we meet through a CISPES delegation in 2004, but the two of us were on CISPES staff for over 10 years (combined) and have put in countless volunteer hours.  Most importantly, many of our best and dearest friends in the world have come through our work with CISPES… so needless to say, we couldn’t miss this event.  Burke’s job for the last few months has been constructing and managing a website that charts the 30-year history of CISPES (check it out at www.cispes30years.org) while also digitizing a lot of classic old propaganda videos from the 80s and 90s.  He kicked off the event with a video compilation of some of the most striking moments in the history of CISPES and El Salvador… from the roots of the civil war, to the 1988 shutdown of the Pentagon by CISPES activists, to more recent delegations and protests.  Krista was one of the 6 speakers chosen to tell their stories of how they got involved in CISPES, and though she had to condense her speech because of time running out, she was honored to be able to take the stage.  Here’s a a couple audio clips from last night that feature Burke as well as our wonderful compañeras Alexis, Rosa, and Sonia (not to mention some great tunes from the featured band Anexo Social.)

[audio: http://thefightback.org/audio/CISPES+at+30+2010-12-11+part2.mp3] [audio: http://thefightback.org/audio/CISPES+at+30+2010-12-11+part1.mp3]

(thanks to Pete at theFightBack.org for doing the interviews)

Lucas seemed to enjoy his 7 hour stint at the party – acting shy at times but also occasionally smiling while singing the na-na song –  and it certainly felt great for us to be there all together.  We ended up staying until after 1:00 am, and though Lucas looked tired, he stayed awake a good 20 minutes after we got home and tucked him into bed – meaning that it was nearly 2 am but the time he fell asleep!  Quite an adventure indeed… oh, and last we heard the dance-a-thon was still going at 3 am!