A mother's plea

It is now one of those dreaded Monday mornings. My whole body feels like a train ran over me and it is aching. I have been crying for days now, feeling very sick to my stomach. Not been able to eat or sleep. I have now lost twenty pounds. My head is pounding, my throat is dry and itchy as if I am getting a cold and my eyes are red and swollen from tears that have not stopped. I am feeling so depressed that I haven’t even gotten out of bed and it’s almost noon when I hear the phone ring. I got up, dried my tears and went to answer the phone. I thought it was one of my girls.

The call was from a woman who sounded very anxious. Is this Viictoria Vanderloo The Honorary Consul she asked? Yes I replied! She then proceeded to tell me: “Joe Peters gave me your phone and told me that you were well connected in El Salvador and would probably know that to do. I am calling to ask for your help on my son’s behalf. He is in jail in El Salvador but I know he is innocent of whatever he is being accused of doing.” What happened I asked?

“My son and two other fellows are wrongly accused of kidnaping someone but I know they are innocent. He and two other fellows went last weekend to El Salvador to bring a fellow back to the United States because he had jumped bail. My son does not know Spanish and he doesn’t understand what they are saying.”

She told me how she only knows that they are in jail and they have no one there to help them with this case and the newspapers are spreading all these rumors of them being charged with serious felonies but that they were not aware of anything wrong that they were doing.

I could only imagine if I had a daughter or in my case a son in law thrown to jail in a foreign country without understanding the language, how would I feel as a mother? I placed myself in her shoes and told her, “I will call some people I know to find out more about this case and I will call you later.” So I called my mother to investigate.

To be continued