By SANDY McGEE

WOONSOCKET — A young Woonsocket woman returns from El Salvador, bringing with her priceless stories of war and recovery from one of Latin America's poorest countries.

Emilia Losowska, 21, was one of 20 Suffolk University students that traveled to El Salvador for a 14-day learning trip in January. The students witnessed a lot in those two weeks, especially the impact of war. “We didn't know the effects of war until we went down there,” said Losowska, a senior at the university in Boston. “Unless you go down there, war is just words on a page.”
El Salvador, the smallest and the most densely populated country in Central America, was greatly changed after a civil war broke out in 1980 between the government and a coalition of groups that included the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front. The war lasted for 12 years with evidence from the fighting still visible today.
“The effects completely hit us when we got off the plane,” said Losowska. “The first thing we saw were signs that said, 'No guns beyond this point.' That's when we began to fully understand.”
In preparation for the trip, the students studied El Salvador’s history, focusing on the country’s civil war and the work of the late Massachusetts Congressman Joe Moakley.
Moakley, who died in 2001, was a Democratic congressman who represented Massachusetts' ninth district, which encompassed parts of Boston and its southern suburbs.
Throughout his career, Moakley, a Suffolk University alumnus, worked to bring an end to the bloodshed in El Salvador. The congressman also lobbied for an investigation into the 1989 murder of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter. 
“Moakley was one of the first congressmen to start an investigation,” Losowska said.
Once in El Salvador, the students met the priests' and housekeeper's family members.
They also convened with government officials, military personnel, local residents and guerrillas, who fought against the government during the 12-year battle. Both the guerrillas and the government fighters were pardoned following a United Nations' peace accord.
Losowska, who only speaks a little Spanish, was taken aback by how much Salvadorans wanted to talk about their experiences during the war.
“Almost everyone has a story on the streets of El Salvador,” she said. “It doesn't matter if you don't speak a lot of Spanish. They just wanted someone to listen to their stories.”
During their trip, the team stayed in the city of San Vicente, the capital of the San Vicente region. The city is located about two hours away from San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador.
The city of San Vicente lies along the Accihuapa River at the northeastern foot of the San Vicente Volcano.
Hundreds of the region's inhabits perished after an earthquake struck in 2001. During the second week of the trip, the team constructed two Habitat for Humanity homes to help San Vicente rebuild.
“It was very hands-on,” Losowska said. “We worked together to build the houses. We mixed the cement, built the scaffolding and laid the cinder blocks.”
This was Losowska's first time building a house, or performing any kind of construction work.
“I didn't know how to use a hammer correctly before this trip,” she said.
A native of Poland, Losowska and her family immigrated to the United States in 1993 to find work and better opportunities. Soon after arriving in the country, the family decided to make their home in Woonsocket.
Losowska, a 2006 graduate of Woonsocket High School, decided to travel to El Salvador to help others on a more global scale, she said.
“I was frustrated about not being able to help people throughout the world,” she said. “There are a lot of people suffering elsewhere, not just locally. I later fell in love with the curriculum and the program.”
Losowska was no stranger to volunteerism. During high school, she participated in a community service project at Bernon Heights Elementary School; corresponded with an American soldier stationed in Iraq as part of the Soldiers 'Angels program; and worked with children in a Woonsocket afterschool program, which was led by the Institute for Poverty Awareness and Education.
Losowska is currently double-majoring in international relations and European history. She hopes to attend graduate school or work for the federal government after college.
Losowska originally planned to study international security in graduate school. The trip has made her consider changing her focus to international development, a study with a dramatically different curriculum, she said.
“I definitely didn't expect the trip to be as inspirational as it was,” Losowska said. “I thought I would go and be a good humanitarian. Everyday since I've returned, I'm reminded of something that happened there or someone I met.”
During the trip, the team also traveled to a community called El Sitio, a very rural village with only about nine families.
The students provided the village with free shoes, clothes, books and soccer balls. They also threw a pinata party for the children.
“In a lot of the rural areas, the villages are just shanty towns,” Losowska said. “Houses as big as one room and made out of cardboard and steel plates, whatever they can find. They don't have a lot of resources, but they are the most kindest, humblest people I've met in my entire life.”
The Suffolk University team also traveled to a small, rural village called El Mozote to learn more about a massacre that took place there 28 years ago.
In December 1981, Salvadoran armed forces raided the village and killed its inhabitants. The soldiers believed the villagers were helping the guerrillas, according to Losowska.
The team also visited a site that was destroyed after Hurricane Ida struck the coast of El Salvador in November 2009. The hurricane caused massive landslides to occur throughout the region.
What remains today looks like “a river of rocks.”
“No one knew it was coming,” Losowska said. “It happened in the early morning hours. The landslides wiped out villages and killed over 300 people.”
Despite the devastation and destruction, Losowska would like to return and help the people of El Salvador again someday. 
“It was such an amazing experience,” she said. “It makes you think about the United States' place in the world and yourself in your own community.”
The trip was organized by the Suffolk University Organization for Uplifting Lives through Service (SOULS) and supported by the John Joseph Moakley Archive and Institute at Suffolk University.