Recent News from El Salvador

Politically speaking it has been a tragic and interesting couple of weeks in El Salvador. Two weeks ago two priests were tortured and killed in Suchitoto, which created a wave of fear regarding the possibility of a resurgance of the death squads that existed during the war. A week later the parents of one of the founders of radio venceremos (the frente radio station), Marina Manzanares (radio name, La Mariposa) were also tortured and killed. At the National University, protests regarding the increase in bus fare ended in violence.

I don´t know the most recent information, nor would I know to trust it if I did. At least two police officers were killed, and dozens of people were hurt. Rumors and misinformation have been abundant, the coverage in the papers has been profoundly one-sided. (Ie. Photos of crying police officers, headlines screaming that shooters were fmln, no word on injured students or protesters.) Anyway, I want to give a brief sense of the political environment, as so much has been happening, but at present I don´t have a great deal of hard facts so I apologize for being so general.

There is an increasing amount of tension here around issues like the cost of transportation, the privatization of water, and of course immigration policy in the U.S. A huge proportion of the population here is economically dependent upon remittances so any alterations in immigration policy has immediate and often devastating effects on the majority of Salvadorans. You may not know that El Salvador adopted the dollar as its main currency, eliminating the colón. (Again, I am learning and hesitate to pontificate on the issues.) All I know for sure is that everyone I talked to about the change said that it was devastating, that the price of everyday items went up, often more than doubling in price. (If I have the chance to do more research, I will be happy to summarize more on this issue here but we´ll see. :)

So, in an overarching sense, conditions of poverty in El Salvador have not improved post peace accords. The situation is delicate here as many citizens cannot survive another economic blow. Crispaz has a summary article discussing the events I mentioned above at: http://www.crispaz.org/news/list/2006/0705.htm if anyone is interested.

Abby and La Florida

Wish I could post photos. Is very frustrating. I am in San Salvador again. Mariah and I hooked up with Tedde and Javier, met in the city, then visited Abby´s community in La Florida yesterday. The Institute de Permacultura, where she is an intern, was incredible. We met with Karen, the executive director and toured her house, which she joked was inspired by the hobbit houses in Lord of the Rings. (Again, pictures would be so much better, but what can I do.)

Karen gave us a great informal presentation on permaculture and the projects of the Institute. The political issues surrounding seeds and pesticide use in El Salvador are extremely incensing. The Institute works to educate, politicize and implement sustainable farming techniques using native seeds that do not self-destruct or deplete the soil. (I am going to encourage Abby to write in more detail about the issues because she knows more specifics but its really interesting stuff and Karen herself is just one of those inspiring people you meet only every once in a great while).

Abby´s host family´s house is nestled deep into the hills about a ten minute hike from the Institute. Its absolutely gorgeous, overlooking steep lush hills and is surrounded by fruit trees. I ate the most delicious orange I have ever had. We ate copious, revolting amounts of tamales and hot chocolate and played with the kids, platicando. Abby seemed very comfortable with her host family and completely at home which was lovely to see.

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Look Mom, I got a shot in my butt in El Salvador and I didn´t cry or anything!

One piece of news with me is I got sick with a bacterial infection last week. I began feeling sick monday night and it proceeded to worsen, to the point where I basically spent Wednesday through Friday in bed, missing work, almost completely unable to eat for four days.
Two of my coworkers took me to the beach on Thursday and fed me fresh fish which was incredibly kind, but unfortunately didn´t kick the ebola. My family took great care of me and were hearbreakingly concerned and sweet. I have to say though, not that I ever want to do it again, but getting a bacterial infection and dealing with it turned out to be one of the most meaningful experiences I have had so far in El Salvador.

So how it went down was on Thursday night, after days of weirdness, I couldn´t sleep. I had a lot of pain in my abdomen, a fever and my body was responding to not having food for several days. I woke up that morning with my head on the opposite end of the bed, the sheets in a ball in another corner with my hands inexplicably palming the wall like a crazy person. By Friday, I knew I had something that was not going to go away on its own. I did ¨the test¨ and Reina delivered it to the clinic in El Transito without me (and made fun of me alot which was hilarious and made the whole thing better) and in the afternoon our neighbor, Mauricio, (who harmlessly flirts with me all the time but giggles like a kid when I say a bad word), took us to El Transito to get the results and visit the doctor.

I got out of the pickup first and saw, to my amusement/horror, that there was a large group of about twenty young men hanging out outside the test office, with its paintings of medicines and body parts, waiting for a bus at that exact moment and I just though, how perfect- I should wear a giant button, like moms with pictures of their kids who take gymnastics or are cheerleaders that says ¨Hi I am a white girl and I have diahrrea.¨

I went through the ¨hey look a gringa let´s yell cute phrases in English¨ gauntlet, and got my results which confirmed that I was enjoying the company of a veritable plethora of uninvited guests. We crossed the street to the doctors office and waited, taking celebratory pictures of us with the paper outlining the results of my poo test until the doctor (who was guapo, guapo, guapo let me tell you) invited us into the office. He took one look at my results and his eyes sort of widened and he said kindly, ¨Deborah, Usted tiene, mucha mucha infección.¨ This was sort of dementedly validating. He told me I needed a shot, and had me lie down and poked around and listened to my stomach. There was another option, some sort of really awful syrup I could drink three times a day that was slower and had more side effects so I sort of went back and forth for a couple of minutes and Reina laughed at me. ¨ok, I´m an adult, give me the shot. No wait, don´t. No, seriously, let´s have the shot. How bad are the side effects? ok, ok, ok, give me the shot. Reina, you look there, I´ll look there, don´t watch me.¨ ¨no llorando,¨ she said and I had to resist the urge to tell her to shut it. (in a nice way of course.) The doctor was so charming that the whole visit was full of laughter, and me dealing with my fear by cracking jokes so it really wasn´t bad. I was so sick so as to be beyond embarrassment or real fear of shots.

So the funniest part of all was that when the doctor got the giant shot ready, I laid down on my stomach and in order to be helpful just started to hike up my skirt from the bottom. (When the pool is cold you gotta jump right in is my motto.) Reina yelled, ¨Deborah, NO!¨ motioning that he just pulls the waistband down, saving me from unneccessarily mooning my new guapo, guapo doctor. (thanks Reina! you´re the best!) Anyway, the shot was fine, he didn´t charge us for it, I´m assuming because Reina told him I work for Oikos and he just could not have been more lovely and nice.

Overall the whole experience with the illness was incredibly eye-opening as to what people go through here and how expensive it is relative to income to recover from these very common but potentially serious illnesses. After I had recovered I thought to myself, I cannot believe people live with this type of pain and then have to pay $25 or more to recover when there is little work or the work pays a couple of dollars a day. It really broke my heart and sensitized me much more to the reality of these dangers for people here.

Much love to everyone,
deb