Of the Talmud, and his Rifle.

"Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it." -- from the Talmud

She is a toothless, chubby cherub of an old woman, her worn floral print nightgown overflowing on her 4.5 foot frame. Her basset hound eyes are barely visible beneath thick round 1960's headlight glasses. She sits at a metal table outside the Mug Cafe. I see her every time I make the short walk here from my office for an afternoon jumpstart, because this table is her office. She sells rosaries. The plastic kind-- lime green, dusty black, made-en-mass. She is one of so many here trying to eek out an honest living selling plastic nothings on the street. As I sit in the cafe and gaze out the window, I notice how she and the khaki-suited guard have built an easy camaraderie, passing a lazy afternoon with her head tilted up toward him, his tilted down, resting on the handle of his rifle. They chat.

I leave my espresso wonderland and pass her table, and the conversation between them halts. I dont have to look at her face to feel those basset hound eyes cajoling me. “Señorita,” she squeaks, “Comprame algo, por favor.” (Buy something from me, please.) The words lilt, automated, just another day of asking for a little to survive her lot in life.

Two evenings ago, the city of San Salvador had a one night stand with psychological terror. Someone sent emails to the major media around the country claiming that, that night, the gangs were going to attack the civilian population. Salvadorans live in one of the most violent countries in the world, and they're aware that life outside high walls and barbed wire is an undeclared street war. A rumor like this is thus real whether or not it happens because it strikes the fount of our fear. It must be taken seriously. At 5pm, it was. People got into buses and cars in a thinly controlled flee for home. Public spaces became ghost towns. Footage on the nightly news of the biggest mall in Central America, Metrocentro, showed one solitary woman dashing for cover between the pillars in the mall´s sparkling central plaza. At the time, I was in a taxi on my way to meet a deadline, bound to a standstill behind miles of taillights. I began to imagine jumping my nervous tapping feet from roof to roof along this continuum of paralyzed cars.

It happens that on this night, not many more people were killed than normal, which means it illustrated El Salvador well. For instance: 6.30pm. Upper-class area of town, outside the Jesuit University of Central America. He was in his mid 30's and he worked with my roommates in an outsourced telephone help center for US companies. While talking on his cell phone with his father, walking down the sidewalk, a car pulls up beside and shoots. His dad, having heard it happen, tries to call back. His son is already dead. When my roommates told me this story they couldn't help but bleed into reminiscing about the multiple other workmates they've lost to random violence. “…Oh, I remember the day we heard about Nelson. That was the day before they promoted me.” In fact, whenever the conversation turns to violence, it becomes a slippery slope of friends, neighbors, family, acquaintances. One aspect of these deaths is clear: they are as normal as promotions. In all places in the world, death is a part of life. What I'm hearing from my roommates is that here, it is a part of youth.

I return to the present moment, and hear her plea. I am Jesuit-educated; I grew up in a place where everyone is to be treated as neighbor; and I believe, desperately, in humanity. Yet the rifle in the crook of his khaki arm gleams in my peripheral vision. I don't even look at her cherub face as I abandon her, and tumble back to the office.

-- October 2009

Yellow Roses

When I was seven years old, I found a forbidden place in Target. My mother did most of her shopping there and most times toted us along. One day while she was trapped in the check-out line, I wandered to a bulletin board near the door and was caught by a crop of young black-and-white faces: square photos from a school yearbook mounted on a flyer that proclaimed, “Missing.” It didn't make sense. These children were born in the same year that I was, and they looked like normal kids. They looked like me. I was mystified, horrified; the fact that they were not necessarily dead, but missing, was something I couldn't comprehend. In that very moment, they were possibly alive somewhere and doing something normal like buttering toast. Or possibly they weren't. Grappling with “possibly” was like trying again and again, futilely, to push the plastic square block into the circle-shaped hole in my Fisher Price toy. Where were these normal kids? I knew I had walked into something that even mom couldn't explain, and therefore, it was somewhere a seven year old doesn't belong.

Seventeen years later, I found that forbidden place again in the tiny country of El Salvador. I was in a green park, surrounded by about 250 Salvadorans celebrating a holiday called the Day of the Faithful Departed. For Salvadorans, this day is a celebration of life and of death. Families gather in cemeteries to repaint sky blue or pink headstones and leave fresh flowers. Food vendors offer traditional tamales, and dogs and barefoot children run amok amidst it all lapping up sweets that have fallen to the ground. That is how they celebrate the people who have died. Here in the Cuscatlan Park, they remember those who disappeared.

A hunched woman steps to the center of the crowd and gently reaches for the microphone. A yellow rose and a lit candle sprout from her other hand. Gray whisps frame her face and her rickety voice rings clear: “I dedicate this rose to my daughter. In 1980, one month after her high school graduation, the soldiers took her off a bus and we never saw her again.”--A pause--“I remember her always with her books in her arms.” She turns to find her daughter's name among over 35,000 others on a black granite wall behind her. The wall is about 8 feet tall and a half a football field in length, and it is divided into sections by year and by situation; for instance, “1985 Homicides,” or “1987 Massacres.” She finds her daughter's name in the section that says, “1980 Disappeared.”

Her daughter may have been reading on the bus the day that she became one of over 10,000 people who were forcibly “disappeared” during the Salvadoran Civil War, and were never found. The war officially ended sixteen years ago. Her family is one of over 10,000 families who are still searching.

I feet hushed inside, grappling with this woman's brief story. The crowd, however, doesn't react like me. The whole place is alive with movement. I notice one woman crying and another wiping away the firsts’ tears with a bandana. Two teenaged girls click by on high-heels, one sending a text message and the other carrying a framed black-and-white photo of a young man. Someone is buying ice cream from a vendor who has a cooler on wheels, and a woman’s dyed brunette hair bobs animatedly as she whispers to a friend. Two large movie cameras snake about the crowd followed by a crew. I get the feeling that sixteen years has been enough time to build a life on waiting.

One woman in a highlighter-yellow tank-top takes the microphone: “I dedicate this rose to my mother, to my husband, and to my three children, who disappeared in 1985. All I want is to bury them.” The woman is about my mother's age. I am one of three siblings. I feel like I am seven years old again.

A grandmother in navy blue comes toward me as if magnetized. I'm enveloped by her smile, and then her hug. “Peace to you, my precious child,” she whispers, and then moves on. They're reading more names in the background, and now there is a woman singing a verse from her lost son's favorite song. The whole crowd begins to sing. The refrain goes like this: “We’ re still singing. We’re still dreaming. We’ re still waiting.”

-- 8 November 2009

“We Can Make Change Here Too"

Salvadoran women gather to share hardships and ideas to build the road to change.

She is a petite woman with squared shoulders. A blue pen juts akimbo, business-like, from her thick pony-tail of hair. She stands before a crowd of about forty people and begins: "We're here because we're interested in how you work, in how you face the difficulties of your life, in how you struggle for change. We're here because we believe that organized women make the road to change." Her name is Rosa, and she is a member of the directive council of a Salvadoran organization called CRIPDES, which aids communities in their development efforts. Rosa is speaking to a crowd of women from all over the rural department of Tecoloca, who have gathered for today’s event organized by CRIPDES to share experiences and ideas for surviving in this time of economic hardship.

The women sit tidied together under the overhanging roof of someone’s house, brushed by the light breeze of coffee country. To arrive here, participants have basically taken whatever road leads up: they’re at one of the highest elevation points in the nation, perched where the clouds would float were this not a clear breezy day. The small space makes for an intimate feel despite the fact that many of the women had never met before. In fact, it almost feels like a family reunion, as many participants brought their children or their younger sisters.

Rosa continues, setting the scene with an overview of the Salvadoran woman’s daily reality, drawling along in the smooth Spanish dialect spoken by campesinos in this tiny country. She relates well to her crowd. She talks honestly about the difficulties of life, and it’s quickly obvious why a gathering like this one is so valuable and necessary. She speaks about violence: 10 people are assassinated daily in this country the size of the state of Massachusetts. The World Health Organization agrees with Rosa. It has declared violence an “epidemic” in El Salvador, and has listed it as the most violent country in the Western hemisphere.

Much of this violence is directed specifically against women, in the form of rape, assassination, and spousal abuse. Rosa explains that women are especially vulnerable to this violence because they don't often have the economic mobility to leave abusive or dangerous situations. To make her point, she asks the women to raise their hands if they have a property title in their name. Not a hand moves. "This is why we have to submit ourselves to whatever our husbands say," she went on.

In this way, these women’s time is sucked into hamster wheel-days: constantly running to keep the family healthy, with no extra time to develop their own skills or to organize with their peers. "What do you spend time attending to?" Rosa asks. “The children,” they answer. Cooking. Cleaning. The husband. (The latter sparked hearty laughter.) In addition to this, there aren't many employment opportunities for women. "52% of the population is female. Why is there so little employment for us?” She answers her own question: “Because there are fewer opportunities for women to study than for men. The decision-making jobs go to men." The most common jobs open to women are in maquilas, or mass-production factories owned by large corporations, which pay around $160 per month and are infamous for their subhuman working conditions. To put this salary in perspective, Rosa cites the price of the canasta basica, which is a calculation of the price of basic foodstuffs and necessities like vegetables, corn, basic health care, and basic education needed to nuture a four-person family for one month in El Salvador. It hovers around $700.

In media jargon, this dire situation is known as the international food crisis. Rosa debunks this term. “When you go to the supermarket, there's a mountain of food on the shelves. What is lacking is the money to buy that food.” The women nod in agreement. They know exactly what she’s talking about. “This is not a food crisis,” she continues, “This is a distribution crisis. This is an economic crisis.”

Rosa affirms the women’s central role in overcoming this crisis. "Why do we organize?” she asks. “We organize because when women make a change, that change reaches the children too. It reaches the men. It reaches the chickens. It affects the whole family." She reminds the women that the coming elections in El Salvador give them another opportunity to bring change. She encourages them to vote, to talk to their neighbors about voting. “It's our responsibility, and we can do this,” she says. “Look at the United States. There’s still a big problem with racism there and yet Obama won. If there can be change up there, we can make change down here too.”

The women have nodded, laughed, listened to Rosa’s overview of the national reality. Now, it’s their turn to speak. And the mood shifts: yeah, life’s hard. But we’ve got ideas. And the experience-and-idea sharing begins. Each community that’s present gives a short report of the various projects their women's group has been trying in an effort to make extra income, to spend more time together, and to capacitate women with more skills. The efforts were many and varied. One community works in conjunction with its mayor's office to give capacitation workshops on making candy and piñatas to women. Another works with a San Salvador-based NGO, the Center for Interchange and Solidarity (CIS), on an indigo-dyeing artisan project. The women’s group in a community called Milagro de Dios (Miracle of God) has learned to make soap and shampoo. It has also taken out a microloan with the SHARE Foundation’s Semillas de Esperanza project, receiving seeds for basic vegetables and fertilizer.

A woman with a particularly serious expression on her face and a Chicago Whitesox ballcap stands up to talk. In her gravelly tone she congratulates everyone present, noting that their work is a true acheivement given the obstacles. "And maybe the best part," she says, "is that working together, we know we are not alone."

I wrote this piece in Fall 2008 and am posting it these many months later. Two updates since the writing: El Salvador had its presidential elections, with the Moderate-Leftist candidate, Mauricio Funes, winning on a platform of change. Many compared Funes with Obama. Second, recent statistics of the homicide rate in El Salvador have-- unfortunately--risen. According to the Prensa Grafica newspaper, in October 2009 an average 14 people were killed per day.

The Share Foundation works through three of CRIPDES’ regional outposts—CRIPDES San Vicente, CCR and UCRES—to accompany rural communities as they organize and agitate for a better future. The Semillas de Esperanza (Seeds of Hope) program is a SHARE initiative to combat the global crisis’ effects on El Salvador. Communities receive seeds and fertilizer for plants like peppers, tomatoes, and corn as a microloan. They repay slowly--and dependably-- in installments. For further project and donation information--to join with these women as another reminder that they are not alone-- visit www.share-elsalvador.org/donate/semillasdeesperanza.htm#donate

This Cannot Wait.

I repost this Action Alert from the Share Foundation about escalating political violence around mining in El Salvador. I was in Cabanas last week with teen-age journalist Jose Beltran (currently being threatened), several government functionaries, and a delegation from Eastern Michigan University. After speaking with Marcelo's brothers we know that this case cannot wait for the slow Salvadoran justice machine to kick into gear. Please support the Radio Victoria team and Marcelo's family members in whatever way that you can.

Look for audio recordings of our meetings in Cabanas, along with photos and more details, in the next few weeks.

Without further ado, here you see the consequences for being a social justice activist in El Salvador.

Action Alert: Contact your Congressperson about the Murder of Marcelo Rivera and Ongoing Death Threats

Please contact your Senators and Congressperson asking them to join an international campaign to pressure Salvadoran authorities to fully investigate the murder of anti-mining activist Marcelo Rivera and the death threats received by other community activists.

Please watch "The Mysterious Death of Marcelo Rivera," a seven-minute documentary by Philadelphia filmmaker Jamie Moffett. The video will give you the background and the circumstances around Marcelo's death. In addition read "Down the Well" an article from the Philadelphia City Paper regarding the crime.


TAKE ACTION!

Contact the Capitol Switchboard 202-224-3121 to call your Congressperson
Visit the "Write your Representative" website to e-mail your Congressperson
Visit the US Senate website to call or e-mail your Senator

Ask your Representatives to:

1. Call for the Salvadoran authorities to fully investigate the murder of anti-mining activist Marcelo Rivera and ongoing death threats received by other community leaders. Read a letter sent by 108 international organizations to the Salvadoran Acting Attorney General.
   
   
2. Review free trade agreements and eliminate provisions which allow mining corporations to sue countries for denying mining permits. Read the Pacific Rim vs. El Salvador Case.
   

For talking points please visit Jamie Moffett's campaign. Feel free to copy and paste the suggested message or write your own to include the more recent death treats received by other anti-mining activists. If you are from Pennsylvania you can use Jamie's automatic message to Senator Arlen Specter.


Community Activists in Cabañas are Receiving Death Threats


Less than a month after the assassination of Marcelo Rivera, an increasing number of activists from the northern Department of Cabañas report to be receiving death threats. Like Marcelo, the targeted people have been outspoken against mining and have denounced electoral fraud. They also have called for a full investigation into Marcelo's killing. The death threats seem to be linked to the murder since often they refer that the victims will "end up just like Marcelo." Click here to see a video in Spanish about death threats that activists have received.

The first to receive death threats were three young reporters who work for Radio Victoria. José Beltrán, Ludwing Iraheta and Vladimir Abarca explained in a press conference that after they began to cover the disappearance and murder of Marcelo they started to receive hand written and phone death threats. Radio officials denounced this situation to the police (PNC), the Office of the Human Rights Ombudsman and the Office of the Attorney General.

Radio Victoria is a community broadcaster located in the town of Victoria, Cabañas. The radio run mainly by youth, started in 1993 with the purpose of giving the isolated community, its own means of communication. According to its website, the radio is a "welcoming space where people can make announcements, send greetings, talk about their problems, look for solutions, discuss politics, and share dreams." The radio has played a key role in exposing the Pacific Rim mining project, the municipal and presidential elections and its fraud scandals, and more recently, the murder of Marcelo Rivera.

Father Luis Quintanilla, a progressive Catholic priest and a long time defender of human rights, has received similar threats. One of the threats read "the damned reds [communists] disguised as priests will be finished off," "keep quiet if you don't want to end up like Marcelo," declared the priest in a press release. However, in this case the threats went beyond words. On July 27th Father Quintanilla was driving from Victoria when four armed, hooded men, stopped him and pulled him out of his car to kidnap and murder him. However the priest was able to escape by jumping into a gully.

On July 28th, the Director of the Association for Economic and Social Development (ADES), a non-profit operating in Cabañas, was also threatened. Later, Isabel Gomez, head of the news team at Radio Victoria received a threatening call in the press room. When the second to last person left the radio, Isabel received the call in which the aggressor acknowledged the fact that she was alone at the radio. Isabel's house was also broken into and vandalized.

As time goes on, the list of threatened people continue to grow. By July 30th all the staff from Radio Victoria had been threatened. The radio was also sabotaged. The radio antenna in Sensuntepeque (Cabañas' main city) was stolen and the electrical system was sabotaged causing the transmitter to fail. Therefore the radio has been on and off the air. The lives of the staff members have been disrupted as they have had to change their daily routines and look for refuge. However they are still working and struggling to keep the radio on air. As one of the staff members said "they will not silence us; we know that our people accompany us and that we will continue forward, because we believe that another Cabañas is possible." Our friends from the area informed us that many community members are volunteering to guard and protect the radio at night. Police officers are also present.

In a press conference the Salvadoran Human Rights Ombudsman, Oscar Luna, called on the Attorney General Office and the National Civil Police (PNC) to investigate and find the material and intellectual authors of these death threats and bring them to justice. He urged the authorities to take steps to protect the lives of the victims.

ADES Santa Marta stated in a press release that "ultra-right wing groups linked to organized crime groups are trying to keep the population of the Department in a state of terror and are making lethal attacks against social leaders and political and environmental activists. The negligence of the Public Prosecutor and the Police at the Departmental level favors, reinforces, and shelters these violations." ADES also called on the international community to pressure the Salvadoran authorities to investigate these human rights violations.


PLEASE TAKE ACTION TO PROTECT OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS OF CABAÑAS!

Claudia Rodríguez. - Policy Director

The View from Veronica's Window

I am standing at the window in my girlfriend´s second-story apartment, my hands on the white metal bars separating the quiet of her square room from the streets of the capitol, my chin nestled and my eyes roving the outside world. These moments to observe the streets are rare and valuable here. When you´re walking down there, you must move quickly, vigilant, accompanied by the persistent possibilities of “what could happen.” Except in very few upper-class neighborhoods, enjoying the city vista must be done from behind bars. I spend delicious moments at this window feasting on the pedestrians, vehicles, and houses across the street. On this particular Saturday late-morning, it was the latter that caught my attention.

Tipsy, bulging rain-clouds totter full of wet promise overhead. I see a small boy, perhaps 7 or 8 years old, walk to the third-story window of the pastel peach house and pause to peer sky-ward. Standing straight-tall, he smoothly slides shut the glass panels, locks them, tidies the lace curtains and pivots gracefully back into his morning. At the red stucco house next door, a Chocolate Lab climbs from the garage where two bright white SUVs are eternally parked, up countless mansion stairs to the elevated front door.

What´s strange about this moment is that I´ve not once seen movement in these houses. No vehicles entering or leaving; no figures sweeping or cooking or paying taxes; just an occasional lit room at night—and even then, not a shadow thrown. The only noise is the barking of the Lab protecting his Red Stucco. These are beautiful houses—large especially by Salvadoran standards—and they´ve always seemed sadly abandoned. Thus, I was surprised to see life that day. In addition, the boy´s air of responsibility shocked me. He looked in charge. Maybe, I thought, these houses are so quiet because only the boy and the Lab reside there. The responsible mini-man may as well be wearing a little sport coat and little loafers, after having cooked himself a little steak-and-Cabernet supper.

Though this appears a fall into fantasy, it is how the world often feels in El Salvador. This volcano kingdom resembles Alice in Wonderland in its surreal, uncontrollable character. The people born into mansions generally have as much responsibility for their lot in life as those born into rotting tin slums. The “correct” world order as defined by Western standards—one of logic and justice—doesn´t explain the way the chips fall.

Take, for instance, the scene at any intersection of two main streets. It is a veritable carnival. Lanky men and women walk from car to car at red lights selling knock-off Oakleys and cashews. Beside them, the street-browned shoulder blades of a shirtless young man flex as he lifts a carton of gasoline to his sun-burned lips, and he spits it in a stream into the rod of fire he holds, sending a massive flame into the air: “fire breathing.” He follows the Oakleys to beg drivers for a few cents in return for the stop-light entertainment. He is almost certainly homeless.

Danger and safety, possible and impossible, right and wrong mesh into each other so unrecognizably that to settle into life here as a foreigner, you must just give up your expectations for what you call safe, or possible, or right. It´s not that life in El Salvador is objectively wrong: in fact, it calls into question the very existence of an objective right and wrong. For instance, that young fire-breather probably is high on glue. Most young street boys are; and you’ll often find them sprawled and sleeping as any long-limbed teen does, except barefoot in the middle of the sidewalk at noon. In my fourth grade DARE drug education class, Officer Mike told me that drugs are bad because they cause you to make bad decisions. True. Sometimes. Glue gives this boy the guts to kiss fire—or, seen in another way, to coax enough coins from passers-by that he can afford to eat.

Get a safer job, we say to him. But let’s follow him around for a day, or any one of thousands of jobless young Salvadoran men, and let’s watch the puzzle-pieces of alienation come together. There’s police abuse in random stop-and-searches that normally involve being handcuffed, slammed into the concrete, and ridiculed. I saw it happen to a group of four young men in baggy jeans the other day on my walk to work. It was 10 A.M., and waitresses at the surrounding restaurants continued serving fresh steaming coffee to their customers. There’s just plain murder. El Salvador is the most deadly place on earth for young people to live: 70% of homicide victims are youth between the ages of 15 and 24. That rate is 30 times that of anywhere in Europe. There are employers who will not hire them. The United Nations Development Programme says that 62.4% of young Salvadorans are unemployed or underemployed. There are employers who choose not to pay them come check-time. (See story below about “Roberto”.) There are the daily scenes on the streets: taxi drivers who refuse to give young guys a ride. Crowds that avert eyes or cross the street because that kid might be a gang member (which, ironically, is one of few places where young men are accepted.) There’s the lack of opportunity: perhaps the most reliable Salvadoran public opinion-polling institute, the University Institute of Public Opinion (IUDOP), found that only 9.8% of young people these days have a university or technical education. Almost one-fourth have only gone through primary school.

So, is glue bad when it’s your meal ticket? In my white US citizen, middle-class, college-educated reality, my knee-jerk response might once have been judging the young fire-breather for not making better decisions—not making “right” decisions. But my view of the Salvadoran streets forces me to open my vision and see beyond my privileges.

(My "footnotes" application is currently not working. Statistical information taken from these sources: www.crin.org/violence/search/closeup.asp?infoID=19081, and http://ipsnews.net/sendnews.asp?idnews=44481)

Flying by the Seat of your Bus: Losing Control, and Coping in the Salvadoran Way

We are crammed into the weaving minibus, about forty of us in a space meant for twenty, sitting or standing as our luck allowed. Strangers to each other, we are riding route 44 through San Salvador evening traffic; and, judging by the many heavy eyes and slumping shoulders, work has taken its toll today. In usual minibus etiquette, the driver zooms frantically around stalled traffic. He somehow finds (or forces) enough holes that he maintains a speed of nearly 50 miles per hour on this narrow city avenue crawling with cars. The deep bass of our blaring reggaeton music shakes the bus’s wobbly metal side panels. I watch with eyebrows raised as the cobrador—the driver’s assistant who stands at the side door to take passage fares—leans impossibly far out the open door and knocks on the roof of the minibus flying beside us. He waggles his tongue at the competing driver. I hear the two old and abused motors heave as accelerators jam to floorboards and the race begins. I laugh softly: the closest thing I know to this moment is the videogame Grand Theft Auto. I am distinctly aware that I have no control of my fate until my feet touch ground again.

In my US culture, control of my circumstances worked in same way that many things do in lives of relative privilege—it was something to enjoy in moderation, and something not to obsess about having. "Don't be a 'control freak,' Danielle.” Read: control was like chocolate. Accessible to me, and something I had the luxury to deny myself. I compare my quiet, sturdy family car to the thumping beasts that transport most Salvadorans to the grocery store or to work. Many Salvadorans cannot afford to own a car. They must risk the real-life video game. Gripping the seat-back in front of me on the 44 is a lesson for me in losing control—oftentimes to the point of injustice—as a daily experience.

There are many aspects of life here that leave Salvadorans with little control. For instance, my friend “Roberto”[1] is a 28-year old construction worker in the countryside. He operates a large and complicated paving machine, which few are trained to use in this tiny country. On a regular basis, his boss refuses to pay him. Roberto has lately been thinking of immigrating North via coyote because he knows there is no recourse for him here. The justice system operates on impunity, he explains to me. In fact, just 4% of cases ever make it to court[2]. He is struggling to support his wife and two young sons, and the likelihood of finding another job is slim. Roberto does not want to leave his family, so in one last effort, he and his wife have opened up a tiny store in their sheet-metal home. They see a local source of snacks, soap, and telephone cards as a way to support their community as well as to make a small profit.

Roberto’s story highlights not only lack of control, but also the response that I’m finding is common to Salvadorans facing injustices like this: seeking a solution in community. In another example, when a Canadian mining company called Pacific Rim began to explore northern El Salvador for possible open-pit mining for silver and gold, communities reacted. They know that open-pit mining requires the use of cyanide and the rerouting of major water sources in their tiny country. Experts tell them that after about five years of mining they would be left with environmental damage lasting hundreds of years, chemically-caused diseases in people and animals, and only a small percentage of the profit. The majority of the money would flow to Pacific Rim’s coffers.[3] Salvadorans know that this is what happens because it has already happened to their neighbors in Honduras, who were not able to keep foreign companies out. Salvadoran countryside communities, churches, schools, and families have protested time and time again since Pacific Rim began exploration in 2002; and in 2008, they achieved a true miracle: the free trade-addicted Salvadoran government proclaimed that it would not allow open-pit mining in its territory.[4]

Yet, in this world where money tends to buy control, Pacific Rim wants the last word. On April 30, 2009, the company filed a case against the Salvadoran government for “hundreds of millions of dollars” in lost potential profit, their legal recourse under the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). Under an identical clause in a similar free trade agreement, NAFTA, a US waste-disposal company that was refused permission to reopen a toxic waste disposal facility in an ecological protected zone in Mexico was awarded $16.7million for lost profit, and the Mexican state was forced to allow the company to dump.[5] It remains to be seen what will happen to El Salvador—and those who would be most affected by the decision, ordinary Salvadorans, once again have no control. In the meantime, they continue gathering to build morale and rally for their rights.

The way that Salvadorans respond to these injustices empowers me. Their community organization says: lack of control is not weakness. It might humble you, but it does not mean that you can give up. In fact, it is an invitation: to come together as a community, to build relationships with neighbors, to demand dignity. Whether packed together on buses or in protests, we seek solutions together.

[1] Name changed to protect privacy
[2] Statistic from the Tutela Legal, the human rights office of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Salvador

[3] http://esnomineria.blogspot.com/2008/11/articulos-de-prensa.html
[4] http://thesharefoundation.blogspot.com/2009_04_01_archive.html

[5] http://www.solidarity-us.org/node/977

Happy Six Months. I hope you were serious about that "grit" thing. Love, El Salvador.

I don't intend to do this often, but I'm about to embark on a brief personal update.

Today is the six month anniversary of Danielle's Big Move to El Salvador. In celebration, El Salvador has given me a gift that calls my bluff on that whole bit about having "grit." Or maybe it's the "grace" part. Anyhow, yesterday, I was diagnosed with Typhoid Fever.

Now, before anyone gets too worried about the disease with one of those names we only hear about in lists of things that George Washington Carver eradicated with his peanuts (or something like that): I have a milder form, and we caught it early. I'm officially on bed rest for 14 days. Unofficially, I expect to be up-and-at-'em in about a half hour.

I hope to use some of this time off to blog. That would be great, because there's a few points to be made here about the accessibility of modern medicine for people in my position who aren't being paid a foreigner's salary. In fact: let's do this now. My medicine cost me $110. Add that to the taxis I've taken to the hospital every day for the past three days to get this thing diagnosed ($18), and to the cost of the blood test that was inconclusive ($30), and to the fees for medical consultations ($40) and to the lost opportunity cost of being out of work for nearly three weeks. You arrive somewhere in the neighborhood of $498 dollars.

According to Equipo Maiz, a Salvadoran social research organization, the average factory worker here makes $162 dollars monthly. Factory work is common employment in El Salvador, especially for women who support families. The factories are allowed to pay what they do because they exist under the terms of the free trade agreement, CAFTA, negotiated by men and women in business suits who represent the interests of large corporations. In economic speak, these factories are called "foreign investment." The Salvadoran government needs to pander to this type of investment if it wishes to win the Neoliberal economic game. The logic that guides free trade treaties is that eventually, the profit generated by the sale of these many products produced cheaply will create more worldwide wealth (a "bigger pie"), which in 20 or 50 years should then trickle back to the men and women laboring in the factories and everyone will have what they need. Being able to afford to treat Typhoid Fever in the meantime doesn't get much play at the negotiating table.

In our world in the US, we already understand why Neoliberalism looks attractive to the business suits. Now, we might understand how an alternative to Neoliberalism could look attractive to someone making $162 a month who has a child with Typhoid.

So there you have not only a personal update, but also a rant that was-- quite literally-- feverish. Just call me Typhoid Mary.


-4 December 2008