Lots of recent thoughts.

1) when is immigration going to come up in the discussion over the economy and the "stimulus?" Up until now, the argument for immigration has been that immigrants were doing the jobs that Americans would not... but now that most Americans are in dire straits, it would seem that more would be willing to pick Strawberries or wash dishes. Which would mean we'd have less need for immigrant labor.

2) Perhaps even more importantly, the idea behind Obama's stimulus package is that it would a) create jobs, which would b) allow the newly employed to spend, which would c) allow the recipients of that spending to not file for bankruptcy, thus allowing a greater number of employees to stay employed. More or less, by creating jobs, the stimulus package would get more money flowing thru the economy. BUT, because most immigrants send a large percentage of their paycheck back to their families in their home countries, employing illegal immigrants would actually work against this idea.

It won't be long before this is brought up...

Wow, that last entry was a giant explosion teetering on the verge of incoherence... just close enough to the edge to exhilarate, but not actually falling into the pit of incomprehensiveness... I don't remember writing it, but it's a pretty accurate representation of the emotional terribleness that so much of my Peace Corps service involved. I cannot believe I've been back for five months... time flies when you're buried in books and trying to keep up with the demands of Law School. I'm much happier nowadays, but I'm occasionally struck by just how pointless my life can seem. My days consist of reading and learning about practicing The Law, but I'm producing nothing and helping nobody but myself. I thought I'd spent too much time stuck in my own head in El Salvador, but geez, now... it becomes especially difficult to come to terms with the self-absorption required for school during exams, when the learnings accumulated over the prior months must be demonstrated in the course of a four-hour exam period, and whatever is produced on that exam paper is arbitrarily judged and graded. I'm not contributing any value to the world, just plugging away. But I make it sound so negative. I've actually really enjoyed the intellectual stimulation and having a pretty clear mandate for what I need to accomplish in the course of a day. I do not, however, enjoy winter.

Well, it’s been a bit, hasn’t it? The political difficulties I discussed in my prior entry have only worsened, but I’ve been able to distance myself from them enough that I’m not too bothered at the moment. As for work, I put together a day-long aids awareness/ gender equity workshop for students in Nueva Esparta, a two- day informational conference attended by about 50 volunteers in the Eastern region, fought long and hard with El Salvador’s completely incompetent Education Ministry so several schools in my municipality could receive a large shipment of donated computers, have since begun training the schools’ teachers and Directors on the computers’ use, and so on and so forth.

I can’t believe it’s already almost March and I’ll be returning home in only 5 months. I’m looking forward to many aspects of my native land but realize that El Salvador has become my reality and returning will certainly be an adjustment. Oh, what it’ll be like to expect efficiency, well-stocked supermarket shelves, wireless Internet connections, conversations in my native language and concern about only my own affairs!

Note: I define “My Own Affairs” as my personal health and mental well-being, daily work/school/other responsibilities, and concern for the well-being of my friends and family. I certainly don’t mean to imply that at the moment I’m selflessly crusading for the benefit of others—I spend plenty of time taking care of myself and thinking about my family and friends- yet I can't help but expend a great deal of mental and emotional energy concerned with the difficult- (at times nearly impossible) -to -solve-affairs of my Salvadoran community. To do so is almost inevitable as I’m confronted with so many problems on a daily basis… and the concern I can’t help but feel is far different than that experienced by a concerned individual living in the first world. The first-world-dweller has the luxury of being detached from the “need” and can reconcile their guilt simply through donating money to a cause or buying fair trade coffee.

Let it be said that first-worlders SHOULD be concerned and that donating money or spending conscientiously is valuable and important. But being a first-worlder in the third world means that awareness of needs does not go away. And although the needs are almost always apparent the solution is not. And neither one’s concern for the situation nor the answer to the problem can be purchased away-- monetary solutions often cannot solve ingrained structural problems.

For instance, it isn’t simply that a student doesn’t have money to go to school—even if you can help a qualified student receive a scholarship, the parents and student still have to recognize that attending school is an investment and should be favored over the more immediate gratification of earning money through working or emigrating to the states. And the problems of teen pregnancies and people having more kids than they can support aren’t the result of a material lack of condoms or family planning educational materials, it’s that sexual taboos, masculine cultural norms, and short-term thinking result in far too many young mothers, fatherless children, and overpopulation. Just a few examples. And when you’re surrounded by these difficult-to-solve problems you can’t help but try and become preoccupied with constructing solutions—some of which can make a small change, some of which can’t be implemented, but the point is that one feels a consistent responsibility to do something about these issues.

I absolutely can say my presence in El Salvador has made a difference and I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished. And of course I’m only one person and not so presumptuous as to imagine I’d be able to solve all the world’s problems. But when so many problems surround you and your primary reason for being present is to try and solve some of them you can’t help but find yourself preoccupied… not only because as a volunteer it’s my responsibility, nor because my heart bleeds altruism and love, but because my Salvadoran friends and adopted community truly mean something to me and it hurts to see them in crappy situations. And I’ve noticed that as my time comes near a close I can justify spending less time thinking about solutions simply because I won’t be around long enough to implement them. And doing so has been disturbingly refreshing. It’s strange to imagine what it’ll be like to once again be in the United States and not be faced with the need to care. I suppose my disposition towards giving a hoot won't go away but the hoot-giving won’t feel quite so overwhelming or imperative.

It’s so difficult to describe the political (and thus, personal) difficulties I encounter as a Peace Corps volunteer here in my particular pueblo in El Salvador…

For example, the director of a school in a poor canton community called Ocotillo asked that I give a talk on deforestation and environmental awareness to the community. Both myself and the school director live within the pueblo, and the canton is about an hour’s drive up a rocky, rough road. Sounds neutral enough, right? Yet the canton community has supported other parties in past elections, and it just-so-happens that the school director is THE political enemy of the mayor. So the drive up to Ocotillo was peppered with jabs at the mayor such as “boy, the road up to Ocotillo is really terrible, huh? Well, you know the mayor hasn’t a thing to pave it. All the Alcaldia projects go to pro-ARENA communities.” I actually did speak up to defend the mayor, because I know how limited the Alcaldia’s funds are and how many necessities are in the municipio—although the road to Ocotillo is terrible, there are plenty of terrible roads and they’re being worked on slowly. Of course, funds are being inequitably directed towards projects in those communities that have supported the mayor, but to some extent that’s simply politics…

Anyway, when the mayor found out that I went to Ocotillo, his face twisted into agony and I’ve been having to work to repair the relationship over the past days. Despite any mistrust I have of him, maintaining a positive relationship is essential to implementing successful projects. At one point I thought I could affect attitudes and be a “democracy warrior” by openly working with both sides, but I’ve come to realize that my actions were perceived in the community as betrayal (especially by the mayor, who perceives a lack of political support as equivalent to a lack of personal support) . If I was here for a lifetime maybe I could ride out the storm, but the mayor has such a stranglehold on power in the town that if I want to do anything productive in my two years here I’ve gotta work to stay on his good side. And on top of all that, my “official counterpart” is the alcaldia. Obviously this doesn’t officially mean political loyalty, but in reality and the way loyalty is perceived “on the ground,” I’m afraid that supporting an individual is perceived as supporting the party.

And I angered the school director because I defended the mayor, and I suspect his invitation to speak on the environment was actually to advance his political ends rather than the health of the community, as my presence accompanying him would be perceived by many as a form of supporting him against the mayor. And I of course pissed of the mayor because I accompanied this guy—but how could I refuse a supposedly neutral invitation for an environmental talk?

And I feel powerless. I see that there is a need in Ocotillo and can’t remedy it myself, so try to talk to the mayor in a very neutral, easy manner—“boy, that road up to Ocotillo is really terrible. When do you think it might get paved?”—yet I have no say in any decisions, I can only try to use my gringo influence, and essentially all decisions are made by the mayor alone, and the only factors influencing him are the party leaders. They come visit the alcaldia in their finely pressed Arena shirts and have secret meetings with the mayor and tell him where to direct projects. And I know what they talk about in those meetings because the mayor very innocently tells me and other people—many times in an excited manner-- because he sees nothing wrong with making decisions in this manner. Which also makes things difficult, because he strikes me more as a naïve person than one who is malicious. And not only is it hard to hate or turn your back on somebody who has such a limited worldview, but it’s next to impossible to try and create a change or influence him using any sort of intellectualism. His worldview and attitude are shaped by a culture of class-based caste differences, a long history of corrupt (or at least self-serving) Latin American politics, and rock-solid party affiliations fashioned by an us vs. them approach that hasn’t changed since the end of the civil war.

But then, it’s amazing how things are construed. When we’ve had events—for example, last week’s inependence day celebration—I always try to lend a hand and help set up by carrying sound equipment, cases of soda, whatever. The mayor doesn’t do this and I certainly don’t need to, but I don’t want to seem too proud or “too worthy” to help out like everybody else. But when talking to people, I realize that those who oppose the mayor assume that he’s my boss and I’m simply being servile to him (because he sure as fuck isn’t carrying anything).

And oh, there´s so much more.

Here´s a photo of myself and 16-year-old Gabriel at an environmental camp held last April.

We be gettin´ silly. I planned the camp with other volunteers and it consisted of three days of active, fun learning about the environment, and kids were crying on the last day because they had such a great time.

Opportunities that we take for granted in the states, such as attending a camp, just don´t exist for most of these kids.

Last night I found out that young Gabriel is currently in a US jail awaiting deportation because he got caught trying to cross the border. Apparently he went looking for more opportunities.

I’ve been here for over a year now, and in the past months I’ve noticed a marked increase in the informal markets, both in the actual number of people selling products on buses or streets as well as the variety of products being sold. And when I first arrived in the country the vendors were almost exclusively middle-aged women, and recently there’ve been even greater numbers of male and children vendors. For instance, on my last cross-country bus ride to San Salvador I saw a male campesino selling half-liter liquor bottles filled with honey. Yes, honey. Further, within the capital city, streetcorners are often populated by women slapping together pupusas and frying them on small gas powered plancha stoves, but I’ve noticed an even greater number of these informal vendors trying to scrape together a few quarters by clogging Salvadoran’s arteries.

I can only assume this increase in vendors is indicative of a worsening Salvadoran economy. In the US or other developed countries, an economic “pinch” would also force many who were homemakers or students into the labor market, but the shift wouldn’t be so publicly obvious because they’d be working in the factories, restaurants, or offices that make up the formal labor market. In countries like El Salvador, though, where formal jobs hardly exist, the “pinch” is shared publicly because one’s only option for income is to hawk something on the streets.

Those who can live "comfortably" here are those who have money sent from family working (legally or not) in the states. Those who are struggling and send their kids to work in the fields rather than attend elementary school tend to be those without money coming from the states. And even those kids who do graduate from high school will then emigrate illegally to the US because there are simply no jobs available in this country.

Immigration to the US-- legal during the war and after the earthquakes as Salvadorans emigrated with refugee status, but now almost exclusively done illegally—is the pressure valve keeping this country from either collapsing or exploding. Although jobs and resources are scarce enough at the moment, the level of poverty and percentage of unemployed would be even greater if the millions of Salvadorans currently in the US were competing for the same number of jobs and resources. And the societal unrest that should accompany such a lack of employment and rich-poor discrepancy is reduced because the incomes of so many poor Salvos are supplemented by money sent from family in the US.

So although it’s typically the US right-wing that supports curbing immigration and deporting illegals, and the left wing that favors some level of amnesty for undocumented workers, I wonder if the idea of deportation resulting in revolution would change the debate? Closing the immigration “pressure valve” would almost certainly result in the election of a left wing-ruler (if not a genuine armed revolution). Preventing the installation of another potential Chavez in Latin America may be enough for some on the right to support amnesty, and for some leftists to call for deportation.

Personally, I think the left wing in El Salvador is naïvely dedicated to romantic ideas of revolution and stuck in outmoded socialist ideology, and I don’t know how much better the country would run with a leftist government. And the Salvadoran right wing seems to care more about political power and appearances than adherence to any particular ideology. And the US certainly can’t continue allowing undocumented immigration to continue as it has. Don’t ask me for a solution, I just work here.

So on the topic of the economy, the informal economy is often the only way people can scrape together a living. There’s a guy who wanders my town hawking random items he picks up at the market in Santa Rosa—Sponge Bob Square Pants bath towels, shoe polish, children’s underpants, and so on. And there’s a pickup truck that drives through town once a week buying aluminum and other metals at $.50/ pound, so despite all the trash littering the ground, you’ll never find an aluminum can—no sooner does a can hit the ground than it’s recovered by a collector (likewise, the phones are so often dead because the market for metals impels the unscrupulous to steal and sell the copper phone lines).

And oh, the bus vendors. Every bus ride is populated by vendors selling everything from sliced mangoes or watermelon (in plastic bags) to fresco or atol drinks (in plastic bags) to pupusas (in plastic bags) to quesadilla (in plastic bags), to big hunks of barbequed meat (on a stick). Although it may be annoying to have a bag of fried yucca waved in your face as the vendor repetitively states the baggie’s contents in an atonal monotone, these people really work hard. Peeling, chopping, and bagging their goods for hours, then sucking in diesel fumes as they chase bus after bus, squeezing through narrow aisles past other vendors and passengers (none of whom are particularly narrow themselves), just to earn a few quarters and scrape together some sort of existence.

And on a semi-related side note, have I mentioned how EVERYTHING comes in a bag? Any item purchased, regardless of size--a pack of gum, for instance-- or current state of bagged-ness— a small bag of sliced mangoes—will then be placed into another bag. And drinks such as soda, atoll, or even coffee are bagged. And people will act bewildered, even offended, if you refuse a bag and carry the item as-is.

I wonder how much money stores and vendors would save if they reduced the number of bags given out with purchases?

And I wonder if the savings would be enough to offset the costs of cleaning the bathrooms and providing a few rolls of toilet paper?

Back in El Salvador after a few weeks in the old US of A. Despite a full year away from my native soil, not much had changed and I didn’t really experience the “readjustment” issues that we’re often warned against… the aspects of American culture that bothered me before I left were still present, as were those that I had been longing for over the past year. I had a difficult time fully conveying just what it is I’m doing here or what my life now consists of… I suppose this isn’t surprising, but a few points I had to continually reiterate surprised me:

1. I live alone (alone!) in a rural El Salvador community, and the closest gringo is one and a half hours away

2. I have no choice but to speak Spanish all the time, as essentially nobody here speaks English

Anywho, the adjustment back to Salvadoran life was more difficult, mostly because I really missed my family and friends. I was welcomed back wholeheartedly by the people in my community, though, and have begun to readjust… I was also welcomed back by simultaneous gastrointestinal infections from amoebas, bacteria, and blastosis/ giardia.

Despite the sickness, I’m swinging back into action with a renewed nutrition-education campaign, computer classes for municipal employees, and the implementation of a plastic recycling program. Plus, the world wide computer exchange computers that I’m bringing to local schools have begun to arrive in-country. We’ll see what kind of ridiculous unforeseen difficulties will arise to frustrate my attempts, but I’m optimistic at the moment.

The one-eyed bandit's mother apparently reported to the Fiscalia (El Salvador's federal investigation agency) that the alcalde paid off the police to kill her son, and the alcalde then (flexed his ARENA party muscle) and reported to the Fiscalia that the killing was unprovoked and thus Nueva Esparta's entire police force should be replaced and the now-former officers investigated. And so it was done. Plus, apparently an armed family member of the one-eyed man unsuccessfully went hunting for the Alcalde last week... and to top off the week, my "official counterpart" in the Alcaldia was unexpectedly fired. All of which, especially the final event, sorta turns my world upside down, inside out, and round and round.

Plus plus, during these dizzying proceedings of the past week, I was literally dizzy and nauseous as my insides were as runny as the skies. Yes, the rainy season has begun, and yes, my intestines are battling both parasites AND bacteria.

So after several days without improvement, I finally was instructed to come to the capital to undergo a proper health exam. Upon arriving in San Salvador, I boarded a city bus and realized that I should really take more pictures of the bustling capital to share with those back home... the capital is undoubtedly dangerous, and the fear of becoming a target by pulling out my digital camera had prevented me from snapping pictures in the past. But I haven't encountered any difficulties after having been in the country for almost a year, and everybody on the bus appeared fairly safe... as I considered this, a man sitting in the front of the bus pulled a gun on the driver and forced him to stop, and the guy sitting immediately in front of me jumped up and started asking everybody for their money and cell phones. I threw my backpack on the ground and kicked it under the seat, pulled out the change I had in my front pocket, and handed it to the guy as he approached me. He asked for my cell phone and I sorta played dumb gringo, sorta didn't know what was going on (what with the sickness and the rapid progression of events), and before he could ask again his companion signaled that they should flee. It turns out there was a police officer standing on the corner daydreaming, and I would assume the bandits saw him and ran. My fellow bus passengers then had to indicate to the officer that we were robbed and that perhaps he should chase down the culprits.

I treated the death of the one-eyed bandit rather lightly, but yesterday the deceased´s mother visited the Alcaldia in hysterics looking for the Alcalde because she feels he was ultimately responsible for her son´s death (i.e. the alcalde ordered the police to take out her son). At first I dismissed this as a simple rumor but everybody is acting strangely and not giving me straight answers and the Alcalde ran off to the department capital today to ¨deal with something related to this issue¨ and the atmosphere has again become very strange and I just don´t understand this country.

Last Thursday Nueva Esparta´s police shot and killed a man. They claim he was responsible not only for last month´s attempt on the Alcalde´s life, but for a recent spate of robberies in the municipio. No proof has been put forward for either of these claims, but dead men tell no tales… and the guy only had one eye!

What other proof could you need? Case closed!

Mother's day took place on May 10 in El Salvador and is a highly celebrated holiday, on par with, say, Independence Day... all businesses close, for example, and while out running at 6:30am, I was offered a beer. In the US a Mother's Day champagne brunch is fairly normal but it's hardly a holiday based around drinking. Maybe it's just the company I keep, but Mother's Day El Salvador consisted of killing a chicken, making soup, then drinking beer and watching Spanish soccer. How unexpected this country can be.

(a day in the life, continued from below...) I’m often invited to people’s houses for lunch but really prefer cooking my own food to the overcooked-oversalted-overgreased meals available at other’s houses… anyway, I eat, then work for an hour or so on the nutrition-information posters I’ve been making to hang in the Unidad de Salud. I bring the posters to the Alcaldia so the employees can proofread what I’ve written before finalizing the poster. Despite the fact that the Alcaldia employees are educated professionals (“educated” being defined as having completed high-school), they too are shocked to learn from the poster that soda is really really bad for you. While there, I help a few employees with some computer issues… another project I’m working on is improving employee-employer relations within the Alcaldia and promoting efficiency, but it’s not a priority today as the Alcaldia is undergoing an audit.

While in the Alcaldia, I help a woman translate a US visitor’s visa application so she can hopefully visit her son living in Houston. I say hopefully because the bar to receive a visitor’s visa is set very high to prevent immigration-- thus, many Salvadoran parents haven't seen their kids for many years, or their grandkids ever... I’ve had to help several people with their applications because the US State Department prints parts of the application and instructions in English. Although the State Department unwittingly commits a great number of bureaucratic errors, I’d imagine that printing English instructions for non-English speaking visa applicants is a “happy error,” or an unofficial, non-formal way of further raising the bar for visa seekers.

Just before the Alcaldia closes, we notice that there are horses grazing in the town’s very pretty and well- maintained central park, so we throw mangoes to chase them away.

After the Alcaldia closes I head home. Many days I'm completely exhausted and don't want to interact with anybody or speak another fumbling word of Spanish, but today I'm feeling lonely. I head over to Don Beto’s house, where I’m always welcomed and whose family I’ve kinda adopted as a substitute for my own. I help him rake and water his small grassy backyard for an hour or so—backyards of this sort are not common in El Sal, and helping out with American-style yardwork is kinda relaxing and helps remind me of home. Further, once we’re done (or more accurately, once we’re about halfway through) he sends one of his kids on a run to buy us a few Pilseners. Yardwork and beer, kinda like home.

Of course much is new because I haven’t posted anything for such a long time.

Every day is completely different, but I’ll give an account of a relatively average recent day, starting with the morning, will post about the second part of the day when I get the chance to write it.

I wake up at around 5:30 as the sun rises. I do so not because the roosters are crowing or dogs barking (they do so regardless of day or night) but because I go to bed at around 8:30pm like the rest of the town. Besides, if I want to go running I need to get an early start before it becomes dangerously hot. The town starts to rouse itself around the same hour— the kid who delivers bread calls his customers out by ringing his bicycle bell and I can smell the tortillas being prepared- and I listen to the BBC over shortwave while I get myself good and roused. Once ready, I grab a handful of rocks to throw at angry dogs and get running—I’ve three or four routes I usually take, but one of my favorites is up a mountain to canton Ocotillo, seen while standing in the pueblo by the cell phone towers .

It’s an hour run up to the towers, 30 minutes back down, and I stop halfway through the run and eat a mango from the ground to refuel. Plus, near the top there’s an avocado tree, so I carry a pair of avocadoes on the return trip. Once I get back to the pueblo I stop and buy requeson (a dairy product whose closest equivalent is cottage cheese, made by boiling the milk protein left over after making the cream and cheese) from one of the ladies that make and sell it every morning. Like many of the homemade goods available in the community, there are no signs or advertisements proclaiming a product for sale, everybody just knows where to go. I try to buy from everybody that sells it so as not to offend— in the same small- town, word-of-mouth way that everybody knows who sells what, everybody also knows who’s doing what, and word would spread pretty quickly if I only frequented one vendor. Further, I’ve gotta do so for political reasons—the mayor’s mother is one of the requeson makers, and from what I’ve gathered, the other vendor near me is from a family that supported the other party in the last election. To many in the community, buying from one or the other can be a relatively political act.

Once back to the house, I stretch and eat some requeson with toasted tortillas. BBC news only comes across the shortwave radio for an hour or two every morning, but flip through the channels because sometimes I can pick up English language-news from China or Ukraine (yes, they broadcast in English)…yet this morning the only news on the shortwave in my native language comes from a fiery preacher announcing judgment day near.

Today is Tuesday, so I go to the Unidad de Salud (local health clinic) to make my weekly nutrition presentation to patients in the waiting room. Some stare at me blankly as I speak, others nod their head, still others giggle, but everybody pays attention. The presentation basically states that “being obese is bad because you get diabetes and hypertension and have heart attacks” and “food is energy, and energy you consume but don’t use makes you obese,” and “sugar and oil are concentrated energy,” and “soda is pure sugar and can make you fat (drinking one can of soda is the same as eating two tortillas!!!)” and “grape soda and orange soda is soda, not juice,” and so on. All of which, surprisingly, is new information for most people. I then pass out a sheet of easy, healthy, recognizable, and culturally appropriate recipes— from my experience, Salvadorans are VERY hesitant to try new foods and don’t tend to like unrecognizable flavors, so I actually spent a lot of time assembling the recipes and trying to get the Spanish correct.

After leaving the Unidad de Salud, I stop at the post office to send a letter. As often occurs, this ends up being a 30 minute ordeal because the postage price is inexact and there are a limited number of stamp denominations available, so we have to run a series of addition equations with the available stamps to find the appropriate combination. All the stamps come in odd denominations of “$.87” or “$.04,” despite the fact that sending the letter costs $1.03. If El Salvador would only print one or two cent stamps we wouldn’t have this problem… or perhaps it’s just that Nueva Esparta’s post office guy doesn’t go to the central office enough to update the stamp collection.

I then head towards the Alcaldia, of course having to stop a few times on the way to make niceties with people… the conversations usually consist of people commenting about the weather or about how far I ran in the morning, both of which usually inspire a guttural, exclamatory “hahk!” (not a word, but a sound many people in my town use to accent conversations, similar to a “whew!” or low whistle, usually uttered while quickly turning the head as if spitting over the shoulder).

So I eventually make it to the Alcaldia, where I don´t have anything particular activities to carry out today, but I always try to make my appearance to find out what´s going on in the town and local government. Usually meetings and events just seem to pop up without any forewarning, and informal conversations can really reveal a lot about what people aren´t telling me directly. So chat for a few hours with the employees, find out about upcoming meetings, head to the house for lunch…

You know the mayor? Somebody just tried to kill him. The would-be assassins stopped his car with a roadblock just outside the pueblo on the only route into town (from which there is a vantage point that would allow them to anticipate his arrival; fired one bullet that passed through the driver´s side window and exited the passenger window, narrowly missing the mayor´s head; shot a second bullet that hit the post in- between the front and rear driver´s side windows and would have struck the mayor had it penetrated; and shot out the rear tire with a third bullet as he escaped.

This was certainly not a chance incident or robbery attempt, and the culprits seemed intent on a kill rather a warning... since then, he´s received further threats and has hired a security guard for the evenings. He has a wonderful family who has always been good to me, and although they´ve remained very composed, I think they´re fully aware that when individuals are vengeful enough to attempt a murder, they´re not going to give up after one attempt.

Yet, this incident has made clear that despite my best attempts to stay connected and aware, there are obviously goings- on that I´m unaware of. I certainly don´t know of anything that the mayor has done that could possibly anger anybody enough to try killing him. And I know that political affiliations run deep (and in such a small town, the political is personal), but perhaps I´ve misinterpreted just how deep.

I´m not personally in any danger (the Peace Corps checked things out and agreed, and if I ever felt threatened, I was told a site change could be arranged),but needless to say, I´m distancing myself from anything very political right now focusing more on working with the Unidad de Salud.

So recently three ARENA diputados (senators) were murdered in Guatemala, including the son of ARENA party founder Robert D’Aubouissoin (an individual the party still treats as a visionary despite the UN Truth Commission having proven that he personally ordered the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero and controlled the death squads during the war). The brutal, obviously targeted murders took place on the 15th anniversary of the elder D’Auboissoin’s death, and the plot has only continued to thicken as four high-level Guatemalan police officers were arrested for the murders and then promptly killed in jail…

I happened to be reading some ARENA party literature on the same day the three diputados were murdered and was shocked at the explicit divisiveness of the party’s guiding philosophy. I’d been treating my work with other groups in the community as fulfilling my “politically neutral” role and brushed off suggestions that I was wrongfully “helping the other side” by interacting with non-ARENA affiliates. I argued that competing opinions and varied voices contributes to the marketplace of ideas, promoted the idea that only through sifting and winnowing can truth be found, claimed cooperation and collaboration makes for greater development, and so on. I looked at my working with both sides as an opportunity to informally educate people about democracy. Reading the party literature showed me, though, that even on the philosophical level, the party doesn’t have much of an operating political ideology beyond “we are the ARENA party and all who oppose us are absolutely wrong.” This proved that the divisive, closed-minded attitudes I encountered aren’t simply the result of personal rivalries unique to my sleepy little isolated pueblo, they’re the basis for the party’s existence.

The newspaper recently featured pictures from the burial of the murdered diputados, and although I previously recognized how insane party affiliations can be, I was still shocked to see the coffins draped not in the flag of El Salvador, but in the flag of the ARENA party. It’s certainly strange that a member of a party that calls itself nationalist wouldn’t be buried under the flag of the country he supposedly so loved… yet the symbolism of being instead buried under the party colors demonstrates that party loyalty comes even before dedication to one’s country.

It’s becoming increasingly clear to me that for many, the war has never ended here. The fighting came to a close with signed peace accords and inclusion in the political process, yet neither side ever received satisfaction or a feeling that they won… thus the same wartime divide-and-conquer, us versus them attitudes have persisted among the party faithful.

Yesterday I went to a funeral. Although I’d been to other events to honor the dead and still haven’t been to a funeral where I’d known the recently departed, I’d attended past funerals with others who were (like me) mostly going as a “community responsibility” and weren’t particularly close to the dead. Yesterday, though, I went to the funeral of a man who’d been a good friend of my buddy Don Beto so I had a chance to experience the more human, emotional aspects of the grieving that inevitably accompanies a passing. Although the rituals of a Salvadoran funeral differ from those in the states-- everybody is served coffee with a tamale and slice of sweet bread, the wake runs all through the evening, everybody sings while proceeding to the cemetery on foot from the church—the individuals really affected by the death behaved very similarly to Americans. Everybody struggles for something to say to the surviving family, people laugh through tears as they tell stories about the departed, and then a few of the guys sneak off to the bar to drown their sorrows.

I'm officially 25 years and one month today, but on my birthday last month the Alcaldia employees bought me a cake and shoved my face in it (as is customary).

I then went to a cerveceria with my buddy Don Beto (the short one in the first picture) and Evita, a volunteer from my region...

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the need for nutrition charlas in the pueblo, but confronting what is probably the biggest problem—sugar consumption through soda and junk food—is almost a cultural insult, considering that every meeting absolutely MUST include refrigerios (in the form of a coke and a cookie)… even the Unidad de Salud (local government health clinic) hands out these unhealthy snacks when they have a meeting, and since that's where I'd be giving the charla, goodness gracious how mixed the message would be.

Which leads me to another thought-- how much El Salvador (and latin america in general) could benefit from the US cutting off it's corn subsidies. The direct economic impact of these subsidies on Latin American farmers is well documented-- the livelihood of farmers here has historically relied on growing corn (as it's a huge part of the diet), so since NAFTA, they’ve been devastated by the drop in corn prices from opening markets to subsidized American corn.

Further, corn subsidies make corn syrup and it’s derivitaves (the sodas and snacks that contribute greatly to obesity) really cheap and readily available, which leads not only to negative health effects, but increased external economic costs to an already strapped society by using limited government funds to pay for obesity related diseases.

If US corn was no longer subsidized, corn prices would rise leading to more money for the farmer and less consumption of the newly expensive corn-syrup based junk food (assuming, of course, that the extra income from the rise in corn prices wouldn’t go towards paying for the newly expensive junk food).

Wow, I felt like I’ve genuinely accomplished something, contributed, and made a subtle difference—the employees received their requested raises, and the arguments justifying the raises echoed what I’d been saying (subtly) for weeks. My presence here matters.

I suppose I should mention how I passed the holidays. I spent both Christmas and New Years with the large extended family of my buddy Don Beto (his given name is Alberto, but because men in Latin America are all named Alberto, Carlos or Jose, nicknames are common… he’s a jolly 48 year old retired guy with a huge heart, so if I had to find a nickname in English it would definitely be Uncle Al), We ate tamales, drank Salvadoran beer to excess, and danced a little bit (people here love dancing). Fireworks are also a big part of Christmas and New Years, so the streets were covered with perhaps two inches of firecracker paper by the end of the night. New Years was a similar celebration but I more enjoyable because people were a little bit more transient, visiting a number of houses and dancing in the streets, rather than staying isolated within their own homes. There were also more fireworks. In prior blog entries I think I’ve mentioned the conservative attitudes towards drinking, but Christmas and New Years are exceptions… however, when people don’t drink often, they don’t know how to drink and I saw alot of people acting silly and passing out at 6pm. As I’ve also mentioned before, though, Salvadorans are incredibly good natured and friendly and I didn’t notice anybody acting aggressively or fighting.

I’ve maintained my interest in the study of law and have been very intrigued by the codes, regulations, and laws in this country, particularly those that supposedly govern the municipal governments… I believe they were written with help from US advisors, so they’re actually a great foundation for a decentralized, democratic, inclusive, participatory form of governance, but of course they aren’t enforced. This lack of enforcement is troubling and frustrating coming from a country where the rule of law is taken for granted, but doubly so since I’ve had some exposure to the legal field through my old job at the personal injury law firm… there, if I could find statutes or case law that would support our client (for instance, that one is eligible for reimbursement for time without a vehicle regardless of whether another is rented,) I could wave it in the face of the defendant's insurance company and it was treated as The Word and obeyed accordingly. Working with an Alcaldia/ municipal government in El Salvador, I can identify deficiencies or injustices in operations or governance (not paying employees overtime, not holding open meetings, etc), find precisely where this is prohibited in the statutes, and it means nothing. The unenforced laws, codes, and ordinances are worth little more than the paper they’re written upon. And because I’m working at the “grassroots” level and also need to serve a diplomatic role, I can do nothing about the enforcement of these statutes.

Recently, though, the Alcalde had some complaints about the Alcaldia office staff, and the Municipal board discussed “enforcing the laws” with the purpose of cracking down on the employees… of course, if the board members were to actually know what full and fair application of the laws would involve (as opposed to arbitrary enforcement), they wouldn’t be so eager. Still, they gave their blessing for me to put together a document compiling the important parts of the Municipal codes as they relate to employees, primarily just to placate me rather than out of any actual interest. In addition to helping with my Spanish, I found reading the logically organized legal terminology much easier to understand than most slang-laden daily conversations. I presented the document to the municipal leaders and although they didn’t read it immediately, the material is now easily accessible and the content of the laws are just a little bit more concrete… further, I also distributed the document to the employees, who truly seemed to appreciate it (and gave me a thank you card).

Employee policies have actually changed since my contribution and the Alcaldia is now honoring some aspects of employee rights. Although I can’t definitively say that the change was purely my doing-- the Alcalde didn’t say to me “oh, the law says this? We’ll obey it right away!” (for him to do so would require admitting he was wrong or acted inappropriately, thus ‘losing face’)-- I know I played a part.

[let me say that one can't argue against remesas on a personal, instinctual level. If I work and earn money in another country, what gives anybody the right to say that I shouldn't be able to share that money with my family?]

It’s a pretty standard free-market, conservative economic trope that money directly in the hands of the people (rather than into the coffers of government, who’d then distribute that money through programs) is a more efficient manner of developing an economy and country… to some extent, El Salvador’s remesas put this idea into action, as money from Salvadorans working in the states is transferred tax- free to their family members. At first glance, the experience would seem to discredit the free-market theory: a disproportionate amount of those dollars are spent on extravagant consumer goods (big screen TVs, brand name clothing, flashy cell phones, etc), rather than education, a decent roof, infrastructure, etc. I suppose Friedman would argue that the recipients of those remesas aren’t working for them, and therefore don’t have the same sense of ownership and responsibility over a dollar as one who earns it… Initially, remesa recipients will make “rational economic decisions” in order to satisfy their most basic needs (food and clothing). However, after meeting what one considers their “basic needs” (which are somewhat defined by what one is used to, so those who’ve grown accustomed to living under dire conditions can live without what others would consider “necessary”) one’s standard of life is more immediately improved by a DVD player than investment, thusly leading to an “irrational economic decision”…

In this situation, education left to the free market (which in reality is the case in rural El Salvador) to compete with coca cola and cell phones is bound to fail, Even routing remesa money towards better uses (such as scholarships) is a limited improvement, as the children still are attending overcrowded, substandard schools…

I’m not so naïve to think that simply throwing money at a problem leads to improvement. I really can’t speak for what other factors lead to a better educational system but money is undoubtedly one important part. Further, in the case of El Sal, I particularly wonder how much better the government would distribute dollars towards education than the market. With such a politically divided culture, aid would only reach those who supported the administration during the prior election, regardless of where the greatest needs may lie.

The Santa Claus story isn’t particularly prominent here in El Salvador, partially because few gifts are given (in some families due to custom, others because money simply isn’t available). But the season has me thinking about what the myth meant to me.

Although I was raised with some exposure to Christianity and the idea of a higher power, the image of Santa Claus as an almighty being who knows undoubtedly whether I’d been naughty or nice throughout the year helped guide some of my earliest moral decisions… looking back, I was a very well behaved kid and never was tempted to commit any serious sins, but for those minor moral dilemmas which did arise (should I glance at my classmate’s answer to #2? Should I disobey my Mom and eat another cookie? Should I return this borrowed pencil or just keep it for myself? Should I admit to breaking my sister’s toy or plead ignorance?), the idea that Santa Claus would see my actions, judge accordingly, and that said judgment would have real world material ramifications-- no presents under the tree and a lump of coal in the stocking!-- impelled me greatly to take the proper path. With Christianity, one only had to confess their sins to be absolved, but with my childhood “faith” in Santaism, judgment was passed with no chance for appeal. If I committed enough wretched acts to get my name on the “naughty” list, Christmas—the greatest time of year—would be ruined, I would be exposed as “naughty” in front of my entire family, and my world would thusly be devastated. I was too young to really conceive of death or the end of the world, so part of what made Christmas so exciting and anticipated each year was the overwhelming fear that Christmas morning would be a disaster. Christmas Morning and Judgment Day were one and the same for me, my four horsemen of the apocalypse were Santa’s twelve tiny reindeer.

Article in the Washington Post about remittances and millennium project funds:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/07/AR2006120701342.html

Also, in regards to my prior entry, meeting all the expatriates reminded me how, despite my blog being in english, my writings aren't inaccessible to people in my community... which makes it hard to express and frustrations or doubts I may have. Which gives all of you another reason to maintain direct contact with me.

I doubt anybody is paying attention to this blog any longer because I've been so terrible about updating it, but I've finally got a computer and will be able to compose entries more regularly. Promise promise.

Too much to really report over the past month or months... I love receiving emails and letters, though, so those who've been maintaining contact with me have some idea of what I've been doing. One more reason to keep me informed on your lives in the states. So I'll start with the most recent events and maybe work back.

Anywho, Nueva Esparta has just wrapped up it's fiestas titulares (a week-long event corresponding to the week allotted to the town’s patron saint, according the “church calendar”)… this is the week that the Nueva Espartan expatriates who’ve been working in the states (all illegally, although those who’re visiting have been there long enough to gain citizenship through what the Republicans would call amnesty) come back to visit and party. I’m the first Peace Corps volunteer here since before the war over 30 years ago, so more or less the first gringo in recent memory. The guys who’ve left associate the gringos with “over there,” and have their week or two per year where they return home and don’t see any gringoes… the gringos are associated with “over there,” where I know these guys bust their ass and inevitably have to deal with anti-immigrant “go back to your country” bullshit. But they’ve been ridiculously warm, welcoming, and hospitable to me cause they know how hard it is to exist alone in a foreign country and adjust to the culture and language. I haven’t had to endure anything like what they’ve dealt with, and not once have they implied that I have it easier than them, but their generosity and warmth has been incredible.

Also made me realize how much my simple presence here can really mean—in a sleepy little community where things don’t change, a foreigner joining the community and being present at their soccer games, dances, and community events lends credence and makes it seem like somebody else cares.