fishing on the rio lempa

Of course, there are beautiful places close to me as well. One of the best things Jonathan and I did when we were in my site was go out on a little fishing boat on the Rio Lempa, El Salvador's biggest river, which runs right by my site. Don Edilberto, the president of one of the community development organizations I work with, agreed to take us out and we spent 3 beautiful hours out on the water and got to watch some local fisherman at work. Then we came back to his house to eat delish fresh fish soup that his wife had prepared. All of this of course was free, the generosity of Salvadorans never ceases to amaze me.

The pictures above are of me and Jonathan on the river bank. Jonathan helping out some fisherman, the Rio Lempa, the table that was so beautifully set when we got back to Don Edilberto's house, and some of Don Edilberto's adorable family.

Perquin

One of the places Jonathan and I visited was Perquin, which is in the north of the country and thus more mountainous and much cooler than my site. In addition to being very scenic, it was also the capital of the rebel forces during the civil war. We went on a very interesting tour of the area with Serafin, a tour guide and former guerrilla. Above are pictures of us hiking and then later at the museum, where you can see a picture of Jonathan with Serafin in front of several American-made planes that were brought down by the rebels. The next picture is of the rocket launchers that helped bring down those planes, some of which, Serafin said, where sold to the rebels by the right-wing Contras in Nicaragua who were tempted by the money the could make at the end of their own civil war.

Serafin himself was quite the interesting person. He joined the guerrilla forces at the young age of 10 (!) and was trained and schooled by them through his adolescence. When the war was over, he took advantage of a re-education program and went to university to study ecology. He said the study of plants and ecosystems was easy for him after so many years of living in the forests. He now works with the local tourism board to manage a protected area near Perquin and gives tours in his free time.

It was interesting to hear Serafin's opinions and experiences of the war, as they were quite different from what I have heard before. My town in Cabañas was also very affected by the war, but most of guerrillas who fought here were from other parts of the country (notably the department of Morazan, where Perquin is). The people here suffered greatly at the hands of the guerrilla fighters and as such generally tend to see them in a negative light (hence my town's allegiance with ARENA, the right wing party). In fact, when I came here, I was surprised to hear such positive perspectives of the military during the war, as most of what I had heard and read about before was the horrible massacres and murders committed by the army during. Though I definitely do not feel comfortable making assessments on who carries the most blame (especially as a neutral Peace Corps Volunteer), I think it's important to remember that both sides killed innocent people and share responsibility for the horrors committed in this country.

mi novio

So I just had a wonderful two weeks with Jonathan. He left on Friday and even though that makes me very, very sad, he is coming back again in October. In between now and then, Jonathan will be traveling Colombia with his bro and then on to Brazil where he'll be learning Portuguese and allegedly to learn how to surf. It's only 6 weeks though, so I can't complain too much. In fact, on Saturday when I was moping around feeling very sorry for myself I met a woman whose husband has been living in the U.S. for the past 5 years (she's been waiting that long for her papers to be approved). She only sees him once a year for a month, it made me feel guilty about complaining about how much long distance sucks.
Having him here was so great. Though during training PC staff tried to scare us away from ever even mentioning that we might have known a man (and not just in the biblical sense) having him in my site was absolutely fine, and more than just that, I think my friends here really appreciated getting to know him and that I shared that part of my life with them. It was so nice because he speaks Spanish and is friendly and easy going and the people in my town all thought he was "muy guapo" (very handsome).
Nonetheless, in order to have some more privacy and time alone, we did end up spending most of the 11 days he was here out of my site. We went to the beach, the capital, and to Perquin, a beautiful mountain town which was the capital of the rebel forces during the civil war. Enjoy the pictures!

el salvador's obsession with israel

Thanks to its large Evangelical population who have adopted Jewish symbolism as its own, Jewish stars, the Israeli flag, and the menorah are every where in this country. The origin of the Evangelical population in this country largely dates back to the Civil War, when many people were turned off of Catholicism due to Liberation Theology, an ideology which aligned many of the religion's clergymen with the guerrillas, and were enticed to join the Evangelical sects by active American missionaries. Today the Evangelicals make up about 15% of the Salvadoran population, though it seems like a lot more in the countryside.

Anyways the above pictures are of the microbus that goes to my town, a house, a taxi, a baptist church, and most interestingly, a recent postage stamp celebrating Israel's 60th anniversary. Anyone who knows more about this strange connection, please do let me know.

el candidato comes to town

Today the ARENA party's candidate, Rodrigo Avila, came to the little town of Dolores, one of the advantages to living in a tiny country is that politicians can make it out to the little places, though of course they will only go to towns where the mayor's office is of their party. ARENA is the right-wing party in El Salvador, and has been in power in San Salvador ever since the end of the civil war (as it has been in my town). After the civil war, the two sides of the conflict more or less morphed into the two political parties (ARENA and FMLN), which has been a huge success in the sense that the country has transformed into a democracy, but also has left a profound legacy of division in the country, with party allegiances running deep and bitter.

Elections in El Salvador for president run every 5 years and for mayor, every 3 years, so they only coincide every 15 years, which happens to be this coming year, 2009. The other special thing about this election is that for the first time ever, FMLN, the left-wing party and former guerrilla force during the civil war, has a chance of winning. Frustration with ARENA is high due to a combination of high food prices, unemployment and general fatigue after so many years in power, not to mention the re-emergence of the Latin Left.

Interestingly, Hugo Chavez is not very popular here. This country tends to run conservative and despite the tarnished history of the U.S. during the Civil War people are very pro-American. Many people here have family in "el norte", any thought of jeopardizing U.S.-Salvadoran relations is unwelcome. In fact, one of the reasons why the FMLN's candidate (Mauricio Funes) has been doing so well is that he is decidedly less radical than previous presidential-hopefuls from the party. For example, whereas the former FMLN candidate was a guerrilla commander during the war, Funes was/is a journalist and was actually not even a member of the FMLN. As he is more centrist, the ARENA attacks on him have been more generally directed towards the party, trying to paint them as Chavez-lovers and showing video of angry Nicaraguans yelling about the "disaster of the Ortega presidency." It'll be interesting (and hopefully not violent and scary) to see what happens, as it will be one of the most important moments in El Salvador's post-conflict history.

el candidato comes to town (pictures)

the ARENA candidate (Rodrigo Avila) with the town's candidate for mayor (Maribel); the future of the ARENA party; Avila with our current mayor, Don Orlando; the ARENA clown - what is it with this country and clowns?: and men in the ARENA Panama hats

la ruta de las flores

some pictures from our "field trip" during training to one of the more beautiful parts of the country, la ruta de las flores. It's in Western El Salvador and is known for the pretty volcanoes, artisan crafts and cool climate.