Yesterday saw the declaration of another Alerta Naranja -- an Orange Alert for possible landslides as a result of the recent rain. It is worrisome, because we are only two months into the rainy season, which is supposed to last through October. The heavy rains do not affect Geoff and me, fortunately, because we live in well-insulated concrete areas of the capital city. But, everywhere else, things are awful when it rains. Most Salvadoreans live in huts built with mud walls, at the foot of deforested hills. :( In this most recent bout of rain, the restaurant that Ali's boyfriend helps to run down by the beach had collapsed. Its original base of rocks, sand, and silt had been entirely washed away by the river, and before his family can rebuild the restaurant, they will need to first fill the base with rocks and concrete...
In other news, while I was still in China, I read a news article about a bus that was set aflame by gangsters in El Salvador. 16 people were trapped inside that bus and burned to death. It's deeply horrifying and sad. --Will justice be served? I hope so, but I wouldn't hold my breath. Some suspects have been arrested*, but the prison/judicial system here is so lousy that there is really no guarantee what fate they will receive.
*By the way, Geoff heard that the reason why cops wear masks when they make arrests in El Salvador is so that they cannot become the target of a counterattack of vengeance. I don't know if this explanation is true, but you can see in the pictures from XinHua that they are indeed wearing the famed masks.
...Maybe some day, the conditions in El Salvador will improve. Sadly, if that day does ever arrive, it will take a really, really long time. In the meanwhile, the disparity between the have's and the have-not's is heart-rending, and the plight of the poor continues unabated.
Showing posts with label crime. Show all posts
Showing posts with label crime. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Oktoberfest, El Centro
Geoff and I have had a few very uneventful weekends, because I've had to catch up on work before the quarter ends. By this weekend, both of us were going stir-crazy and wanting to go away somewhere for the weekend. But, we had promised our friend Andrea that we would go to her Oktoberfest party, so we decided to stick around the city...
We decided, instead, to make the best out of Andrea's party. We went and bought a ton of beers (a mix of cheap and nice beers), bought two giant beer mugs, got some plastic cups for beer pong, and made jello shots! Andrea's party turned out to be totally fun, even though the Americans mostly turned in somewhat early. We ended up partying with her Salvadorean friends, plus Jon, after everyone else had left. We taught the Salvadorean girls how to play flip cup and beer pong, and they taught us how to play Vikingo and Marcas. And we silly-danced. It was pretty awesome times. :)
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One thing we did try to do this weekend was to go down to El Centro to visit the Palacio Nacional, the Catedral Metropolitana, and the Teatro Nacional, which are all on the same block in El Centro. We got inside the cathedral, and it was pretty neat, but both the National Palace and the National Theatre were closed to visitors. What a shame! We were also warned by our taxi driver to not walk around past the 2 block-by-3 block area, since El Centro is not at all a safe barrio. Anyway, the cab driver said we'd be OK if we stayed around the very bustling parts of town, so we didn't press our luck. We left pretty soon after visiting the cathedral, since I wasn't feeling very safe. Afterwards, Geoff said that he felt like people were giving him pretty unfriendly vibes. I am not sure whether I had felt the same, but it was definitely a very impoverished part of the city. As soon as we had gotten out of the cab, a waft of something in the air had told me that there were homeless people nearby; and sure enough, you could see them every few feet, huddled next to a building or holding out their hands to beg for money. According to things I've read on the internet, El Centro suffers from a lot of street violence, and isn't really safe to visit at any hour.
Generally speaking, I'm feeling a little frustrated by the security situation here. Some days, it seems like we cannot really go anywhere. Even on our way down to a popular bar one night (La Luna Arte y Casa), a kid jumped out in front of our taxi cab in an attempt to stop us -- probably for no good. The cab driver eventually drove around the kid, and the cop car behind us picked up the kid and took him down to the station, but it's hard to say that we're going to keep being so lucky.
-------------------------
Anyway, the first quarter is already over! Can you believe it?
I need a break. We've only had one long weekend since the school started. The next 3-day weekend will be the weekend of Halloween. I cannot wait!
We decided, instead, to make the best out of Andrea's party. We went and bought a ton of beers (a mix of cheap and nice beers), bought two giant beer mugs, got some plastic cups for beer pong, and made jello shots! Andrea's party turned out to be totally fun, even though the Americans mostly turned in somewhat early. We ended up partying with her Salvadorean friends, plus Jon, after everyone else had left. We taught the Salvadorean girls how to play flip cup and beer pong, and they taught us how to play Vikingo and Marcas. And we silly-danced. It was pretty awesome times. :)
------------------------
One thing we did try to do this weekend was to go down to El Centro to visit the Palacio Nacional, the Catedral Metropolitana, and the Teatro Nacional, which are all on the same block in El Centro. We got inside the cathedral, and it was pretty neat, but both the National Palace and the National Theatre were closed to visitors. What a shame! We were also warned by our taxi driver to not walk around past the 2 block-by-3 block area, since El Centro is not at all a safe barrio. Anyway, the cab driver said we'd be OK if we stayed around the very bustling parts of town, so we didn't press our luck. We left pretty soon after visiting the cathedral, since I wasn't feeling very safe. Afterwards, Geoff said that he felt like people were giving him pretty unfriendly vibes. I am not sure whether I had felt the same, but it was definitely a very impoverished part of the city. As soon as we had gotten out of the cab, a waft of something in the air had told me that there were homeless people nearby; and sure enough, you could see them every few feet, huddled next to a building or holding out their hands to beg for money. According to things I've read on the internet, El Centro suffers from a lot of street violence, and isn't really safe to visit at any hour.
Generally speaking, I'm feeling a little frustrated by the security situation here. Some days, it seems like we cannot really go anywhere. Even on our way down to a popular bar one night (La Luna Arte y Casa), a kid jumped out in front of our taxi cab in an attempt to stop us -- probably for no good. The cab driver eventually drove around the kid, and the cop car behind us picked up the kid and took him down to the station, but it's hard to say that we're going to keep being so lucky.
-------------------------
Anyway, the first quarter is already over! Can you believe it?
I need a break. We've only had one long weekend since the school started. The next 3-day weekend will be the weekend of Halloween. I cannot wait!
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
The Price of "Bling"
On July 15, the day that Geoff and I arrived in El Salvador, an anti-mining environmental activist was found murdered at the bottom of a well in San Isidro, El Salvador. He had been missing for nearly a month, and his body showed visible signs of torture. Since then, 4 reporters who have been covering the news of his disappearance and death have received death threats themselves, and another priest who is also aligned with the left-wing activists has nearly also been kidnapped and killed, escaping his armed aggressors ever-narrowly only by jumping into a ravine.
Concerned about the issues surrounding the obviously heated environmental activism, I looked up some relevant information about mining in El Salvador. It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that El Salvador is a rich source for natural elements such as gold and silver, seeing that 90% of the country originated from volcanic activities. Mining companies based in U.S. and Canada are eager to come in and reap the benefits of the abundant resources this country has to offer. The local proponents of the mining law point to the jobs it would create and the income that the local government would receive as a percentage of the proceeds, but the environmental and social activists point to the amount of acidic toxins -- specifically, of mercury, cyanide, arsenic, zinc and aluminium -- that would be released into the water. Leaching, the process of extracting gold and silver from the rocks, requires an enormous amount of water and exposes chemicals to open air, allowing them to evaporate and to be absorbed into the surroundings. Mercury evaporates readily at 26 degrees Celsius, and then redistributes in the form of rainfall. The mixing of the chemicals with water also would exacerbate the existing water shortage. Already, 1.5 million Salvadoreans (out of a total population estimated to be somewhere between 6 to 7 million) do not have access to drinking water. The "acidic drainage", as it is called, is going to make things worse. Already, there have been hillsides and wells that have dried up in San Isidro as a result of "an error" committed by one of the mining company's employees. Instead of receiving water deliveries in exchange for keeping quiet, the residents of San Isidro have opted to speak up against further mining activities by these foreign companies -- hence, the recent wave of environmental activism.
In any case, the laws right now are in limbo. The mining companies are hoping for the drafted mining law to be passed, so that the suspended mining activities may resume. I don't think you need me to say where I stand on the issue.
...What an absolute outrage!
---------------------------------
I finished reading One L, a personal account of one guy's experience as a first-year law student at Harvard Law School. The author describes the fearful manipulation that the professors used to run their first-year classes, and the resulting degradation in decency he observed in his peers and in himself as the academic year progressed. Even though he attended HLS back in the 70s and his account is clearly outdated, the story was still pretty interesting for me to read. It made me think about what my friend Ron once said about being a witness to injustice: "Either together we stand [against what we perceive of as injustice], or individually we will fall. Today it could be them, but tomorrow it might be you... or me." I think that concept applies broadly to a lot of things, and it is an idea that I keep coming back to. Why is it that we should stand up for someone whom we think is treated unfairly? What is the broader implication of justice, for us individually and, then, collectively?
Anyway, I picked up a Spanish novel yesterday from the bookstore. --Ambitious, I know! I figured that I would try to build my vocabulary the best way I know how -- by tediously working my way through a book I'd like to read. That's how I learned English, anyway, so doing this again actually feels familiar and warm, a bit like coming home again after many years. It's going slowly, obviously; took me about 30 minutes to cover 3 pages, because the structure of written Spanish is more difficult than spoken Spanish, and words often mean different things once you string them together into a phrase. But, I love the feeling of piecing together meaning, one word at a time. I'm excited. :)
Concerned about the issues surrounding the obviously heated environmental activism, I looked up some relevant information about mining in El Salvador. It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that El Salvador is a rich source for natural elements such as gold and silver, seeing that 90% of the country originated from volcanic activities. Mining companies based in U.S. and Canada are eager to come in and reap the benefits of the abundant resources this country has to offer. The local proponents of the mining law point to the jobs it would create and the income that the local government would receive as a percentage of the proceeds, but the environmental and social activists point to the amount of acidic toxins -- specifically, of mercury, cyanide, arsenic, zinc and aluminium -- that would be released into the water. Leaching, the process of extracting gold and silver from the rocks, requires an enormous amount of water and exposes chemicals to open air, allowing them to evaporate and to be absorbed into the surroundings. Mercury evaporates readily at 26 degrees Celsius, and then redistributes in the form of rainfall. The mixing of the chemicals with water also would exacerbate the existing water shortage. Already, 1.5 million Salvadoreans (out of a total population estimated to be somewhere between 6 to 7 million) do not have access to drinking water. The "acidic drainage", as it is called, is going to make things worse. Already, there have been hillsides and wells that have dried up in San Isidro as a result of "an error" committed by one of the mining company's employees. Instead of receiving water deliveries in exchange for keeping quiet, the residents of San Isidro have opted to speak up against further mining activities by these foreign companies -- hence, the recent wave of environmental activism.
In any case, the laws right now are in limbo. The mining companies are hoping for the drafted mining law to be passed, so that the suspended mining activities may resume. I don't think you need me to say where I stand on the issue.
...What an absolute outrage!
---------------------------------
I finished reading One L, a personal account of one guy's experience as a first-year law student at Harvard Law School. The author describes the fearful manipulation that the professors used to run their first-year classes, and the resulting degradation in decency he observed in his peers and in himself as the academic year progressed. Even though he attended HLS back in the 70s and his account is clearly outdated, the story was still pretty interesting for me to read. It made me think about what my friend Ron once said about being a witness to injustice: "Either together we stand [against what we perceive of as injustice], or individually we will fall. Today it could be them, but tomorrow it might be you... or me." I think that concept applies broadly to a lot of things, and it is an idea that I keep coming back to. Why is it that we should stand up for someone whom we think is treated unfairly? What is the broader implication of justice, for us individually and, then, collectively?
Anyway, I picked up a Spanish novel yesterday from the bookstore. --Ambitious, I know! I figured that I would try to build my vocabulary the best way I know how -- by tediously working my way through a book I'd like to read. That's how I learned English, anyway, so doing this again actually feels familiar and warm, a bit like coming home again after many years. It's going slowly, obviously; took me about 30 minutes to cover 3 pages, because the structure of written Spanish is more difficult than spoken Spanish, and words often mean different things once you string them together into a phrase. But, I love the feeling of piecing together meaning, one word at a time. I'm excited. :)
Thursday, July 30, 2009
A History of Poverty
To help understand why things are the way they are down here, I think we need to talk briefly about the recent history of El Salvador. Some of this information I gathered from various readings on the internet; others came from word-of-mouth (ie. from talking to my principal, who has lived here for 3+ years).
In El Salvador, for many generations the country had no middle class. There were the land-owning elite, namely "the 14 families", who literally divided the entire country into 14 gigantic jigsaw pieces (after driving out the native Indians), and those who were landless and impoverished. To give an idea of how far-reaching the wealth is of those elite families, my principal pointed to the giant volcano that backdrops the city of San Salvador, and said that two-thirds of that mountain is still owned by a single board member of our school today! All of that land teems with coffee plantations, and one can only imagine how much money is associated with that volume of production.
As with any sort of wealth disparity comes social unrest. The country divided itself over time into two parties -- the same two parties that still exist today -- the Republican party, or ARENA, and the Socialist party, or FMLN. Locals simply refer to the latter as Frente, which literally means "Front" and refers to the idea that the FMLN came about as a coalition of smaller populist parties. Over time, both parties began to use violence -- torture, rape, and killings -- to further their cause, and by the late 1970s, the situation had boiled over to a full-blown Civil War.
Because the landless Salvadoreans were sympathizers of Fidel Castro and because this period in Salvadorean history corresponded in timeline to the U.S. fear of the spread of Communism, the U.S. administrations from Carter to Bush Sr. gave a total of 7 billion dollars in aid to El Salvador in support of the ruling elite. Sadly, since this choosing of sides was political in nature, whether it was justified remains questionable. An excerpt from Amnesty International's 1985 annual report states, "Many of the 40,000 people killed in the preceding five years had been murdered, by government forces, who openly dumped mutilated corpses, in an apparent effort, to terrorize the population." --This is not to gloss over the violence brought on by the opposing guerrillas, but simply to state that both sides were definitely violent to an extreme in this internal conflict.
In any case, in 1992 a peace accord was signed, partly because the guerrillas were running out of steam. For a period of 5 years that followed, parts of the land were re-distributed slowly to eligible soldiers on both sides under the supervision of the United Nations, and the guerrillas re-established themselves as a legitimate political party.
In June, the first ever Frente president took over in a legitimate election. It had been expected to be a landslide victory, ever since he had emerged as a popular, moderate, and charismatic candidate. But, the 6 months before the election saw a lot of rumors spreading fear that he was a Communist and was going to drive away all the business owners in the country. In the end, he won by a margin less than 3%. The jury is still out, since he is so new, but we can only hope for the best.
-----------------------
Some worrisome news from a Salvadorean blog I read:
The online periodical Contra Punto reports the latest homicide statistics for the first 7 months of 2009 and they are troubling. Murders are up 37% in El Salvador for the first seven months of 2009 compared with the same period in 2008. So far in 2009, there have been 2428 violent deaths, compared to 1767 in 2008. These statistics come from the Attorney General's office who asserts that the majority of these murders are gang-related.
Speaking of gangs, supposedly the rampant gang activity down here is, again, closely tied to the history of poverty in this country -- and maybe surprisingly, also related to the Salvadorean immigration to/deportation from the States.
In any case, Geoff's and my neighborhood is relatively safe. Like most of our neighbors, we have 24-hour security guards who hold machine guns behind closed gates -- not that they actually would use the guns in a time of need, but as far as appearances go, I think they give off some sort of a protective vibe, anyway. And for now, Geoff and I have given up on walking home at night, just to be on the safe side. Cab rides are only a few dollars to get to anywhere in the city, so it's really not worth it to walk even 15 minutes in the dark...
In El Salvador, for many generations the country had no middle class. There were the land-owning elite, namely "the 14 families", who literally divided the entire country into 14 gigantic jigsaw pieces (after driving out the native Indians), and those who were landless and impoverished. To give an idea of how far-reaching the wealth is of those elite families, my principal pointed to the giant volcano that backdrops the city of San Salvador, and said that two-thirds of that mountain is still owned by a single board member of our school today! All of that land teems with coffee plantations, and one can only imagine how much money is associated with that volume of production.
As with any sort of wealth disparity comes social unrest. The country divided itself over time into two parties -- the same two parties that still exist today -- the Republican party, or ARENA, and the Socialist party, or FMLN. Locals simply refer to the latter as Frente, which literally means "Front" and refers to the idea that the FMLN came about as a coalition of smaller populist parties. Over time, both parties began to use violence -- torture, rape, and killings -- to further their cause, and by the late 1970s, the situation had boiled over to a full-blown Civil War.
Because the landless Salvadoreans were sympathizers of Fidel Castro and because this period in Salvadorean history corresponded in timeline to the U.S. fear of the spread of Communism, the U.S. administrations from Carter to Bush Sr. gave a total of 7 billion dollars in aid to El Salvador in support of the ruling elite. Sadly, since this choosing of sides was political in nature, whether it was justified remains questionable. An excerpt from Amnesty International's 1985 annual report states, "Many of the 40,000 people killed in the preceding five years had been murdered, by government forces, who openly dumped mutilated corpses, in an apparent effort, to terrorize the population." --This is not to gloss over the violence brought on by the opposing guerrillas, but simply to state that both sides were definitely violent to an extreme in this internal conflict.
In any case, in 1992 a peace accord was signed, partly because the guerrillas were running out of steam. For a period of 5 years that followed, parts of the land were re-distributed slowly to eligible soldiers on both sides under the supervision of the United Nations, and the guerrillas re-established themselves as a legitimate political party.
In June, the first ever Frente president took over in a legitimate election. It had been expected to be a landslide victory, ever since he had emerged as a popular, moderate, and charismatic candidate. But, the 6 months before the election saw a lot of rumors spreading fear that he was a Communist and was going to drive away all the business owners in the country. In the end, he won by a margin less than 3%. The jury is still out, since he is so new, but we can only hope for the best.
-----------------------
Some worrisome news from a Salvadorean blog I read:
The online periodical Contra Punto reports the latest homicide statistics for the first 7 months of 2009 and they are troubling. Murders are up 37% in El Salvador for the first seven months of 2009 compared with the same period in 2008. So far in 2009, there have been 2428 violent deaths, compared to 1767 in 2008. These statistics come from the Attorney General's office who asserts that the majority of these murders are gang-related.
Speaking of gangs, supposedly the rampant gang activity down here is, again, closely tied to the history of poverty in this country -- and maybe surprisingly, also related to the Salvadorean immigration to/deportation from the States.
In any case, Geoff's and my neighborhood is relatively safe. Like most of our neighbors, we have 24-hour security guards who hold machine guns behind closed gates -- not that they actually would use the guns in a time of need, but as far as appearances go, I think they give off some sort of a protective vibe, anyway. And for now, Geoff and I have given up on walking home at night, just to be on the safe side. Cab rides are only a few dollars to get to anywhere in the city, so it's really not worth it to walk even 15 minutes in the dark...
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