On our last day, we visited the community of Papalote, a small village to the west of Tierra Blanca. Again, we divided into three teams to visit various homes. We visited a home of an elderly woman, who lived alone with her husband, but her house was full of 7 children, 3 grandchildren and 4 children of a helper. The school year runs from January to November, so the kids were out of school, as they have been throughout the trip.
After this we returned to Centro Romero to pack, and say goodbye to Morena (cook at the center) and Sister Elena. We donated the remainder of our medicines to Adrian, the physician who works at the Fondo de Emergencia. He shared with us, that as a physician for the Fondo, he earns less than his wife who works as a nurse in San Salvador, where he returns each weekend to be with his family. He expressed the hope of becoming the next director of the Unidad (Government run health clinic) in Tierra Blanca.
We boarded the bus with Hernàn for San Salvador, stopping at a highway Pupuseria along the way. For anyone who has never eaten eaten them, pupusas are uniquely Salvadoran. They are made by frying up a thick tortilla filled with cheese, meat, beans, or vegetables. Generally they cost 40-60 cents.
We arrived in San Salvador where we had been one week before at the Universidad de Centroamerica (UCA), and had an hourlong session with Dean Brackley, S.J. who is a professor of theology there. He is truly a font of knowledge about Central America and shared with us a fraction of this, which I have summarized here:
Demographics:
Median age of El Salvador, 23
Minimum wage: $170/month
Average wage: $250/month
Poverty rate: 65-80% (depending on definitions)
Typical education: 6yrs
Percent unable to get enough calories: 40%
Economy in crisis:
Father Brackley described the "baseline" economy as being similar to the U.S. during the great depression. In the last 2 years, the economy has had 2 major crises: the gas crunch of 2007-8, and the collapse of U.S. banking system in 2008-9. This has hurt El Salvador in 2 ways: decrease in remittances (money sent from Salvadorans in the U.S.) from $3.8B (which is 18% of GNP). as well as direct effect on economy due to decreased exports, access to credit.
Taxes & Trade:
All food and retail products are subject to a 13% value added tax. This of course hits the poor disproportionately, while many rich are able to evade this tax. There is no income tax. In recent months, the newly elected President, Mauricio Funes of the FMLN party, has attempted to make small changes in closing tax loopholes, to the whining and howling of the wealthy. For Salvadorans, CAFTA (Central American Free Trade Agreement) is considered neither "free", nor "fair".
Signs of Hope:
In June of 2009, Salvadorans elected a president from the FMLN for the first time in history, Mauricio Funes. In addition, 13 legislators previously aligned with the ARENA party have broken away, opening the possibility to pass legislation to correct some systemic injustice. There is a new attorney general who has promised to investigate killings which still occur occasionally. For example, there have been recent killings, appaently motivated by opposition to mining companies eager to come in to El Salvador and extract gold with cyanide. There are 4 new supreme court justices appointed by the new president. The greatest source of hope is the youth of the country, growing up in the post-war years.
All of us were enriched to have spent the hour with him, and wished for more. Needless to say, we were all left with the anger Jesus felt in seeing the injustice of the system.
After our visit we headed back to our hotelito, where some crashed after dinner, and some had the energy to go out with Erica, aka "la loca bailando".
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