Some basic info about the country: El Salvador is the size of Masschusetts. It is bordered by Honduras and Guatemala. It only has coastline on the Pacific. The US dollar is their official currency.
Some basic info about why I'm there: I got into a class called "Economic Development in El Salvador", an economics elective taught by Father McGowan. For spring break we have come to El Salvador to listen to colleagues and friends of Fr. McGowan talk about various topics like microfinance, remittances, and government policy. We also get a hefty dose of Salvadoran culture.
Back to the recap: We each had to pay $10 for a tourist visa at El Salvador's customs. After a five minute drive from the airport in our 15 person van, two things became very clear. First, Coca-Cola is ubiquitous, all-powerful, and profoundly linked to all things marketing here. Even the street (read: highway) vendors had Coca-Cola banners lining their summer-camp-fort boutiques made of fallen trees and large branches tied together. These vendors populated the hot, dusty highway to San Salvador, mostly selling mangos. Second, English is gross and everywhere. Ok, "gross" is just my opinion, but here's why it is gross to me: I saw a huge Corona beer billboard that read "Find Your Beach" in English. When a Mexican beer company advertises in English in El Salvador, something strange is afoot. Maybe English is just a cool language these days. Nonetheless, the astounding penetration of foreign consumerism and marketing here is certainly something concerning.
So those were my first impressions. Here's some more of what we actually did today...
After arriving at the UCA (University of Central America) on-campus residency and decompressing for an hour, we got a tour of campus and went to the nearby grocery store. Most of the $ prices are comparable, but the ratio of prices to average income is certainly not. I got a pack of Salvadoran wafer crackers for $1.35. After a logistically staggered lunch, Father McGowan (who was leading all of our travels, if I failed to make that clear) rounded us up and took us to four important sites and events.
(1) The church where Óscar Romero was killed in 1979. The powers that be (or rather, were) didn't like what Father Romero said one day about violence and how it should be stopped. They killed him the next day as he stood at the front of his church.
(2) The rose gardens where the six priests, a woman, and child were killed in 1989. Similar story, different year, more victims, more martyrs.
[Note: these blurbs don't even begin to capture these two events and their myriad meanings to Salvadorans and the world—they're not trying to; I'm just recounting where we went]
(3) Downtown. The main church in the city and the street markets. Church was quite traditionally pretty, but I'm not really one for traditional churches. Barcelona can do that to you. The market around the corner was a wild mess of gasoline, fresh fruit, Coldplay, smells of baked sweets, The Beatles, mild and constant sweating; pigeons unabashedly washing themselves in dirty gutter water; a two-year-old smiling and playing with her brother while she sat leashed to a sideways cardboard box under her family's table on a street corner; a Salvadoran woman's eerily warning us to "be careful," probably nearly exhausting her English vocabulary in doing so; a brief negotiation for an El Salvador soccer jersey (settled for $12). Overshadowing it all was my interminable fear of all things having to do with questionable street markets in Spanish speaking countries. Looking at you, Argentina. Being anywhere near there at night would be my nightmare. Later that night, I would learn why (calm down parental units, nothing happened)...
(4) ...because later that night we had our first lecture back on UCA's campus with a man named Richard. He talked about an astounding amount of topics. I furiously typed notes on my iPhone. Most immediately striking was our collective disillusionment of the seemingly innocent street market where I had just purchased a jersey. He said plainly that that market is run by the enormous Salvadoran mafia. Vendors pay upward of $600 for two meters of floor space, a result of price usurping from the mafia's monopoly. Suddenly that woman's warning became more than a thoughtful utterance: it was a very real warning, whispered to us in English to avoid detection by evil ears. Over 70% of the Salvadoran economy is in this "informal" sector. Most of this "informal" sector does not deal in soccer jerseys, cookies, and fruit. Most of this "informal" sector is the drug trade, clandestine enough not to be glaringly obvious to us gringos in passing through downtown. Sitting between Colombia and Mexico, El Salvador is one of many gatekeepers along the cocaine road north. Cartels outsource supply line responsibility to locals in Central America. It's all frightening, but mostly sad. It is frightening because of how sophisticated the cartels have become: they have even started taking over public schools in El Salvador in hopes of boosting their future ranks with loyal businessmen and lawyers who study in Mexico or the United States and then return to the clandestine family business. It is sad because it is a cannibalistic social machine that preys on good people by giving them no other option but to follow la coca or la piedra.
The rose garden.
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