Reflecting on El Salvador

With the bros in the rat's nest in San Salvador. 

So this a post I wrote for the company I was working for in El Salvador, Vittana.  As such it's missing the coke and hooker parties (minus the hookers), raves, unbelievable women, tales of my chorizo family, cruising through the countryside, soccer championship throwdowns and other lil bits n pieces of my last six weeks in El Salvador when I moved up to the capital.  Needless to say I loved every minute of it.  I'm back home now which feels comforting and odd simultaneously, as always. Leaving in six days for más. 

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Me and Sarita in Ataco for the day

I woke up at sunrise in Juayua, a small mountain town of primarily coffee farmers.  I had spent the weekend with my good friend Sara and her family in the village, where families live in humble, mostly mud, houses and depend on the land for a living.  In recent years, a fungal outbreak, known as "coffee rust" has been devastating plantations in Juayua and across El Salvador.  Though it doesn't kill coffee plants, coffee rust dramatically reduces the plants' production and this year's harvest is predicted to be the lowest in 80 years.  The effect is palpable amongst Juayuans, and many farmers are calling for short term microloans to cover their living needs for the next year while they remove infected plants and effectively replant their farms.  But with uncertain future earnings, these microcredits have dried up and farmers are stuck in a difficult situation.

I rode back to El Salvador's bustling capital, San Salvador, and met up with my tour operator friend, Luis.  We hopped over to the beach to do some parasailing and general R&R along El Salvador's impeccable coastline.  You know, whoever said black sand beaches are inferior has obviously never seen a sunset on black sand.

Flying!

That night I found myself in a hillside mansion overlooking San Salvador dining with a coffee plantation owner and his family.  We chatted about a range of topics but inevitably got to talking about "la roya" or coffee rust.  Quite honestly, he didn't seem too concerned about the plague but rather was more interested in where he'd scuba dive next.

For such a small country (roughly the size of Massachusetts), El Salvador certainly is a land bursting with diversity and extremes.  I came to El Salvador to work with Fundación Campo and Apoyo Integral and help them design, implement and launch their student loan products. Before my Vittana fellowship, I had only spent a handful of days in El Salvador and really only heard two things about the country:

1) It's an incredibly dangerous gangland.

2) It's like an American little brother with strong immigrant ties.

As I've come to learn, however, this black and white perception is far from the truth and though yes, there is a gang presence, violence is almost entirely relegated to intra-gang activities and the country's violent reputation is grossly exaggerated.  Gang activity primarily manifests itself as extortions, basically demanding a "tax" from small businesses.  The word on the traveler circuit, for example, is to use San Salvador solely as a layover between Nicaragua and Guatemala and that if you don't surf, there's nothing for you in El Salvador.  Well friends, in my opinion this is a grave miscalculation.  Not only does El Salvador boast beautiful and unexploited beaches, bountiful fresh (and cheap!) seafood, mountainous jungles and magnificent volcanoes, but the capital itself is a diverse, metropolitan city rich in culture and international influences.

But that's not to say that delinquency and American dependence don't exist.  Especially with high youth unemployment and an average salary of $260/month (closer to $150 in rural areas), it's easy to understand why kids look to illegal means or dream of moving to the U.S. to find better opportunities.  And remittances are really what keeps the country afloat, representing 16.5% of El Salvador's annual GDP.

Besides the USD, the other major American import is of course MS-13 or Mara Salvatrucha. Originally founded in Los Angeles by El Salvadoran immigrants, the U.S. government began deporting convicted criminals back to their country of origin, and hence it began the Mara invasion here.  And though foreigners almost never have issues with gangs, their presence saturates the country.  In fact, El Salvadorans no longer use the Spanish word for gangster (pandillero) but rather use "marero" regardless of whether affiliated with MS-13 or another gang.

Delinquency and the El Salvadoran dream in America have a marked impact on higher education in the country.  The universities are located in centralized cities, meaning that the majority of students, who live in rural areas, have to pay a small fortune just to get to school. So where you can pay around $10/month in school fees, you might end up paying $150-$200 for transportation and lunch every month.  Tack on another 25% to that number if you take private transportation, which the director of the National University in San Salvador told me is common practice to avoid delinquency issues on public transportation.

Take my friend Sandra, for example.  I went and stayed with her in Intipucá, a beautiful rural town nestled in the mountains about 2 hours from where I was based with Fundación Campo in San Miguel.  Census says the town's home to 7K people but the vast majority of houses are shuttered as some 3K-4K odd Intipucans live in the U.S.  The town has a great, friendly vibe, where neighbors sit on their porch chatting throughout the night and people leave their houses open.

Making pupusas - El Salvador's national dish

Sandra's brother is a watermelon farmer and depends on a $500 annual microloan to stabilize his year's earnings.  Her parents wanted her to quit school at age 15 to start working around the house or to move to the U.S. as her sister had done.  She refused, and with the help of remittances, Sandra commuted to San Miguel everyday to attend university and is now an architect in Intipucá.

Sandra was fortunate that she had a source of external income, but not everyone is so lucky. Some of my friends never even thought about attending university - they hail from rural towns and viewed higher education as simply unaffordable.  They'd rather just cross into the U.S. to find work.  Others decide to work and save money to one day enroll in college.  However, jobs for kids without college degrees are hard to come by and pay peanuts.  Not to mention the occasional low-level extortion which would complicate anyone's saving plan.  For this segment of the population, their options are limited - apart from working, the loans offered by traditional banks are too rigid or are simply not offered to them.  One girl, looking to take out a loan of $500 to pay her graduation fees, was told that the loan minimum was $1,500.  Not wanting to be saddled with unnecessary debt, she declined and was unable to graduate.

With presidential elections coming up in a couple months, we're being inundated with promises focused on three topics: education, jobs and delinquency.  Proposals range from free English courses for youth, a one child-one laptop program and simply "combatting gangs".  Locals don't expect much to change.

But one thing is for certain - starting in January our partners, Fundación Campo and Apoyo Integral, will start providing student loans for El Salvadoran youth to pursue higher education and carve their own path.