Steve's El Salvador page 2

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Ten years ago she would have been a compa ...

...fighting in El Salvador's bitter civil war. Today she can openly wear her FMLN T-shirt in support of Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberacion Nacional , a left-wing party named after a peasant leader executed in 1932.

The FMLN was admired as one of the toughest and most resourceful guerrilla armies in history. It is now the main oppostion party in El Salvador and has recently gained ground at local elections.

Despite the merging of warring factions into "peaceful" politics, the scars of armed conflict are still very much evident in Salvadorean society. The high murder rate (130 a month in a country of six million) is one remainder of the rule of the gun.

Many of the war's nightmares are still being confronted. As I write (June 2000) the Argentine Forensic Anthropolgy Team under the lead of famous forensic anthropologist Dr Clyde Snow is examining the bones of an estimated 200 villagers murdered in 1981 in El Mozote by US-trained Salvadorian government troops.

Follow these links to read more about El Mozote including the
UN report into the massacre and some eye-witness reports .

Thanks to Mike Oso and his pictures of El Salvador for the use of this photo right. Mike's website has many more pictures of El Mozote from his days working with the FMLN.

fmln folk
elmozote
Mike's photo of the El Mozote memorial -
click here for more of Mike's pics

eva

Eva, our office cook.

She is a grandmother now and lives in Soyapango , a leafy but run-down barrio on the east of San Salvador. I scanned this picture from an old dog-eared ID-card she gave me from her handbag.

Eva spends her weekdays cooking, cleaning and ironing for our headquarters' staff and spends her weekends and evenings cooking, cleaning and ironing for her family in a small house where luxuries like a fridge and a TV are beyond financial reach.

Years ago she planned to train as an anaesthetist. High college fees and the civil war stopped that. Like many other Salvadoreans, Eva left the country for the war years and lived for a decade in Costa Rica . She has many fond memories of San José , the capital, and one of her dreams is to go back and visit old friends there. Another goal is to keep in touch with now-distant brothers and sisters who have joined the million Salvadoreans living in the United States.

Meanwhile she is looking forward to Sunday cooking classes at a local college. The international NGO ('Non Governmental Agency') where we work is sponsoring her lessons as part of its policy of training local staff. I also spend a few hours a week coaching her at English, sometimes we use the website FREE ENGLISH which has some basic teaching games.

A highlight of her week (a highlight for all of us) is our staff Friday basketball match.

bar
cecelia

Cold beers in a hot swamp.

This drinking den is perched among the mangroves on Isla de La Tasajera at the entrance to a small fishing community called La Colorada.

Passing boatmen stop here for a polarizada - brown bottle of beer - or a cocktail of raw cockles marinaded in limes or delicious jaibe - mud crab - soup.

The mangroves crackle with life. Egrets jab at goggle-eyed mudskippers which dart ashore to avoid bigger fish.

At the top of the food chain are the fishermen which hunt the huge roballo in the estuary with strong nets or, if the water is clear, by stalking them underwater with home-made spearguns.

Cecelia and Ada, right, are two of 13 sisters who live on Isla de la Tasajera and run the small bar.

Most Salvadoreans have indigena blood in their veins, but indigena costumes and culture died out in the 1930s during a government pogrom against people of Amerindian origin.

Salvadorean Spanish language, though, has many 'Nahuatismos' - words of Nahuat origin, the language of the Mayan people. Chuco chuncho means 'dirty dog'.