El Salvador Day 6: Congreso and Embassy

Monday was a day of politics. This day was totally different than anything we had done before. We had to get dressed up and spent all day in and out of meetings with various politicians and officials. We spent the morning at the Legislature of El Salvador and the afternoon at the US Embassy.

Congreso

We arrived at the Legislature after breakfast and had to wait to be escorted onto the grounds. I would be skeptical of a micro full of gringos, too. We were met by a representative who would be host throughout the day. She first gave us a tour of the building. There are five floors – two of the five are the meeting rooms of the comisiones legislative committees, the others for the political parties. Each of the meeting rooms includes a large table surrounded by chairs and microphones. All the walls of the conference room are made of glass and we looked into the room for the only side accessible by the public and press. After we visited the Blue Room, where the Congress meets. It shares some similarities with the legislative buildings in the States. Each representative has an assigned seat organized by party affiliation. There are 14 secretaries and a president elected from within the representatives who sit in the front. The room is decorated with the shield of each department (state) and has space for public and press viewing. The atrium leading into this room is decorated by paintings and sculptures.

Our first meeting was with Diputado (Congressmen) ____ from ARENA, the right-wing party. The ARENA party has dominated the political scene since the armed conflict and the time following. They are traditionally aligned with the foreign policy strategy of the United States and serve the interests of the wealthy minority of the country. We waited for the diputado in a conference room dedicated to the party founder. The walls are covered with his pictures, quotes, and paraphernalia for the political party. This meeting did not have much of an introduction but was merely a question and answer session. We met around the circle and each asked a question to which he responded. And by respond, I mean said something – rarely did he actually answer the question you asked. Our questions revolved around the current state of education, health, and immigration. He did not know about many public welfare programs nor seem interested in expanding access to public education. He mentioned that people without education were sin calidad (without caliber or quality). His favorite US president was Regan and he does not think highly of Obama. In general, he was not in favor of the social changes that the nation needs, in my opinion. This meeting lasted nearly 2 hours and I found it difficult to sort through all the political jargon in Spanish.

The second meet was with _______ from FMLN, the left-wing party. The FMLN, also known as the Frente, was formed by the guerrillas during the conflict and is growing in representation in the government. The first FMLN president was elected in 2009 but he has not lived up to the expectations that many FMLN-supporters held for him. He is very moderate and not making the changes that are needed. This meeting was held is a very simple conference room. There were photographs of the diputados from the party for each election cycle and a poster commemorated Farabundo Marti, for which the party is named. He was a community leader killed in the 1932 rebellion against the dictatorship. This meeting began with nearly an hour presentation of the history of the people’s struggle from the ‘30s up through the armed conflict. Although this was informative, we had already heard this story and were eager to answer questions. In this history there was mention of development of a new public health system modeled after Cuba and a distinction between el pueblo de los Estados Unidos (the people) and el gobierno (the government, signifying he does not blame us as visitors but our government for the $1 million invested daily in the Salvadoran military during the conflict. In the end we were able to ask some similar questions from before about education, health, and immigration. He mentioned a recent program to provide shoes and uniforms to every family. Without these things, children cannot attend public school. This program also creates jobs for Salvadoranos to create these uniforms. (However, this program has seen a delay in delivery of providing these uniforms to families). He also referenced the large number of remesas (remittances) coming from Salvadorenos abroad back to family members still in the country and the problem this poses when a family’s income is based on money sent from someone else rather than a job. This meeting was more rushed because the previous started last and went long so we could not talk as extensively as we wanted to.

Our two meetings ended with thank-you’s and included group photos with the representatives. Ultimately, from this experience, I am taking away a giant disconnect between the people in power and the needs of the majority. I am clearly in support of the FMLN position but it is disheartening how little they are changing in the nation with a president and Congressional majority.

US Embassy

From there, we headed to the Soya project for lunch. This was our last lunch at the project and I am really glad we were able to support them. After lunch it was off to the US Embassy. Before the conflict, the US occupied a large grey structure near the center of San Salvador but after the war needed more space. The old embassy has since become a bank. With the need for space, the US embassy occupied land outside of city in another department entirely, La Libertad. On our way to the embassy, we passed the shopping center that I visited on my second trip. We had had a group argument there about whether or not to go to a dance club across the street from a Lamborgini and Ferrari dealership. In the daylight I could see that on the other side of the freeway from this shopping center is a slum without electricity or potable water. All of the homes are made of tin and cardboard. Christy told us that the developers want to keep moving these people out because their homes are an eye-sore for visitors to the shopping center. Around ten minutes down the road and we arrived at the embassy. The US embassy is a behemoth of a complex. It is several city-blocks and includes many buildings.

To enter the embassy, we formed a line in the order indicated on the entrance log. We went through two different metal detectors and then had to trade our passports for a visitor’s badge. Between the two detectors we passed through an outdoor walkway past a tent covering rows of chairs. Some 300 Salvadorenos arrive each day each bringing $1200 to sit in these chairs in hopes of receiving a visa to the US. Something like less than 10 received a visa. With our badges, we sat in a waiting area for thirty minutes. We were then escorted with a ratio of 1 embassy employee to 3 of us to the elevator and to a conference room. We were escorted in the same ratio to the restroom as well. The conference room and offices we passed looked like any other office building – cubicles, new computers, secretaries, and offices with windows looking out at others. The conference room was very bright and had a Smartboard. Our meeting here was with the director of USAID, a government program that provides international aid and support in developing countries. The biggest downside of this meeting was that this director was only temporary and had only been in El Salvador for 3 weeks. The El Salvador office is the largest in Central America and serves as the regional office. However, with her limited time, she could not tell us any concrete information about the details or success of the programs they provide. The emphasis in El Salvador is on violence prevention but this comes in the form of cleaning up parks or teaching ex-prisoners vocational skills. This does not include basic education or health services which would reduce poverty levels and prevent people for turning to theft, drugs, or other crime as an option. We quickly realized that she could not answer any of our questions about El Salvador so we asked her about her past experiences. She was a Peace Corp member in ’79-’81 in Peru and worked with farmers and treated sick animals. She worked in Guatemala with coffee farmers and says the programs she started are still successful. She spent time in Jamaica and Haiti. Although El Salvador is currently ranked the most violent country in the world, she said she cannot feel the violence in the same way she did in Jamaica. She said in Jamaica, Americans were targeted and she had a private guard with her at all times. To me this seems outrageous to dedicate taxpayer dollars to your protection and risk the life of someone else. I also think she cannot feel the violence in El Salvador because she lives in the bubble of the Embassy in a very nice part of town. She would feel the violence if she road city buses or lived with the people. She also spoke to us in English and I feel like this was another indicator of her disconnect with the culture of Central America. In general what I am taking away from this presentation is that USAID does not have enough money to fund effective programs and the way the money is being used is not for the right projects. There is too much bureaucracy to prevent any real change from happening. I feel like the US government says they are helping but not presenting that their projects are actually unsuccessful. This presentation and the book I read The End of Poverty makes we want to do more investigations about international aid – how much is needed and how it is used. I think most people in our group were pretty frustrated by this presentation, especially after seeing the local government isn’t doing much to help either.

After leaving the embassy, we walked along the length of the building as we were passed by Audis and BMWs on the street. Christy had doughnuts waiting for us and we boarded the bus for the beach. We were all ready for some much needed rest and reflection time. We arrived in El Zonte about an hour later and moved all of our things into our room. I shared a room with Rachel, Harim, and Kate. We ordered dinner then went to explore the beach. The sun had already set but the beach was lit by the millions of stars. The water was warm and not too strong.

For dinner, I enjoyed garlic shrimp, salad, rice, and Sangria. This was the only night of the trip we were allowed to have any alcohol. Everyone was excited for a cold beer after a warm day and listening to the crashing waves. After dinner, we had a reflection. We went around the circle and shared a word to represent our feelings about the weekend in Estanzuelas, about the day of politics, and about the beach (grateful, frustrated, and relaxed). We then got into a conversation about our reactions to the community being some welcoming versus what we heard in the government. We concluded the reflection and changed gears to more relaxation and fun. We danced, drank, and chit chatted until late into the night. We created a dance of the most common dances each person in our group does, taught Sherry some new moves, and practiced our salsa routine. At the end of the day, I was exhausted.