Memorable Moments

After returning to DC, returning to work, doing laundry, going grocery shopping, and all the other usual things we do day-to-day, I’ve finally been able to sit down and think about the past few weeks. Many things that stand out in my mind as making our 2 weeks in El Salvador a great experience in terms of providing a glimpse at El Salvador’s culture, working in international development, making new friends, and having fun while learning tons! Here are just a few, in no particular order:

1. Seeing maize go from harvested seeds to cooked tortillas served on a plate within 1.5 hours, with no more than a stone grinder and a cast iron sheet atop a wood burning fire.

2. Meredith with her plate of “pollo y arroz” and a Spanish-English dictionary side-by-side, writing down vocabulary words during lunch. (She actually tested us on these words periodically days after that.)

3. Learning about various pests, insects, and other bugs that play a huge role in agriculture…in Spanish. So now, I think I can understand, in Spanish, a discussion on impacts of weather and pests on crop yield, but would not have a clue on things as “simple” as asking for directions.

4. Discovering “alfajores” (a delicious cookie with a bit of caramel inside) at a local pastry shop….and returning every other day (ok, maybe a bit more frequently) for a new treat.

5. Getting mad at Meredith and Jen for telling me the end of the trail was “right around the corner” on the steep hike back up from the river at El Impossible. Note to parents and other motivators out there: Yes – This trick (i.e., lie) still works!

6. Taking pictures of about 10 children (one at a time) since after I showed a picture of the first boy to him, he giggled, went to get his friends, and said “them too!” Each had a big smile and laughed when they saw themselves on screen.

7. Michelle trying to get people at a focus group we conducted to remember her name by pointing to herself as “me” and her hair as “chele” (we learned that chele refers to a light-haired person in local language). We got good laughs from the group.

8. Seeing the crater inside San Salvador Volcano with Ricardo and Arlen.

9. Claiming the 4 of us were sisters when we went through customs after our flight was canceled. In line I joked that I could be the adopted one…who knew Meredith would actually tell the customs officer this!

10. Sharing experiences with the farmers and families we visited — seeing their homes, meeting their children, exchanging stories, and better understanding the challenges and progress they’ve made in the face of environmental changes.

Until next time…and looking forward to it!

- Sandra

Hasta Luego (Goodbye or “Until Later”) El Salvador…Little did we know that “later” would come much sooner than expected….

After two full weeks of field work, we were ready and packed (with new purchases such as delicious Salvadorian coffee, dulce de leche, alfahores, (yummy dulce de leche cookies) to return to the States.  As soon as Ricardo dropped us off at 12:40pm at the airport, we were informed that our flight had been “delayed” until 7:30pm due to “maintenance.”  Michelle immediately sensed that there was something more than a “delay” (apparently the woman had laughed when Michelle asked whether we were actually going to fly out today—she stated that if the flight was cancelled then we would stay in a hotel).  Suffice to say we were ushered into a long line (1-2 hours) to get our tickets and check bags, (which we did not see until the next day—thankfully I had extracted any necessary toiletries in case our flight was in fact cancelled), tickets, “free lunch” ticket, and airline voucher for the “delay”.

As you may have already guessed, our flight was cancelled.  When the announcement came, we were informed that we would need to go back through customs (even though we still had not left the country) and fill out another customs card.  Frustrated, Sandra, asked an employee from Taca if we all could submit one customs form and say we were family.  “Yes, sure, that’s fine,” he said (I think he was trying to tell us what we wanted in order to tend to other “concerned” customers…).

Apparently the Customs employee did not agree with what the Taca employee told us.  When we handed her the customs form, she took one look at us and said that you can only turn in one form when you are family.  I chimed in that we were all sisters (which, technically, three of us could have been sisters given that we were all blond with blue eyes—except that Sandra is Thai).  She looked at me again and said “Sisters?”.  I affirmed again and said that we were and that Sandra was “adopted.”  She still didn’t buy it and the smiles on our faces were not building any credibility either.  Then, after further questioning, I said that they had cancelled our flight and that the “Senor” told us…..before I finished my sentence, she seemed to have decided that we were not worth the effort and let us pass through, back to El Salvador once again and back toward another long line.

On the positive side, we did end up staying at fancy, business hotel (with very fluffy comforters) and some of the restaurant employees must have felt sorry or entertained by us “gringas” since we were given a free bottle of wine.

-Meredith

Friday, March 25: Training for Plan Technicians

On Friday we held a training for Plan Technicians working in our three visited departments.  The training had four modules: 1. Intro to Climate Change, 2. Climate Change in El Salvador, 3. Adaptation to Climate Change, and 4. Adaptation Best Practices in Agriculture.  We incorporated a two-part activity throughout the program where we created three teams focused on pests, precipitation, and soils. The teams first had to list problem causes, solution, and potential barriers to solution related to their climate change impact.  Later in part two, they had to develop an adaptation strategy. Of course, part two was the more difficult piece.  The activity spurred an excellent discussion and more information for our final report!

-Michelle

Introduction

Participants and our group

Participants

Participants

Group 1: Pests

Group 2: Precipitation

Group 3: Soils

Presenting activity results

Jose Luis presenting

Wed. & Thurs., March 23-24: Plan’s Office and San Salvador Volcano

On Wednesday we headed out to Chalatenango for the final time unaware that this would also be our furthest excursion.  We traveled to the Nombre de Jesus municipality and visited the communities Quipure and Junquillo.  These communities were a four hour drive from San Salvador and ¾ of the drive was over slow going dirt/rock roads. Happily, the Millennium Challenge Cooperation is in the process of paving much of the road but currently we only slow very early earthworks and the beginning of a bridge construction. Quipure is on the border of Honduras and we sat for interviews approximately 100 yards from the unmarked, unguarded border.

On Thursday we got to visit Plan International’s San Salvador office. We met the very friendly staff and learned about projects currently underway.  We learned that Plan runs a sponsorship program where a person can register to support a child with financial aid as well as in-kind goods and presents.  We saw the room where Plan receives the gifts and separates for transport to the far-flung communities.   We often see commercials on TV about sponsorship programs and I have wondered the legitimacy. I can wholeheartedly say that Plan’s program is legitimate and registering to support a child is a wonderful way to do your part to fight poverty:  http://plan-international.org/what-you-can-do/sponsor-a-child/sponsor

After the office visit, Ricardo and Arlen took us to see the San Salvador Volcano Crater. We have been staring at the volcano for almost 2 weeks as you can see it from probably 100 km away.  It was always my point of reference for how much longer until we would get home on exhausting days.  Upon reaching the top of the crater we were all amazed at its form, vastness and beauty. The crater is huge, tree lined, and steep. The center had the word Dios (God in English) written in it. People can hike the steep slopes or along the rim but I think I would be too scared to try. Ricardo pointed out that people farm the steep slows to take advantage of the fertile volcanic soils.  I can’t imagine working in those conditions. Ricardo then pointed out a house along the far slope and I argued that no one could live there.  He used his high tech camera to zoom in and prove me wrong!

-Michelle

Tuesday, 22 March: San Jorge & ARAS Focus Groups

 Today we headed back to La Libertad… a welcomed change from the rocky, mountain roads of distant Cabañas and Chalatenango. La Libertad is much closer to San Salvador and primarily float land. We visited a new community San Jorge where we conducted a few individual interviews and a life history.  We then headed back to ARAS (visited last week for individual interviews) where we would now hold Focus Groups.  We had lunch with the Focus Group participants and went around the room introducing ourselves.  As a little ice breaker during the introduction each person had to say their name and their favorite fruit.  I listed mango and was laughed at for my American pronunciation… the ‘a’ should be short in Spanish.  I believe Mango was the most popular along with strawberries (fresas in Spanish), pineapple (piña in Spanish), the El Salvadorian Jicote fruit, and others.

During the Focus Groups, we divided the men and women and had them complete a quick activity to learn their perspectives on the changing climate and its impacts. We first had the participants write on post-it notes changes they have seen in the environment, displayed the results, and had a group discussion. We then asked for them to list impacts from these changes and held discussions. Finally, we discussed what they believed to be causing these changes.  It was very interesting to see the different perspectives of men and women.  Both the men and women identified climate unpredictability and increased temperatures but the men rounded out their top 3 changes with deforestation and the women with increased winds.  The weather unpredictability and rapid changes is very difficult for the community. We were told during the discussion that although the temperature is overall higher than normal last October/November the area got colder than ever before. The women said it was so cold that they had to buy sweaters and a vendor came through selling gloves!  No one had ever worn warm clothing or gloves before.

As for impacts, the women heavily focused on increased sickness within the community, damages to houses, and they stated that all of the impacts lead to increases costs. Everything is more expensive and everything cost money.  The men also listed increases sickness but they more heavily focused on crop losses. These findings are easily understood as women in the community tend to focus on more domestic issues and the men on the fields. 

As for the causes, this well informed community stated deforestation and pollution and we discussed the concept of climate change and global warming. We were told that this community organized against an area coffee mill that was polluting the nearby Lempa River and they forced the government to require the mill to build a wastewater treatment plant. This win gave them much motivation and they are now organizing against other area industries that pollute their water. Let’s all keep our fingers crossed that they keep winning.

- Michelle

Monday, 21 March: La Cuchilla and Las Verdes

This Monday morning saw us heading out again to Chalatenango, although today we were heading to La Laguna, which is a municipality located in the northern part of the department. The municipality also shares a border with the mountainous Lempira, a department of the neighboring Republic of Honduras. Many people from this area have abandoned the country, especially for the United States, where there are large communities of La Laguna ex-patriots in Miami, Los Angeles, and New York. Malnutrition rates, according to Carmen, run about 12.6% in children under the age of 5, while even basic sanitation and potable water systems are not available in most households.

The first community we visited was La Cuchilla, an area with approximately 65-70 families. Following Carmen’s grim description of conditions in the area, I was struck by the freshly painted houses and the neatly swept streets and yards (in comparison to the garbage that commonly adorns nearly all public and private lands in many parts of the country) that bordered the main road (paved – an exception to all other communities we visited in the department) running up to the small church. Our interviews with four local residents, several of whom were very highly active in church and other social activities, gave us the impression of a community that in many ways is very different from most of the places we visited last week. Although the area depends largely on subsistance farming, the women we interviewed were involved in alternative methods of income generation ranging from running a micro-loans and savings cooperative to making and selling organic shampoo and sugar cane candies.  This level of involvement extended to both men and women alike.  One of the men we interviewed worked as a , barber and bricklayer in addition to farming.  The other man interviewed was a part of a civil protection service, which helps members of the community when there are landslides or other natural disasters. We all felt that there was Cuchilla had a “strong spirit.”

There was a clear focus on the importance of environmental protection in maintaining community well-being and food security, evidenced in the existence of a community-run recyling program, an environmental group in the church responsible for outreach on environmental education, and highly fuel-efficient stoves in some of the households. We got a look at one of these stoves–capable of producing heat from two small sticks of firewood for several hours–and gathered around the shampoo selection like “bees around honey”, according to Ricardo.

Lunch was a delicious vegetable soup and cooked chicken, and home-made cheese and boiled vegetables for the vegetarians (by which I mean me!). We all shared a laugh when one of our drivers realized after about 30 minutes that he had been sitting under a cheesecloth dripping cheese-water slowly down the back of his shirt. The cat was quick to get the rest of that actually fell on the floor : )

The second community–Las Verdes–was a short twenty minute drive away. Verdes was akin to la Cuchilla with respect to community involvement and environmental awareness.  They offered us some delicious cookies and “coffee” (which in fact turned out to be ”coffee” made from corn and mixed with sugar and cinnamon).

Jennifer

Introductions at La Cuchilla

Meredith and Sandra interviewing in La Cuchilla

Jennifer and Michelle interviewing in La Cuchilla

Metal smith

Metal smith showing his products to Plan Technician Lucio

The girls buying organic locally made shampoos

Lost in Translation: Hot Showers

So, when we first arrived to El Salvador our shower did not appear to have hot water. The handle on the left, which said “C” did not work at all and the handle that said “H” worked but, obviously the water was not hot. We went to the front desk and they said that they would fix it. Unfortunately, when the individual fixed the hot water, I (the Spanish speaker in the room) was not there. When I returned, Sandra told me that the maintenance man came and spoke to her but the only thing she heard was “cinco minutos,” (5 minutes), which Sandra, with no background in Spanish, remarkably knew meant 5 minutes. From that she guessed that the man was telling her that we just needed to wait for the water to either 1) heat up for 5 minutes or 2) in 5 minutes he would be done fixing it.

So, the next time that we tried the shower we waited a couple minutes and the water still was not hot. However, rather than return to request maintenance on the hot water again, we decided given how hot we had been after being out in the fields, having a cold shower was not too bad. But lately, the weather has been getting cooler and so we decided after 9 days of cold showers that maybe we could see if they could look at the shower one more time. This time, I was available to hear what the maintenance man had to say about the shower. He asked if he could take a look at the shower and of course, I eagerly ushered him in. In less than a minute he called me and told me to feel the water. To my delight, it was hot! I took one look at the handle and realized that the handle he had turned was the “C” not the “H.” It was then that I realized that the “C” probably stood for “Caliente” (which is hot in Spanish) and the “H” stood for “Helado” (cold) is Spanish. Suffice to say that the maintenance man looked at me like I was an idiot and we could have had hot showers for the past 8 days since it was fixed the first time (sigh). Eh, oh well, looking forward to my first hot shower in El Salvador tonight!

- Meredith

NOTE: Now that I know how to interpret the shower faucets (i.e., “C” = hot and “H” = cold), the water was hot with a vengeance…so hot that I had to turn down the “C” and turn up the “H”. Oh the things we learn…and the things that take us over a week to learn. Let’s just say my spanish vocabulary is getting better each day.

- Sandra

POSTSCRIPT: So, Jennifer and Michelle just checked to see which handles were “hot” and which ones were “cold” and they told me that H was their “hot” and “C” was their cold.  She then checked the faucets in the bathroom in the lobby and they too were H for hot and C for cold…..So, maybe our handles were just installed wrong….(since I was informed that universally the H & C regardless of country is supposed to be hot and cold).  Haha, not as much of an idiot as I thought……. Meredith