Suchitoto - El Salvador

I've been in suchitoto for a week and am really liking it here. It's a small town of about 20,000 people an hour's drive from the capital city. I can't believe there are that many people living here because the town is so quiet - there is hardly any traffic. I think everyone walks everywhere, except when they have weddings, when they all cram into the back of a truck! (The bride gets to ride up front though...)

Maybe they´re going to be sold at market, or maybe they´re going to a wedding reception. Who knows?

Suchitoto is often called the cultural capital of El Salvador. It has the best preserved colonial architecture, lots of cultural events and is also quite left-wing and very organised. (It was one of the left-wing guerrilla centers during the war.) There are almost no tourists here, but there are a handful of US volunteers here working on different kinds of community projects.

This stencil is painted on the outside of almost every house in town. It says, "In this house we want a life free from violence against women.".

The woman who's living in the same house as me is a volunteer who is here for a year running workshops on non-violence. There's also a beautiful ex-convent next door to where I'm staying which is now a centre for arts and peace. There's a nun who runs the centre and has all kinds of classes there - everything from harp lessons to yoga. I just took this photo yesterday at the opening of a photographic exhibition at the centre.

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The old convent

The gang violence that is such a big part of life in other parts of the country seems to be kept at bay here. You can see that the locals are putting a lot of energy into diverting kids from becoming involved in the gangs.

Unfortunately, this isn't the case in the rest of the country. Last week, I did an interview with Gilles, a Belgian guy who lives in the surf town where I stayed for a month. He and his family run the hotel where I stayed. I interviewed him about his experiences being an immigrant to ES for the travel website I write for. 

Playing with Gilles´CUTE son 

He was telling me that tourists are almost never impacted by the gang warfare, but he has had extortion threats and has had plenty of friends who've been caught up in it in some way. He said that because tourists buy drugs, they are fairly protected from any violence. This is because if tourists are harmed then they will stop coming and the customer base will dry up. So, they aren't targeted. (So, a big shout out to all those dope-loving US surfers who are keeping the rest of us tourists so safe.)

But he said that, particularly for young men here, they are lucky if they don't get caught up in it in some way. He has an 17-year-old nephew who is living with him because he comes from an area of the country where there is a lot of gang activity. The gangs often try to recruit from schools, and the boy's father sent him away because he felt like he could get caught up in it. The boy's mum lives in the US and he hasn't seen her for years because she's there as an illegal immigrant and if she leaves she won't be allowed back into the US! 

Even though the war ended twenty years ago in some way it is still continuing because the war led, in different ways, to the big gang culture here.  This is the sign outside the local Internet cafe. 

What? You can't pack heat while surfing the net!? Weird...

Here are a few photos from the house I'm staying in and around town. I don't think I've ever had such a huge bedroom; this photo shows 1/4 of it. (And, I´m only paying $175 a month!!)

This is the view from the garden next door to my house...not too shabby!!