Last Weeks El Salvador

Hi everyone! 

I´m leaving Suchitoto in the next week and heading for Mexico, via Guatemala. To give you an idea of how small these Central American countries are, it takes 9 hours in a bus to cross half of El Salvador, go all the way across Guatemala and the cross the border into the bottom of Mexico. Of course, from there, its about a 346 hour bus ride up to the USA (Mexico is huuuge), so I´ll definiately be doing that part in a plane. 
  
 I have no idea where I´m going to stay in Mexico.  I had decided on a city but have since been told by Edy, who runs my house, that it is a den of people traffickers, illegal migrants, drug smugglers and Mexican cartels. (Poor Edy didn´t realise that this would just make the place sound more attractive to me...but since it is also stinking hot I think I´ll give it a miss). 

I had my last meditation classes this week, and one of the groups found out it was my birthday  and even had a surprise cake for me.  

At the end of the class I gave everyone a little embroidery, so there were surprises all round. 

Fly!

The meditation group at the Arts Centre, holding their little embroideries

Surprisingly, it has been the women in the other meditation group -- who all work at a local sewing cooperative and come from little villages around Suchitoto -- who have been the ones who have taken most enthusiastically to the idea of meditation. The other day I taught them a couple of little meditations they could do at home with their children. In one, you had to imagine that all your limbs were as light as a feather and you were floating up to the ceiling. After we´d finished, one of the women said, ¨I just floated up and up...through the ceiling and I could see the whole world and I was saying, ¨hello world!¨ and I didn´t want to come down again!¨ With this group, the wackier the meditation, the more they seem to like it.

Marina, one of the women from the sewing coop. (She just made this top for me).

I have been hanging out a bit with a refugee family from Mexico who are here for a few months trying to work out where they will go next. The dad is a lawyer and seems to have got into some trouble with a Mexican cartel. Sheila, one of the daughters, appeared at my window yesterday with half a banana and a pineapple...so cute! The day before this photo she had her hair cut - for the first time in her life!! 

Her elder sister, Dulce, is doing a bit of embroidery with me. They aren´t able to go to school here, so the mother is very keen on keeping the girls busy with little projects.  

Dulce and Leo in the ¨craft section¨ of my enormous bedroom

Dulce´s first embroidery

My friend Amy, who used to live in my house but is now doing volunteer work in the capital, also stopped by to get a little embroidery, and then we went out for pupusas - the national dish. I can´t get into it at all, it is just maiz flour stuffed with a tonne of cheese and pork rind, then fried. People here often eat these for breakfast AND dinner...the diet here is just appalling. If it´s not fried, salted, and stuffed with cheese then it´s not food in El Salvador.

The local pupuseria - this is where everyone eats. 

Talking about food, I was having lunch the other day with Edy and she was telling me that her brother died last year in his late thirties.  I asked what he died from, assuming it was something like a heart-attack or diabetes (very common here of course), but it turned out that he was murdered by four gang members. He was a farmer and was working, and the gang came to get money from him and ended up killing him. 

Other people saw it happen, and Edy said that by the end of the day all her family knew exactly who the killers were. I asked what the police did, and she said the family were all too scared to press charges -- her father works alone on his farm down by the lake and she has four teenage boys (and one of them goes to school with one of the gang members).  

But, there is some kind of ¨justice¨ in El Salvador: Edy told me that within three or four months two of the gang members had been killed because of internal fighting within the gang. She knew one of the boys quite well and asked him why he had killed her brother.  He told her he needed money; his mother and father were both in the USA and no-one was looking after him.  SUCH a familiar story here. 

This is Edy´s father, one of the original cowboys! 

Yesterday I came into town and there was a very raucous parade going on -- once a year the local school kids have an annual games day and they start it off with a marching band and lots of craziness.  (Check out the girl walking along with the xylophone strapped to her!)

There were also heaps of soldiers and policemen on the streets yesterday.  When I asked why, someone told me that a woman had be killed during the night a few blocks away, and one of her children went to the local school.  So, that gives a pretty accurate slice of life in El Salvador ...street parades, marching bands...and a bit of murder.

My favorite embroidery - this is a present for Edy

And, to finish, here are some photos from my going-away lunch...

Suchitoto No. 3 (or: How to Conduct Your Lovelife Over Social Media)

Hello everyone, 

So, as you know, I'm going to be teaching a meditation class here, and the whole debacle will be starting tomorrow.

Here is the flyer - it took me two hours to write this, so you can imagine how long it has taken me to write eight weeks worth of meditations into Spanish. 

I had to ¨sell¨ meditation a lot differently than the way it is sold in the west. In Australia/USA  it´s all about connecting with universal energy and finding a union with your true, authentic, spiritual self etc etc (eye roll).  I couldn´t get away with any of that stuff here, because people would probably think it was a cult. So, the flyer says that meditation is a simple type of relaxation practice that can help you to reduce stress levels and feel calmer. 

                                                  

I was putting the flyers up today in a few places around town. When I went into the women's sewing cooperative they asked if I could come and run a special little "grupito" for them once a week, at 7.30am! 

That class should be VERY interesting; I will be rolling out of bed, half asleep, to teach something I have never taught in a language I can't speak to a group of rural women whose conversation is made up of 99.9% El Salvadorean slang. Someones stress levels may be lowered, but they certainly won´t be mine. 

In other news, I got a three-month visa extension and went to the capital for the day, which looked a bit like this...

                           

And this (very like the USA)...

                         

I also bought a restaurant then went on an acid trip and painted it... 

                         

Then I went to the beach for a week to hang out with my little friend. I'm not sure what is in that bottle, but I suspect it's something a bit stronger than milk...(undies on the outside of tracksuit pants is always a bit of a giveaway).

                      

My spanish conversation teacher, Marvin, has turned out to have a crazy love life that is carried out primarily through email, text and Facebook. After spending 2 months practicing my Spanish with him, I've realized that El Salvador is the only country in the world whose soap operas are an understated reflection of what  goes on in daily life.

 A few weeks before Christmas he got on Facebook to make a passionate declaration to the love of his life, saying that he would be with her FOREVER, for ETERNITY, and would be buying a house with her in San Salvador where they would live together FOREVER for ETERNITY, etc etc.  

I thought she had hacked into his Facebook account and written it as a joke, but no, it was all him. (What better place could there be to declare your eternal love for your girlfriend of three weeks than on Facebook? There's no way that can backfire.) 

Then, a week later, around Christmas I was on Facebook and read, ¨I cannot believe that the love of my life is prepared to travel this world alone, and without me.¨  And, the next morning: ¨I have come to a momentous decision in my life; I will continue on with my family and my new baby.¨

A casual reader of Marvin´s facebook page might think, ¨Wow, the love of his life is all over the shop! First she´s buying a house with him, next week she´s traveling the world without him, and the next day she´s having his baby?! WTF?¨   

The ¨love of Marvin´s life¨ was all over the shop, but that is because she was three seperate women. Here is the crazy rundown, in a very brief synopsis...

Week 1 Marvin is in love with Ilsia, his girlfriend of three weeks and planning to buy a house with her. 

Week 2 Marvin´s ex-partner, Carly, announces she is 4 months pregant (to him). Ilsia dumps him...

Or does she?

Week 3 

Day 1 Ilsia tells Marvin (on Facebook) that she is pregnant to her ex-boyfriend. But, she doesn´t want to marry her ex-boyfriend, she wants to marry Marvin.

Day 2 Marvin finds out that Ilsia is lying about being pregnant to someone else to try to force him to get back with her. (WTF? How does that even work?)

Day 3 Marvin falls in love with Sarah, a beautiful American backpacker. I know this because he sends her an email asking to be her fiance (after knowing her for 24 hours) and she screams and shows me.

Day 4 Sarah rejects Marvin and the perfect place to share this rejection is on his Facebook wall: ¨I can´t believe the love of my life is content to travel this world alone, without me...¨

Day 5 Marvin gets back together with his pregnant ex, Carly, resumes his ¨family life¨ and announces it on Facebook.

THE END. 

Or is it...?

Week 7
I am at the beach and receive an email saying that a certain person is in love with ME. He gets avery curt email back saying that I am five years older than his mother (to be fair to both of us she had him at 13), and please $%&/ off. 

THE END

In other less dramatic news, I´ve been doing a bit of decorating in my bedroom...

¡Feliz navidad!

Merry Christmas! 

It´s Christmas Eve here, but tonight is the big night of celebration so I will be having my big meal about the same time as you in Australia.

Tonight I´m heading to the house of Edy, the woman who manages the place where I´m living. Here´s a photo of her  in the garden of the house next door to mine. Awesome view...they grow corn in front of their million dollar view and have the house facing the street. ???

A few days ago I had lunch with Edy's extended family. Here's a photo; tortillas and steak were on the menu, along with delicious freshly-made watermelon and mandarin juice. 

I made one of those classic language mistakes during the meal, and I´m sure they now think I´m a total jerk. Edy´s family are all from the capital, San Salvador. We were talking about how peaceful Suchitoto (this town) is, and I meant to say, ¨Yes, it is, but I haven´t been to San Salvador yet.¨ Instead, I got my words a bit messed up and said, ¨Yes, it is, and I will NEVER go to Sal Salvador.¨ Oopsy. 

Rule no 1 for making friends in Central America: don´t insult anyone's patria chica (home-town)...even if they are so crime-ridden that police dealing with gang violence have to wear balaclavas all the time in case gang members identify them and target their families. 

Yesterday I felt good for the first time in a couple of weeks, so I and my Spanish conversation teacher, Marvin, went on a walk down to the lake. He is a passionate bird-watcher, so here is the one-and-only photo of me as a twitcher, and a few photos from the walk.

The Christmas festivities have been ramping up here; last week they had a big parade of all the local beauty queens who each had their own extravagent float. Check this one out - there is a fully-functioning concrete ¨water feature¨ on this float!! 

And here´s a photo of me with my lovely Spanish teacher. After an hour with her I feel like my head is going to explode. She already has a degree in English and is now studying public relations, so she´s really interesting to talk to. 

Feliz Navidad! 

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!! 

El Tunco Photos

Hi all, 

I have been putting together some photos from here for the travel website I write for. They wanted a photographic essay of the town where I´m staying. I´m still not quite sure what a ¨photographic essay¨ is, but this is my attempt at one! 

I´m staying right next to the beach in a very quiet place and really like it here. The locals are friendly, but not overly-so, and there are no hawkers or annoying hassling sales people everywhere. Hardly anyone speaks English, so I am being forced to speak in Spanish, which is great and was just what I was looking for.   Here is the piece...

Located just thirty-minutes drive from El Salvador´s airport, the village of El Tunco offers swaying palm-trees, some of Central America´s best waves, and a laid-back welcome from its friendly residents.  During the weekdays, El Tunco is tranquil; surfers from all over the wander down to the sea to catch waves whilst women stoke wood fires and fry El Salvador´s national dish, the pupusa. On the weekends, the village comes alive as residents from San Salvador escape the heat of the capital city and enjoy a few day´s break by the sea. Here is a photographic essay — From Dawn to Dusk — which features this quiet beach-side pueblo.

Tijuana Paranoia

Hola!

I thought I´d put up a few photos from Tijuana. 

I crossed over  the US border with no problems, except for a woman on the tram asking me if I was homeless. (Maybe it was the pillow that I carry Linus-style everywhere with me, and the fact that it was filthy after being dragged (also Linus-style) across the floor of multiple airports.)

Once I was across the border, a woman stopped me and asked where I was going. I told her the area and she said she was going to her dentist in the same part of town (yes, she comes to Mexico to go to the dentist). She suggested that we share a cab, because she was worried about getting one by herself. I couldn´t believe that she was afraid to get a cab in the centre of town, at 10am, for a five minute ride! I´d only been in the county two minutes and even I could see that this was carrying the Tijuana paranoia a little too far. 

The view from my hotel 

I stayed in a little hotel near the entertainment and surgical centre of Tijuana. It quickly became obvious that tequila and giving anaesthetic is the primary source of income here.

The tequila part is obvious: heaps of young American gringos come here to party.  But, there are also dentists, optometrists, doctor´s and medical-supply offices everywhere. Having dinner one night I saw two Americans wearing pyjamas, with little IV bandages on the back of their hands. I started listening in and realised they'd both had lap-band surgery. I'd feel fairly confident going to the dentist in Tijuana, but I'm not sure I´d be undergoing stomach surgery in a hurry. 

Turns out, for all its bad press, Tijuana is pretty safe. The manager of my hotel was telling me that from 2006 until 2010 there were fifty murders per DAY in the city! (Which has about two million people). It was all a drug turf-war; the cartels in Tijuana wanted to charge other cartels to transport drugs through the border region. Eventually, they all reached a settlement amongst themselves, and now there are ´´only´´ around two murders a day.

A revolutionary-style mural opposite my hotel with the heading - Mexico and Cuba are brother countries.

Of course, when I told the manager that I was heading to El Salvador he said, "Are you crazy? It´s so dangerous there!" And I said, "Ummm...do you know what the rest of the world thinks of Tijuana!?" "Oh, that's rubbish," he said. I  said that maybe it was the same for El Salvador; unless you attempt to take over another drug cartel´s territory, you aren't likely to get into any trouble at all.

Overall, I really liked TIjuana. Despite everyone looking as though they´d been clothed by the drug lord section of Target (c. 1985), the people were very friendly and happy to let me inflict my creche-level Spanish on them.

I´ll do a post with a few photos from El Salvador next week, but here´s one of the Mexico City airport, which I´m thinking was built for the Mexico City olympics. It has  60´s architecture, with the walls and ceiling of the whole airport constructed with these holes cut through them. Don Draper would feel right at home!