I know that this isn’t from Greece, but I wanted to blog about the week I spent in El Salvador so I’m just going to add it on here...
My Economic Development of El Salvador class traveled to the country during BC’s spring break to learn about microloans, remittances, and the general economic situation in El Salvador. Our professor is a Jesuit who has been traveling to the country for the past ten or so years. The first half of the semester we focused on learning about the role of microcredit and remittances before leaving, and now that we are back we are learning about economic development (how it is different from growth, what conditions are necessary, etc.). I’ll spare you some of the dry details of the course.
I packed my bag, trudged through the gently falling snow, and headed to the airport very early (3 am) on March 3rd with the eight other students in my class. We said good riddance to the dreary Boston weather and flew to El Salvador via Newark. As we stepped off the plane in El Salvador we were met by a wave of heat (around 95 degrees), and quickly shed our winter jackets. Our personal bus driver Oscar picked us up and drove us to the UCA (University of Central America—outside of San Salvador) where we would be staying over the course of the week. We were living in a house where visiting professors stayed and were all lucky enough to get our own rooms. Father (Padre) was staying with the Jesuits next door to us—the location where the six Jesuits were murdered over 20 years ago.
The week was an exercise in my foreign language abilities. I thought I was through with Spanish, but my meager skills acquired from high school actually came in handy. Very few Salvadorans that we met could speak English so it helped to speak a little Spanish. We relied mostly on fluent student in my class to translate entire lectures for us, and over the week I was able to understand some of what was said. I know now why language immersion would be so effective for learning a new language.
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Mayan ruins
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The night we arrived we drove around a bit and saw some of the scenery. March is the end of the dry season in El Salvador so it was not nearly as green as it will be in the coming months when it downpours everyday. We saw people driving around in old vans with the doors hanging open and filled to capacity or else in the beds of pickup tracks, literally hanging out. The streets were filled with political signs for the election coming up the next week—everyone is very politically active and participates in rallies for either the conservative ARENA party or the left-wing FMLN. For dinner we went to a pupusería in the hills. It was an open air restaurant with a mariachi band that serenaded us hoping for a couple dollars. Pupusas are a traditional Salvadoran dish made of thick, hand-made corn or flour tortillas that are usually filled with a blend of cheese (usually a soft cheese called Quesillo), pork, and refried beans. I had a pupusa con queso and frijoles, which was the first of many for the week and absolutely delicious. We were promised a trip to a Salvadoran restaurant in Boston for our last class. (I can hardly wait.) Stuffed with food and ready to pass out from lack of sleep the previous night, I fell asleep in my room accompanied by lizards on the walls and ants crawling around.
I awoke completely confused to the sound of hundreds of parrots squawking before the sun rose at 5:15 am. I thought I was dreaming and only when other students confirmed the parrots did I know it was real. The UCA we learned, has some of the largest trees left in the area, which is where all of the parrots roost for the night, literally right outside our windows. Needless to saw an alarm clock for the week was completely unnecessary. I woke up at 5:15 everyday without fail. We got a late start to our day on Sunday (7 am). Padre said a personal speed Mass (20 minutes and done!) for us. Then we headed to some ancient Mayan ruins. I also got my first taste of coconut milk—straight from the coconut, cut by a Salvadoran lady with a machete (everyone has a machete in El Salvador). Not the most delicious drink I’ve ever had, but it seemed very authentic. After the ruins we toured a volcano called Boqueron. It was little bit of a hike, but afterward we got more pupusas to refuel us. These ones were even better than the ones from the previous night. I got an ayote one, which we think translated into some form of squash.
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| El Boqueron |
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| Altar where Romero was shot |
In the afternoon we visited the church where Oscar Romero was killed. A sniper sat in the tree in front of the church and looking through the windows above the door he shot Romero as he raised the host during mass. Later that afternoon back at the UCA we visited the rose garden where the six Jesuits were murdered in November of 1989. A couple weeks ago, back at BC, we attended a talk given by a Jesuit from El Salvador about the failure to bring justice for the murders. The people who orchestrated the murders are still living free from punishment; in fact, one of them is reportedly living in Massachusetts. The rest of the afternoon we got to enjoy the beautiful weather—in the 90s, but a dry heat, so tolerable.
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| Chicken farm |
Monday was our first day visiting a microcredit site. Two Salvadoran women made our breakfast for us in the morning. They cooked for us all week and did our laundry as well. In fact, if we didn’t leave any laundry out for them to clean they would look for our dirty clothes in our suitcase. At 7 am we left and drove an hour and half to San Francisco, El Salvador. We did a lot of driving throughout the week and since the country is so small we got to see most of it. The first two places we went to were chicken farms. Old ladies received small loans from a local microcredit site to raise chickens and sell them at the market or to their neighbors. The majority of microcredit is given to women, either to individuals or in a group setting. They received about $400/year and repaid it with about 30% interest, which is surprisingly low for a microloan. Some of the loans we learned about in class have interest rates as high as 100% or more. The ladies had families and the men supplemented their income by fishing and doing other odd jobs. They had about six cycles of chickens each year and seemed proud to have to opportunity to support their families. The sad thing was the women did not really have an idea of the actual amount of profit they made, or what an interest rate was. All they cared about was how much money they had at the end of the day. The lack of education and training resulted in people receiving loans without really having knowledge of how to begin a business, which is what most of the loans were supposed to be for.
Later we went to a coffee plantation that was run using funds from NGOs and was actually earning enough profit to give loans out to locals. We got to see the entire coffee production process, taste some of it, and even buy a couple of bags that were freshly made. For lunch we went to a seafood place near the ocean. Some of the more adventurous students in my class tried some sort of shellfish. They were very fresh, so fresh that they were still moving. I like my food dead (and cooked) so I chose not to try them. The night was spent back at the UCA. We had class with our guide Rutillio in the business school building. It was about the role of microloans in El Salvador, but I won’t go into the details.
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| Class photo |
Tuesday we spent at La Vega Dairy farm, another loan recipient. They had received a loan from a neighboring business called Cordes so that they could begin processing milk, and not have to send it somewhere else—in the business world it is known as vertical integration. They were having problems with their machines. La Vega had the wrong kind of milk and therefore can’t pasteurize it. Padre warned us not to try the unpasteurized cheese or we’d probably be sick for the rest of the day. Seeing the man churning the giant vat of chunky milk discouraged everyone from trying anything. Later we went to Cordes next door. This organization focuses on providing educational programs for Salvadorans. They also were working on organic gardening techniques and were constructing a greenhouse. That night was another lecture, this time on the impact of immigration in El Salvador.
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| Orange picked straight off the tree |
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| Pineapple plantation |
Wednesday was by far my favorite day of the trip. Padre stayed behind and we went with Rutillio and Oscar to a pineapple farm called Appes in Santa Maria Ostuma. The town was beautiful, right down to the park with view of the plantation. We got to hike, drink fresh pineapple juice made especially for us, and eat our fill of pineapple taken right from the plant and cut with a machete. Josiel from Appes took us on a tour of the pineapple plantation. We saw the irrigation system they built and along the way he peeled us fresh oranges to eat. We were in sandals slipping and sliding down the mountain holding each other’s hands for support, while the secretary from the company went with us in high heels and didn’t stumble once. For lunch we went to a restaurant and for next to nothing had chicken, vegetables, and rice served to us in the family’s actual dining room. Josiel then took us for a wild truck ride to his personal pineapple farm nearby. We go to have the authentic hanging out of the bed of the truck experience down a winding dirt road. Only one person got hit by a low hanging branch… This is where we had our fill of fresh pineapple and even got some to go. Josiel was very kind and really appreciated Americans coming to visit and taking an interest. He taught us all about Appes and the loan they had received ($102,000, which isn’t really a microloan) and all they had accomplished with it, as well as his personal experiences. From his farm we had a wonderful view of the area, which was the perfect end to the day. On our way out of town we drove right through an ARENA political rally and all the Salvadorans pointed at us gringos. We were all very sunburnt and made quite a spectacle. Class that night was spent learning about CAFTA—the Central American Free Trade Agreement.
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| View from Josiel's pineapple farm |
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| Irrigation System |
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| Class photo with Rutillio and Oscar at the park overlooking the plantation farm |
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| Basket weaver loan recipients--ADEL |
Thursday was our last day for learning about economic related things. We went to another area and visited a microloan organization called ADEL that dealt with group loans. The representative took us to a rural area where women wove baskets and sold them to people like us touring the area. Then we went to another group of ladies who dyed shirts to sell. They gave us coconut milk still in the coconut and talked about their loan experience. It seemed as if ADEL had taught them how to dye the shirts and gave them a loan to do it, from what I could get from the conversation (remember this whole week we were relying on translation to get by or our really rusty Spanish skills). Lastly we went to another organization where 14 people came to repay their group all together. The benefits of the group loan are that they hold people accountable. A recipient doesn’t want to fail to pay his or her share because everyone in the group is depending on that money and the others in the group are people that they know and don't want to let down. Everyone came carrying handfuls of cash to the loan repayment session. By this time we were falling asleep, but we got to enjoy some nice Salvadoran fast food at Pollo Campero (they love their chicken in El Salvador). That night we got chocobananas (chocolate dipped bananas covered in peanuts) before our last class, which was all about the general economic conditions of the country. The Central Banker was supposed to be our lecturer for the night, but her had to send his assistant because he had a last minute meeting with an IMF official. We were a little disappointed.
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| The girls in the class (all 3 of us) with out choco-bananas |
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| The beach had a pool too! |
Friday was our one actually spring break type day. We spent the day at a private beach, complete with hammocks. The waves were really strong, I got a little too confident and probably went out farther than I should. It was fun though and by applying sunscreen every 20 minutes I avoided a sunburn! Padre warned us about how every year he has had to send someone home bandaged up due to a burn so we took it to heart and none of us suffered any damage. Lunch was brought to us (only $3) by an old lady--either fish caught that morning or chicken, vegetables, and rice (the usual sides). I laid around in a hammock, finished the first Hunger Games book, and enjoyed the sun before heading back to Boston the next day. I could have handled another day of relaxation, but I guess we were lucky to get the one and in such a perfect location. The following morning we were up before the parrots and heading to the airport, then to Houston, and onto Boston. Sadly we had to put on our winter coats when we landed and face reality.
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| the beach |
Here are some more photos!
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| Hike through the pineapple plantation |
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| Cutting pineapple with a machete |
My Economic Development of El Salvador class traveled to the country during BC’s spring break to learn about microloans, remittances, and the general economic situation in El Salvador. Our professor is a Jesuit who has been traveling to the country for the past ten or so years. The first half of the semester we focused on learning about the role of microcredit and remittances before leaving, and now that we are back we are learning about economic development (how it is different from growth, what conditions are necessary, etc.). I’ll spare you some of the dry details of the course.
I awoke completely confused to the sound of hundreds of parrots squawking before the sun rose at 5:15 am. I thought I was dreaming and only when other students confirmed the parrots did I know it was real. The UCA we learned, has some of the largest trees left in the area, which is where all of the parrots roost for the night, literally right outside our windows. Needless to saw an alarm clock for the week was completely unnecessary. I woke up at 5:15 everyday without fail. We got a late start to our day on Sunday (7 am). Padre said a personal speed Mass (20 minutes and done!) for us. Then we headed to some ancient Mayan ruins. I also got my first taste of coconut milk—straight from the coconut, cut by a Salvadoran lady with a machete (everyone has a machete in El Salvador). Not the most delicious drink I’ve ever had, but it seemed very authentic. After the ruins we toured a volcano called Boqueron. It was little bit of a hike, but afterward we got more pupusas to refuel us. These ones were even better than the ones from the previous night. I got an ayote one, which we think translated into some form of squash. 
Monday was our first day visiting a microcredit site. Two Salvadoran women made our breakfast for us in the morning. They cooked for us all week and did our laundry as well. In fact, if we didn’t leave any laundry out for them to clean they would look for our dirty clothes in our suitcase. At 7 am we left and drove an hour and half to San Francisco, El Salvador. We did a lot of driving throughout the week and since the country is so small we got to see most of it. The first two places we went to were chicken farms. Old ladies received small loans from a local microcredit site to raise chickens and sell them at the market or to their neighbors. The majority of microcredit is given to women, either to individuals or in a group setting. They received about $400/year and repaid it with about 30% interest, which is surprisingly low for a microloan. Some of the loans we learned about in class have interest rates as high as 100% or more. The ladies had families and the men supplemented their income by fishing and doing other odd jobs. They had about six cycles of chickens each year and seemed proud to have to opportunity to support their families. The sad thing was the women did not really have an idea of the actual amount of profit they made, or what an interest rate was. All they cared about was how much money they had at the end of the day. The lack of education and training resulted in people receiving loans without really having knowledge of how to begin a business, which is what most of the loans were supposed to be for.
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