“Towns, municipalities, countries … nowhere moves forward if women don’t participate. Between all of us, we create development.”
These were the words of my fellow Progressio development worker María Martínez in the closing ceremony of a competition to promote women’s participation in the eastern department of Morazán, El Salvador, in April of last year.
On Monday we spent the morning working in the greenhouse with two of the women from Amiga, Sara and Irma. It was very tiring and made me appreciate their workload. We were cultivating the soil, laying out the irrigation pipes and we also picked around 100 cucumbers to be sold. We all really enjoyed working in the greenhouse despite it being really hot.
This week we begin our project work in the colourful streets of downtown San Salvador. We are staying at the Centro Bartolome de las Casas (CBC). This is an organisation which focuses its attention on the youth in the capital, raising awareness of issues such as sexual and reproductive health, women’s rights and the prevention of violence and works with both men and women.
Last Saturday we attended the beauty pageant of Ahuachapán. This is a yearly event and a big tradition here. It meant that we had the opportunity to observe and be a part of a local event. It went on for about four hours and there were many dance routines and dances dispersed throughout the proceedings. We all had a really good time and even agreed on who was eventually chosen as la Reina (The Queen).
In-country training is complete! In these last two weeks we’ve heard from those whose voices are the least heard in this beautiful but damaged country. These include Madre Guadeloupe, a survivor of the civil war but who lost family members; Manuel, an ex-gang member who has turned his life around; and various women who are fighting for their rights in El Salvador.
Today we left San Salvador and drove to Ahuachapán where we will be for the next eight weeks. We are all so excited to start working with IMU – our in country organisation – this week, particularly after having learnt so much about the nation over the past two weeks.
Climate Justice supporters in Central America watched tentatively and with skepticism for news from the COP17 negotiations in Durban, fearing that COP17 would just lead us further down a dead-end road.
This week we were invited to do something very special within the community with which we have been working; to release the baby turtles, which have been protected by a conservation project, back into the sea.
When we arrived at the centre I was surprised at how tiny the turtles were and how vulnerable they seemed when I considered that we were about to send them straight into the powerful waves of the Pacific. Thus, I was even more surprised when we put the turtles down onto the sand and without any hesitation they ran straight for the water, into the waves, and were gone.
This entry is aimed more at thought than fact…
Being British we all know how we go to work and aim at targets. Or how we go down the doctors and when asked how we feel, we have to put that feeling on a scale of 1 to 10, and the same the next time we are asked – even if that’s not really measurable and we didn’t even remember how we felt the last time anyway.
For the last 7 weeks we have been living and working in El Salvador and realised that a major part of the lifestyle is made up of the food that people eat and sell, and the music that people listen to.
The traditional dish of El Salvador is the Pupusa, which can be found everywhere, being made in homes and sold in cafes, restaurants, by street vendors and in the Pupusarias.
