Transvestites, War Stories and Lovely Rooftop Views

Arriving with a sore post-virus head in Leon, deposited at a petrol station on the outskirts, Lou and I wasted no time in installing ourselves in a central hostel and trundling around the centre of town, eager for new sights and sounds.

We were in luck, beset upon all sides by a long and riotous procession celebrating some saint or another, around which the townspeople flocked in great quantities. Town bells clanged in glorious dissonance and a string of midday drunks and, unexpectedly, transvestites, trailed behind the main procession as it wound its way about town, disappearing from sight and ear-splittingly reappearing again suddenly as soon as Lou and I decided to sit somewhere and engage in conversation.

Seeking quieter experiences, we committed ourselves to the Sandinista Revolution Museum, housed understandably rather proudly in a grand and steadily decaying building that formed the last stronghold of the National Guard in Leon before it was toppled in 1979. Of the grand rooms leading from the sweeping central atrium beyond the front door populated with latent Nicaraguan men, only one was in active use as the museum. The walls of the room were covered with a selection of newspaper cuttings, shoddy photo-copies, pages ripped from books and dog eared maps affixed by sellotape, forming the most haphazard historical display that I can recall within recent memory.

We were led around the selection by an ex-guerrilla, an amiable but serious fellow who gestured at everything with a trusty pointing stick, giving us a high speed tour of the modern history of Nicaragua from the assassination of General Sandino, who had waged relentless guerrilla war against US military forces since their occupation in 1912 and finally driven them out of Nicaragua in 1933, by the US military trained Nicaraguan National Guard to the relentless war waged against the Sandinista government post-revolution by the (yes, you’ve guessed it) US financed contra-revolutionaries in the years of the hard-line Regan administration. The whole bloody and brutal history lasted for about 60 years, and had much credit to give the foreign policy of our favourite international superpower. It was almost as if I was listening to an echo of El Salvadorian fortunes, the fortunes of an entire country retarded by the best part of a century for the gains of …what, exactly?

Our tour progressing beyond the high ceilings of the room containing grainy photo after grainy photo of young, serious faces that never saw an end to their conflict, and we climbed the stairs up to the roof. Clanking gingerly over a worryingly thin layer of corrugated tin riveted to beams beneath by our confidently striding guide, were led around a selection of fine views of Leon. We stared from the rooftop in the warmth of the late afternoon sun over towards the distant volcanoes that spiked out of the horizon like the cardiogram of a heart murmur patient. I asked our guide how he felt about giving the tours. After a brief pause he replied,

“It’s good for me to talk about it. It is hard, but it’s like a kind of therapy.”

The heavy beige sunlight picked the wrinkles and creases out on his face and I reflected, rather sadly from our grand perch overlooking the sprawling town, on how many people this man had lost. I though about how much had been torn away from him without him being able to do anything about it, and why he had been forced to experience such a hard existence. I tried to understand, but I couldn’t.

Leon, Nicaragua
4th October 2009

Coffee Bean Connoisseurs

Selecting only the finest beans for the harvest with Marlon in the coffee finca, Sontule.

Marlon lives and works with his family in Sontule in the Miraflor region, a couple of hours outside Esteli in the North West of Nicaragua, where buses only occasionally venture along the bumpy, suspension destroying road. Most inhabitants get there and back by horseback, or foot. A selection of children, dogs (one of which is confusingly called Chicken), chickens, the house pig (called, you've guessed it, Dog) and family members wander in and out over the dirt floors of his home over the course of the day.

Marlon (on the right) is a lovely chap with a great big smile and one of the key members of the local coffee cooperative and tourism project, which in their respective ways aim to bring a sustainable income to the community.

Lou and I visited for a couple of days on the tourism program after the reccommendations of friends Simon and Rachel, as Simon is teaching English in the community school a couple of days a week. Pottering around the stunning landscape of rural Nicaragua, empty out of season coffee beneficios (processing plants) and the various houses of relatives with Marlon, we were absolutely delighted with the friendliness of the people and tried as best we could to adjust to simple country living in our homestay, campesino-style for the weekend.

Sontule, Miraflor, Nicaragua
3rd October 2009

Losing All the Best Bits...Of Your Country

Soft spoken and rather unassuming, you wouldn’t really think much of Ron Brennenman. Until, that is, you find out one of the countless facts that seem to nonchalantly crop up, like when the FMLN guerrillas organised a major offensive on his kitchen table during the civil war. Ron (seen here modelling a very fashionable cowboy hat and the even more fashionable Whitaker Sisters) has seen El Salvador go to pieces during the 80s, and then try and pull itself back together again, with fairly lacklustre results.

This has, in a nutshell, prompted him to start Amun Shea, an educational project run out of Perquin up in the remote wooded hills of the North East. The project is an inspiring attempt to provide a heavily subsidised private education for the local children which is not subject to the fairly unsatisfactory rigours of the public school system. The short term aim, which is to generate significant academic success in comparison to national results and thus force education reform, is well underway. The much harder long term goal of building and retaining desperately needed community leaders to stop the incessant traffic of talented individuals out of the country (who mostly head to the US illegally looking for a better life) is proving much more elusive; results, if any, won’t be seen for years.

It is incredible to hear Ron describe what is happening in El Salvador, and to see quite clearly how the country is a shell, hollowed out by war, leaving the resulting wasteland of possibility for the population. With the option of living hand to mouth indefinitely in a country that stalls its progress of international development or leaving for faraway lands of golden opportunity, which would you choose?

Perquin, El Salvador
30th September 2009

Perquin

Tucked away in the North East of El Salvador, Perkin is a small town with a big past. The centre of operations of the guerrillas during the civil war, it was deserted for almost fifteen years and saw fierce fighting. The war museum, a fairly breathless climb up from the town centre, gives a fairly harrowing perspective from the guerrilla Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN) side of the conflict, with countless photos of the casualties of the conflict placed alongside heavy artillery weapons that were either captured from the US sponsored National Guard. Our guide Carlos, an ex-major who served for the duration of the war on the side of the FMLN, tells us that the turning point in the war was when US manufactured mobile surface to air missile launchers arrived from Nicaragua, a keepsake of the contra-revolutionary conflict, allowing retaliation against the constant air bombardments that were levelling civilian villages, assumed to be enemy targets; in short, US funded weapons against US funded weapons.

The surrounding villages also bear the scars of the conflict, one of the most recognised being in El Mozote, about a half hour drive from Perquin. In 1981 on December 11, Salvadorian armed forces trained by the US military killed at least 1000 civilians in an anti-guerrilla campaign. Outside the village church is a memorial garden in which the local guide tells us they discovered the bodies of 147 children below the age of 12 buried in a mass grave.

It is amost impossible to comprehend acts of barbarity of this scale, no matter how impactful the monuments erected to remind us of events. It is also equally difficult to understand the motivations of the Regan administration during the 80s, and the far reaching effects of its foriegn policy that resulted in escalating death tolls of civilian populations in numerous central American countries, and the practical removal of their civil liberties, something the US tirelessly contradicts itself with via its constitution.

Perquin, El Salvador
29th September 2009

Sick and Alone

If there is one thing the independent traveller should beware when in a state of ill health, it is the unscrupulous hotelier.

Swaying down the road a half hour of so before dusk in the one horse town of El Cuco with the intention of surfing the local wave for the weekend, head spinning and knees trembling from an unknown ailment that was enthusiastically assaulting my immune system, I encountered a squat creature that, on closer inspection, turned out to be human swinging in a hammock next to a sign proclaiming rooms for rent.

Mustering what little was left of my Spanish as my vision cart wheeled, I asked to see a single room. The results were disappointing. A bare, windowless concrete block cell was demonstrated, containing only a hammock and a bed frame with an uncovered paper thin mattress. No fan to ward off the awaiting armies of mosquitos or dispel the blistering heat or, after questioning, sheets or a pillow. For this luxury, $7 a night.

I turned on my heel and, striking out once again with a sinking feeling, tottered quarter of a mile down the road to the nearest accommodation. It cost $30 a night, and I, in a fit of preparedness, had brought $20. There were no cash machines in El Cuco; I was going to have to sleep in the cell. Back down the road with my tail between my legs I explained that, yes, I would like the room, just managing to catch the grunted comment from the Creature with Rooms for Rent that it always happened like this, they went away and came back again. Paying in advance for the two nights that I intended to stay for, I crashed through the door, and depositing my bags in the corner of the room, propped myself up against the doorframe as the Creature dispatched one of his offspring to bring the change for my $20 note.

I lay where I fell on my mattress, sweating and turning over the options in my head for the terrible state of health that had suddenly struck me down. What was it? Heat stroke? Malaria? I drifted in and out of sleep as dogs went berserk outside the ‘room’, children cried and the drone of mosquitos sounded overhead like a Second World War bomber squadron approaching London.

Morning duly arrived with no improvement in my condition and I decided after brief deliberation that it was best to retreat to the city, within range of medical attention, and find out exactly what was wrong with me. Tracking down the Creature, I smiled as weakly as I possibly could and explained that I was not well and neeed to visit a hospital, thus requiring a refund of the money for the following evening.

“That is not possible.” he almost inevitably replied.

“May I ask why?” I proffered through clenched teeth.

“You have paid for one night, and one day.” he explained.

“You’re telling me that your price of $7 was for the night, but I have to pay the same thing again for the day, just to leave my stuff in the room?” I questioned, disbelief edging into my voice.

“Yes.” he replied, as if he was humouring a process of me explaining circumstances to myself.

“I have never heard of this arrangement in my entire life.” I said, my voice starting to lose its level calmness.

He said nothing, staring at me. Undeterred and unwilling to lose an essentially ridiculous argument, I held his stare. Silence endured for about 30 seconds.

“Look,” I said eventually, glancing at my watch, “It’s only 10 am in the morning anyway; I shouldn’t even have to pay for a day yet.”

His eyes briefly flickered; I had just played checkmate. There was no way he could withhold money from me for something that had not yet occurred. All that was left for him was the last gasp effort of taking advantage of my weakened state and bloody minded unreasonableness.

“I’ll give you $5 back.” he responded, within a heartbeat.

The staring match began anew. After another 30 seconds had passed, he slowly reached for his pocket without taking his eyes off me like a driving offender reaching for the car glove box and retrived a selection of crumpled notes. They totalled $7.

“Muchas gracias” I said in a sickly sweet voice that I hope was successful in conveying my burning desire to see his whole operation and family washed into the Pacific by a tidal wave. Shouldering my bags and shuffling as haughtily as I could manage towards the bus stop, I began the long, hot journey that would inevitably result in an injection in one of my buttocks in a medical treatment centre somewhere in San Salvador.

El Cuco, El Salvador
28th September 2009

Consumerabilization

This is the Galerias mall in San Salvador, but if it wasn't for the Spanish written on the signs, it could be anywhere in the world; the same sanitary shopping enironment, global brands, special offers, fast food chains in the food court. The whole building is a pulsing force driving everyone inside it to buy as much as they possibly can, if they can afford it or not (credit schemes are, of course, available).

Is this the grand goal of a developing contry? Did El Salvador drag itself out of civil war seventeen years ago so that it could develop a nice plump middle class that focus their aspirations on earning enough to buy exactly what the 'developed' world wants? Can we all hope at some point that we will slot nicely with the rest of the planet into a neat pattern of earning and spending on commodities that we really don't need? Is this progress, or just a distraction?

San Salvador, El Salvador
28th September 2009

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

El Salvador is a country somewhat obsessed with security. Around every corner you're likely to see one of these cheerful chaps scowling at you, cradling their loaded shotgun. I've seen them standing outside every imaginable building; banks, clothing stores, fast food restaurants, and even a creaky beach access door from a hostel in El Tunco. Footprint guide tells me that there are around 60,000 firearms currently in public circulation, and a very reasonable percentage of them are illegal, but do you fancy telling this guy to give his gun back?

San Salvador, El Salvador
27th September 2009