Brief
In Spring 2012, I flew to El Salvador with a group of other UC students to volunteer near the city of San Salvador. The trip, arranged by Serve Beyond Cincinnati, was my first true look at Latin American culture and unfortunately, the poverty that oftentimes goes along with it.
My Experience
As I boarded the plane for El Salvador I was mainly just excited for getting out of the country. Prior to this trip I had only ever been to Canada. While that's a great country, El Salvador just seemed much more exotic. Once we arrived in El Salvador, my eyes were opened.
To begin with, the airport was TINY! Packed into a small amount of space were ALOT of people. We were stuck in customs for a little bit due to some scheduling and address issues, but we soon were through and on our way onto the (terrifying) El Salvadorean roads. Our driver was a funny, good humored man who put up with our crazy yelling and laughter each day with a big smile on his face and honky-tonk country on the radio.
We arrived at our house (an almost embarrassingly nice and well kept beach house compared to the rest of the local neighborhood) soon after and got settled. Every day we headed out to our work site where we dug trenches, poured concrete and generally sweated out 100% of our water intake for the day. Each day we entered the "neighborhood" I was astounded by the poverty. These people lived in simple poured concrete structures. Each family got a half of a structure which equaled roughly the size of my bedroom and living room. They ate extremely simple meals, the children mainly just stayed outside due to heat and no space inside and they only attended school for half days.
During our stay we traveled a small bit. We went to El Puerto del Diablo (or Devil's Gate) and into the city of San Salvador. We zip lined through the forests and hiked out to see the La Paz volcano. El Salvador is a country rich in natural beauty and I reveled in all that we saw and our proximity to the beach. Everyday after work we would immediately jump into the ocean to wash off the mud and dust of the work day. We had a rather too-near death experience (involving an impossibly strong undertow that swept the whole team out) towards the end of the trip which prevented me from entering the waves after, but it was wonderful to be able to jump in whenever.
So now, the reflection part.
El Salvador was an enlightening experience. Even though the Fuller Center (who we worked through) and SBC did their best to make the trip as comfortable as possible, it was still uncomfortable. Partly, it was just the nature of traveling, but it was also seeing that people don't all live like you do back in America. And yet, they are a very happy group of people - I mean at least in my experience. Our leader at the work site had great English. This was due to his having lived in the USA illegally after the El Salvadorean civil wars decades ago. He worked at a grocery store and then as a electrician/technician until he could save enough money to go back to El Salvador. His mother and son still live in Boston and he sends money regularly. He has not seen his son for over 5 years and probably won't for a while more. But he was such a nice, happy and caring guy!
The greatest lesson I learned in El Salvador is that the lot you get in life is not your defining characteristic. Not everyone there will rise above to a new social class through hard work, but they will try. And while trying they seem to have an optimism (and not to mention work ethic) that can teach everyone a lesson.
To begin with, the airport was TINY! Packed into a small amount of space were ALOT of people. We were stuck in customs for a little bit due to some scheduling and address issues, but we soon were through and on our way onto the (terrifying) El Salvadorean roads. Our driver was a funny, good humored man who put up with our crazy yelling and laughter each day with a big smile on his face and honky-tonk country on the radio.
We arrived at our house (an almost embarrassingly nice and well kept beach house compared to the rest of the local neighborhood) soon after and got settled. Every day we headed out to our work site where we dug trenches, poured concrete and generally sweated out 100% of our water intake for the day. Each day we entered the "neighborhood" I was astounded by the poverty. These people lived in simple poured concrete structures. Each family got a half of a structure which equaled roughly the size of my bedroom and living room. They ate extremely simple meals, the children mainly just stayed outside due to heat and no space inside and they only attended school for half days.
During our stay we traveled a small bit. We went to El Puerto del Diablo (or Devil's Gate) and into the city of San Salvador. We zip lined through the forests and hiked out to see the La Paz volcano. El Salvador is a country rich in natural beauty and I reveled in all that we saw and our proximity to the beach. Everyday after work we would immediately jump into the ocean to wash off the mud and dust of the work day. We had a rather too-near death experience (involving an impossibly strong undertow that swept the whole team out) towards the end of the trip which prevented me from entering the waves after, but it was wonderful to be able to jump in whenever.
So now, the reflection part.
El Salvador was an enlightening experience. Even though the Fuller Center (who we worked through) and SBC did their best to make the trip as comfortable as possible, it was still uncomfortable. Partly, it was just the nature of traveling, but it was also seeing that people don't all live like you do back in America. And yet, they are a very happy group of people - I mean at least in my experience. Our leader at the work site had great English. This was due to his having lived in the USA illegally after the El Salvadorean civil wars decades ago. He worked at a grocery store and then as a electrician/technician until he could save enough money to go back to El Salvador. His mother and son still live in Boston and he sends money regularly. He has not seen his son for over 5 years and probably won't for a while more. But he was such a nice, happy and caring guy!
The greatest lesson I learned in El Salvador is that the lot you get in life is not your defining characteristic. Not everyone there will rise above to a new social class through hard work, but they will try. And while trying they seem to have an optimism (and not to mention work ethic) that can teach everyone a lesson.