El Salvador: Never Judge a Book by Its Cover

El Salvador evokes extreme emotions and eruptions; both volcanic and political.

Five masked men and women board our bus, demand passports and speak excitedly in Spanish. Could they be the feared Mara gangs, akin to the Mafia, who recruit children and demand extortion payments from local businesses?

Yet, those toting old guns seem to simply saunter aimlessly around the border post between Honduras and El Salvador; countries with the highest murder rates in the world as of 2019. On board, health officials brandish only thermometers. Donned in surgical masks and greyish lab coats, they test all arrivals for potential signs of Covid-19. It’s February 5, 2020, long before such vigilance in Australia, the USA or UK. Is this because the indigenous population of the region was almost eradicated, in the sixteenth century, by a smallpox epidemic carried by foreigners?

We weren’t armoured Spanish conquistadors on mounted steads but a rather motley mix of tourists squashed in the non air-conditioned mini bus. It’s a wonder our sweaty bodies didn’t send the mercury soaring, even if digital thermometers have no mercury. A kindly Brit, excited about the birth of her second grandchild, was recovering from a cold and we quietly worried she’d test positive and we’d all be quarantined. No one confesses this concern until dinner.

‘Blimey, we might’ve been eating those bloody pupusas for breakfast, lunch and dinner for two weeks.’

The popular Central American cuisine of maize tortillas stuffed with meat, cheese or refried beans are quite tasty but Salvadorian eateries missed the memo that variety is the spice of life.

The acute threat of the pandemic was taken seriously in a country plagued for years by chronic political and economic instability. Coups and revolts against a series of authoritarian rulers bred inequality and civil unrest that culminated in the devastating Salvadoran Civil War (1979–1992) which still ails this impoverished nation.

There’s an attempted queue of disorderly bumper-to-bumper trucks; ironic that only the computer crashed at passport control. After a lengthy delay, bureaucrats resorted to photograph passports on their phones and issued our guide with a handwritten list of names, passport numbers and birthdays to re-enter if and when the computers re-booted. In turn, a woman in our group, bent on collecting official passport stamps, took her own photo of the guide’s record, posted our details on Facebook and wondered why we were upset about potential identity theft.

‘Too bad there isn’t a vaccine for bloody stupidity,’ muses a fellow traveller as he swigs another rum punch to become almost as senseless himself.

Tensions have always run high in this smallest and most densely populated country in Central America.

The indigenous indigo industry vanished into the blue, so to speak, with the advent of artificial dye. The little land available was re-planted with coffee to sate the more lucrative export market, which fell into the oligarchical hands of a few wealthy families.

Festering human rights abuse included murders of priests, massacres of civilians and disappearances of others by the US supported junta that left this nation on various forms of life support.

Much of that support comes from approximately two million Salvadorians who live and work in the United States. This makes them the sixth largest immigrant group, even after 60,000 were deported back during the 1981-89 Regan years. American dollars, also the official currency of El Salvador, are transmitted home to extended families. It’s a major source of foreign income to help offset the substantial trade deficit of $4.12 billion in this still poor country; evident in the plumbing of crumbling, though still colourful, buildings.

Texas is closer to El Salvador than to Washington and the US government was concerned– likely not unreasonably–at the proximity to communism, with local militants trained by Cuban forces.

Most were peace-loving farmers who lost their livelihood through government annexation, when dams flooded their land in the mid-seventies. Compensated only 11 cents per day, it was barely enough to eat. I’d have converted to a leftist guerrilla myself.

The current president of El Salvador formed a new party, neither left nor right. Since he took office in June 2019, murders have dropped from sixty per day to three per day in February 2020.

Nayib Bukele heralded a breath of fresh air in a country gasping for reform. Born in El Salvador, of Palestinian origins, his religion became a controversial election issue as the leader of a predominantly Catholic country. Images emerged of him praying at a mosque in Mexico City, and in deep reflection at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. He has since asserted that his family is Roman Catholic and although his father converted to Islam, the president considers himself a believer in God first, rather than religion.

El Salvador translates to ‘The Saviour’ and it seems there is still much saving to be done in a country of complex contradictions. Our hotel, hidden behind iron doors and barred windows, is billed as eco-friendly but boasted heat sensitive electronic toilet paper dispensers−which occasionally worked. Guests impacted by too many of those refried beans would have welcomed the old fashioned variety from the modern Walmart in San Miguel.

In this sleepy town of Suchitoto, the fully recovered British grandmother joins me in search of a school or orphanage to donate some soap and school supplies. Instead, we stumble upon a drop in community centre for the elderly poor.