(CN) — So many kinds of street sales, which is what the unemployed must do to survive …
Find something to sell, if only for $5 a day...
Young, athletic folks jump in and out of moving buses with bags: a dollar’s worth of tomatoes, onions, green peppers, toilet paper …
Homemade rums and vodkas are peddled by older guys who chant more softly than the legal vendors, and walk the neighborhoods instead of the main drag …
A team of Guatemalan Indians walks through town to sell kitchen cabinets and tables door to door. Athletic young men and women carry the furniture on their backs to your door and ask for an offer ...
Mostly we are offered tamales, limes, and cress, for a spicy salad ... or fresh cuajada —cheese curds
In the capital, San Salvador, things are worse.
Out in the provinces, we have volcanoes and volcanic soil and everything grows …
rich maroon soil devoted almost entirely to sugar cane rather than food. Sugar is cash ... For those lucky enough to own a plot of land, the company sends a check after the harvest ...
The landless have grim harvest jobs for six months; if they can save rather than drink cheap liquor they can support a family … barely.
Selling bread in the early morning from a big basket on the back of a motorbike can bring in $7 a day.
San Salvador is a giant traffic jam … no one goes there unless absolutely necessary … very few even go halfway.
Yet things are getting better, rather quickly, though they were unimaginably bad not so long ago.
Gang gunfights with other gangs and the police ... 25-30 homicides a day ... mafia-style extortion of all businesses and even government agencies ... political parties on the phony left and extreme right paying thousands of dollars a day to the gangs for votes …
Assault guns sold to the gangs by legal gun stores ... uninvestigated femicides ... unpardonable pockets of squalor.
Talked on video phone with an old friend who sold bags of candy on the buses while they were loading, before she escaped to Charlotte, N.C., with her 4-year-old, somehow. Her daughter is in kindergarten; she has a job in a big bakery. Her big sister was shot in the head for not having a dollar to pay a gang member for a one-day loan. She was nostalgic, but glad to have had such good luck.
Thanks to her remittances, her family here has moved into a house without a dirt floor and with a toilet.
The FMLN is long gone in the areas where they fought the army and lost, but were given land and money to lay down their arms after the peace accords. If the FMLN had a stronghold during the 1980-1992 civil war it was Suchitoto, an old Mayan town on the Lempa River.
Loading...
Privacy Preference Center
We use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. We do this to improve browsing experience and to show personalized ads. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Strictly Necessary Cookies
Always active
These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable information.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Performance Cookies
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Strictly Necessary Cookies
Always active
These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable information.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Performance Cookies
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.