A Country in Red Alert: National Disaster
10.10.05
El SalvadorWe live in a country hit by National Disaster, the newspaper headlines read of thousands homeless, roads closed or destroyed, and water supplies threatened. For over twenty days, sequential days, it has drizzled or rained. Most intently, for the last eight days, we have had heavy rains, mud slides, flooding, lightening strikes, volcanos erupting, and even an earthquake (magnitude 5.7)...What more? Earlier in the spring, we had Hurricane Adrian, so we've been through THAT!! Perhaps a typhoon, tsunami or monsoon....oh yah, wrong part of the world....
Encanto and crew are fine. We float. We have plenty of sweet water, fuel and food on board. We could live for months without leaving the boat. We wanted to live a self sufficient lifestyle and we are getting that chance. We are doing well. "No worry, my friends. No worry."
However, for the rest of the nation and Guatemala it is rough, a very rough future. Most roads are destroyed and closed to the north, all the way from El Salvador to Guatemala to Mexico. Some of the damage is from the recent rains, but some is from Hurricane Stanley that hit last week. Rebuilding is already underway, but more rains are expected tomorrow.
We have initiated an Emergency Relief Fund for our friend, Jose Antonio Osterio. He lost the roof of his house (which means he lost his house) and part of his property slid down in a mud slide. Trees block access to his property. His family has relocated to the other side of the city with his wife's brother --10 in a house built for 4. He jokes that it must be like living on a boat, in tight quarters. Several members of his family are without jobs so he is a primary breadwinner for the Osterio Family.
Essentially, he is gathering his life back together from scratch. Most of us can't imagine not having a "nest egg of savings" for such a personal disaster. However, it is a heavy burden, when you barely make enough salary to keep food on the table, your daughter in college and extended family depend on you. For anyone else, it would throw us into the depths of despair and depression.
But, Jose is an incredibly unique and special man. Like many El Salvadoran's, he has survived civil war, a broken marriage, lost of job then restarted his family, reinvented himself from being an accountant to a taxi driver. He is no ordinary taxi driver, he carved out a niche supporting the needs of cruisers. He taught himself English and even for a short term, lived in the USA. He is the local connection and assistance that is essential to nomads when traveling around the world. Developing "trusted" relationships is critical to finding our way through our daily needs and the system.
He works almost everyday, seven days a week, 10 hour days. When he isn't driving a cruiser around, he has a taxi stand location in San Salvador where he pays a monthly fee to reserve the parking space for the non-peak times. He rents the taxi as he can not afford to buy the vehicle. He is paid $40, lunch included, plus fuel, for an all day fare around San Salvador. Of that $40, 50% is for the rental of the vehicle. His net income per day is $20 for 10 hours of work or $2.00/hour.
Often, he rises before dawn to pick up a cruiser to take us to the airport. Occasionally, he drives a cruiser, one way, six hours, to Antigua, Guatemala. Most days, he drives us to and around San Salvador, navigating back and forth across the grid laid city from hardware stores, to paint shops, to auto supply shops, to hospital clinics, to PriceSmart (like Costco), to the many different malls and Super Selecto grocery stores.
San Salvador is the nation's capital and a typical urban habitat; crowded, dense, grey, polluted, a mix of old and modern development. The grid layout extends 2.1 square kilometers supporting a population of nearly, 1 million people. We are told the US Embassy is the largest in Central America and the central hub of all central American activities. The Embassy is large, complex and secure (lots of bollards and walls).
Jose lives on the outskirts of San Salvador. He drives ninety minutes to reach us in the Costa del Sol, the estero (estuary). He picks up the rental taxi and then travels through cattle crossing, pot holes and inclement weather, always reaching us with a smile and his favorite phrase, "Hola, my friend." He never arrives without a smile.
When we have a problem he is there to figure out how to solve our concerns. He'll help us find a car to buy, which is essentially taking work from him. He will drive you to all the lots, but he will keep looking for the car when you have gone back to your boat discouraged. He knows your desires and while he is servicing another fare, he'll call you on his cell phone with yet another "lead". Or when you're frustrated with the "system" and the woman who authorizes and releases your car plates, says they'll be ready and they aren't ready when promised, Jose will, on his own initiative, call the woman, go to the storefront government office, and confirm the plates are ready for pick up, BEFORE you have to make another three hour round trip venture into San Salvador. Jose says to you, as you gratefully thank him for his efforts, "No worry, my friend. No worry."
This is the kind of guy who will ferret out where you can find a part for your boat. He'll strap a 5 X 6 piece of plywood to his taxi roof and deliver it to you through a storm. If you can't find a spare part or service, he will search and ask all his sources. He'll find you Japanese food when you crave it. He'll take a tourist to the tourist spot and give you a historical account of the events. Or he'll buy your daughter a typical wooden toy or a CD of the local pop song, "Gasolina, dara mas gasolina." He'll go the extra mile for you.
This is the kind of guy who is too humble to share his personal concerns or fears whether it be taking a small dinghy ride to a wedding when he is "deathly" afraid of water and drowning. Or whether he will drive over curving roads and roads less traveled by himself to pick you up. If you need to go, he will find a friend or he, himself with take you anywhere in the country and sometimes out of the country. One time, friends needed to get to Copan and he convinced Melvin (a fellow Taxi driver) to take the cruisers to Copan. This is a six hour drive over mountainous, windy, difficult roads. Two days later, when the cruisers were ready to return, Melvin refused to trek back to pick them up. Melvin found it too frightful an experience. Instead, Jose came himself to rescue the cruisers. After six hours of driving directly from San Salvador to Copan, Jose arrived, his charismatic smile firmly planted on his tired and fatigue body, saying, "Almost, worry my friend. Almost, worry my friend."
So far, we've raised nearly $600 for the Jose Emergency Relief Funds, not enough to rebuild his home or buy him a taxi, but it will help his family find an apartment and resettle closer to his son's school.
Others are working on similar Emergency Relief Funds, s/v Tarazad, Colette and Murray (cruisers who have fallen in love with El Salvador and have permanent residence status), have contacted their friends worldwide and raised $1,600 in a day, for the nearby village of Herradura. All the cruisers have donated food and clothes to the town, but alas even this is all just a drop in the bucket.
Every time we go to the grocery store we fill the basket with some food for us and some food (bean, rice, TP, etc.) for the needy. The High School age students are at the leadership of this Food for the Needy Drive. They speak to you in their impeccable excellent English, obviously children of affluence, who are reaching outside "their" comfort zone to help the people of their country.
We don't need a large organization to act as the middlemen and distributors of funds. Although worthy, the large organizations tend to absorb much of a contribution in administrative overhead. Instead, we feel good that our few dollars and contributions are helping directly, those in need, the Jose's, the villagers of La Herradura, Isla Cordoncillo, and Isla Colorada. Many of us raised in North America and Europe have so much more and although we all feel we are stretched to the limit with our personal goals, one has only to visit a place hit by a national disaster (including New Orleans), to be humbled by the extent of our wealth and the importance of our sharing whatever we have with others. Isn't the responsibility of a First World country? To "aid" those in destitute? Was that a Republican or Democrat speaking or perhaps a non-partisan humanist? In the end, did I really need that extra pair of shoes, the second Latte, or that latest electronic gizmo or gadget?
Charity is loving kindness towards others. We continue to learn and experience that GIVING is where it is all AT in life. The secret to a content life is that SIMPLE, but so hard for many of us to DO. Generosity cycles back to you when you least expect it. One cruiser says it is about collecting "karma points", others says it is not about collecting anything, that life is about a tenet of our childhood, "share, share, share". We have more to share with others than we realize. All we know on the good ship, Encanto, is that the more generous we have become, the more we have received back, the happier we have become and the more satisfying a life we are experiencing. In the end, aren't we all here for the adventure of living life well and with each other, supporting each other, one person at a time.