"Rain"
The start of the rainy season in El
Salvador is usually greeted with joy. By mid-May, farmers are eagerly awaiting
the first rains to quickly begin planting their basic subsistence crops
of corn and beans. In the cities, the refreshing and cooling power of rain
lifts spirits as people look forward to the new season.
For some, however, especially since Hurricane Mitch in 1998, the rainy season is a time to worry about floods. This year, that concern was heightened by the legacy of the earthquakes, and any joy of anticipation was replaced by fear. In a country whose land and people were fractured by the major earthquakes in January and February and thousands of aftershocks since then, rain carried a threat of more destruction, death, and misery.
"The cracks [in the ground] are wide, some 1 inch, others as much as 7 inches," reported Yvonne Dilling (who is assisting AFSC counterpart CORDES [Foundation for Cooperation and Community Development in El Salvador] in its relief and reconstruction efforts) in early May, after a visit to a community where the people were concerned about the lands on which they plant their crops. "[They are] in areas close enough to the slopes that I could see how a hard rain might cause [the land] to wash away...if caught working out there when one slid, it's hard to imagine the person would survive." According to government officials, once the rainy season started half a million Salvadorans were at risk from land and mudslides (El Diario de Hoy, June 1).
As if to give people more time to do whatever they could to mitigate their vulnerability, the rains held off until early June. The first rains showed that the fears were not misplaced. As of June 5, more than 100 temporary homes had been destroyed, three schools were damaged, and land and mudslides had cut off communication with several areas of the country.
"It's a mess out there," said Guillermo Galván, Executive Director of the Foundation for Support of Municipalities (FUNDAMUNI). "One of the plots of land to which we relocated people has turned into a mud bowl, and we desperately need to get drainage systems built there."
The new problems caused by the rain compounded the already overwhelming situation faced by AFSC's counterparts and others in El Salvador. There are only so many houses, schools, and other basic infrastructure that each organization can build with the communities in a certain amount of time. These don't begin to cover the needs that exist, which means that the establishment of priorities can be a difficult process emotionally, mentally, and institutionally. The government has been unable to come up with an effective way of addressing the numerous problems and needs.
And all of this is simply addressing the most pressing and visible problems. The unseen and in some cases longer-term problems of infrastructure damage haunt the background: "We're going to find that many, many more homes were damaged than has been assessed," reported Yvonne Dilling. "To give an example, out in Chalatenango, where I live...CORDES put out a call for community leaders to do a thorough assessment after the third earthquake. It forced all families to examine minutely all the walls and corners of their houses, and the final damage assessment was far beyond what anyone thought. In Ellacuria, at the home where I live with a family, they had done the assessment and found four cracks that surprised them, yet had not seen a crack right where the floor and wall connect out on the corridor...The crevice where floor and wall join will have to be chipped up at the base and re-cemented from within, a mason said...Engineers came and checked out the regional office building of CORDES and assessed that several of the cracks would require major repairs within two years."
AFSC's Ongoing and Future Response
(See previous updates for assistance provided to date.)
Material Assistance: AFSC continues to send material items to its counterparts in El Salvador. Another shipment containing hygiene kits and other items is planned for the near future.
Campaign for Relief: AFSC is supporting a national campaign undertaken by the Center for Consumer Defense (CDC) to get legislation passed in El Salvador that will provide subsidies for electrical and water utilities for earthquake victims. In addition to providing relief to those affected, it will help strengthen CDC's networks for future work on consumer rights issues.
Building Houses: AFSC is exploring ways to support the efforts of the Salvadoran Ecological Association (UNES) to promote the building of environmentally friendly adobe houses, and to help UNES expand this model to other countries in Central America.
Building Schools and Relationships: AFSC has begun the process of supporting the rebuilding of a school in Loma Pacha in the Department of Usulután, and in facilitating the creation of a "school-to-school" (sister school) relationship with a Friends school in the United States. AFSC will also be supporting the rebuilding of at least one other school in that hard-hit region, and hopes to support others if more resources become available.
Mental Health: AFSC will begin to support mental health training workshops given by Capacitar to organizations and communities in El Salvador, and will look for ways to accompany and support the sustainability of such programs at the local and national level.
Economic Reactivation: AFSC supported the Coordinadora Bajo Lempa in its purchase of a strategically located 2-acre plot of land and accompanying facilities that will be used for various purposes. It will be put to use immediately to assemble prefabricated houses destined for the Coordinadora communities that were hit hard by the earthquakes. In the longer term, it will be used as a market for the region's diversified crops, as a restaurant, as a hotel, and as a point of departure for ecotourism, all of which will create jobs and provide sustainable income for the Coordinadora's communities.
Disaster Prevention and Mitigation: AFSC Emergency and Material Assistance Program (EMAP) Committee member Ben Wisner visited El Salvador in early April to assess the situation of disaster prevention and mitigation in El Salvador. As a result of his visit, AFSC has been supporting the work of the Boll Foundation in promoting a reintroduction of a Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Law in the Congress of El Salvador.
=A9 American Friends Service Committee http://www.afsc.org/
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