My second day of class here

07.29.08

This post is about my second day of school in El Salvador, on Tuesday, 7/29/08. We had Spanish class again this morning, talking a little bit about the turtles in our teacher’s garden (he says that pomegranate trees are extremely common here) and about the kinds of tea we all drank this morning. (2 green teas and the teacher had te de hierba buena, which he grows in his garden at home. I should say here that yesterday our class had only 3 students and today we had two, so you can have a better picture of the situation. It is wonderful to get such individualized attention. After reviewing some grammar exercises, our teacher told us that we would watch a video today. Then he began to explain about the video. He spoke about world trade organizations and other organizations that are involved in giving money to countries such as El Salvador, including the IMF, World Bank, international development agencies, USAID, etc. He explained that he worked for the national telecommunications company of El Salvador for (15 years?). He was (the general secretary?) and very involved in the union. During the 12 year civil war here, unions were one of the most persecuted groups. Our teacher was detained and tortured (he has a large scar that looks like it was a terrible burn, on his right forearm.) He said that now, after the war has ended and the peace accords signed in 1995, there is a “blacklist” with names of people who were involved in unions and other groups who resisted the repression during the war, and that those people cannot find work in the government or other professional work in El Salvador now.

Main points of learning from today:

- Profesor W. told a story about 2 fellow union members who were killed during the war - one taken in the night from her bed, and the other in a “car accident,” in which the police said that the man was very drunk (a report from police and judge said this), but our teacher knew that this man never, ever touched alcohol.

- Also he told about a recent case of a man who was an organizer in a textile union (UNITE) in the USA, who was of Salvadorean origin, and who came to El Salvador to conduct union business, but decided to visit his family members in a rural area. He was killed while he was there. The police did a report and said that it was a common robbery by a thug, trying to steal his camera but he didn’t want to give it up. His family doesn’t beleive this. Two private investigators were sent by the union to research the case, and they found that it was foul play.

- Mr. W. repeated what our host father, our teacher yesterday, and so many people have been saying: that the government of El Salvador sends out a lot of propaganda about social and infrastructural development and about a good quality of life, and peace, etc., but that it isn’t true. There still exists a lot of repression and free speech is something dangerous. He mentioned that there are still death squads that repress people who think differently from the government and try to organize to make a better life. Many people don’t use their real names.