The Salvadoran Civil War (1979–1992) was a conflict in El Salvador between the military-led government of El Salvador backed by the United States government, and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), a coalition or 'umbrella organization' of five left-wingguerrilla groups. Significant tensions and violence already existed in the 1970s, before the full-fledged official outbreak of the civil war—which lasted for twelve years. El Salvador's Civil War was the second longest civil war in Latin America after the Guatemalan Civil War. The conflict ended in the early 1990s. An unknown number of people disappeared, and more than 70,000 were killed. Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvadoran_Civil_War
Movie Recommendation: Voces Inocentes 2004 Mexican film directed by Luis Mandoki. The plot is set during the Salvadoran Civil War in 1980, and is based on writer Óscar Torres's childhood. The film serves as a general commentary on the military use of children. The movie also shows injustice against innocent people who are forced to fight in the war. It follows the story of the narrator, a boy named Chava.
Immigration The seven countries of Central America south of Mexico are smaller, poorer, and more rural than Mexico. They sent about 40,000 legal immigrants to the US in FY94--the highest rates of emigration were from Belize and El Salvador, and the lowest was from Costa Rica. Over 90 percent of the 1.1 million Central American immigrants who arrived in the US since 1820 came in the last 15 years, versus 60 percent of the Mexican immigrants. According to unofficial estimates, over 400,000 Central Americans enter Mexico with the intend of traveling on to the US.Mexico expels more than 70,000 illegal aliens across the Guatemalan border each year. Over 65 percent of the migrants arriving illegally in Mexico report "ill treatment, beatings and threats at the hands of the authorities," according the official Mexican human rights commission. source: migration.ucdavis.edu/mn/more.php?id=945_0_2_0 Movie Recommendation:Sin Nombre Honduran teenager Sayra reunites with her father, an opportunity for her to potentially realize her dream of a life in the U.S. Moving to Mexico is the first step in a fateful journey of unexpected events.
After departing from Granada, Nicaragua (where we spent over a month), we decided to hop around a few small towns in the northern highlands of Nicaragua before heading to El Salvador. The highlands are known for their fresh air, limited tourism, and wonderful coffee!
First stop - Matagalpa. A beautiful town dwarfed by the surrounding lush green hill sides, Matagalpa is the coffee power house of Nicaragua. So what better place to lounge around, drink coffee all day and visit coffee museums. From here we set off into the hillsides, about 2 hours east of Matagalpa, to experience life on the farm. In a little community call La Reina, we spent a night with a family in their house, eating fresh food from their farm, and chatting about day to day life. The family consisted of a mother, five daughters, and one son. The father would stumble around every once in awhile (drunk) looking for a quick meal. Luckily he came as we left. Great little family, and very fun experience!
Second Stop - Esteli. From delicious coffee to world class cigars. Esteli receives few visitors, but those that do make the trek get a great opportunity to smoke world class stogies, and that's not me saying that, that's fact. (http://robbreport.com/Paid-Issue/Best-of-the-Best-2012-Cigars-Jaime-Garcia-Reserva-Especial-Limited-Edition-2011). Again, to fully appreciate the beauty of the cigar culture, we toured a factory, and smoked one of the worlds finest. I was in the clouds for our late afternoon bus!
Third Stop - Ocotal. Yasmin visited Nicaragua in 2007. During her visit she spent time in Ocotal (a stones throw from the Honduran border) shadowing a nurse (Dochita) in a small public hospital. We spent a couple of nights with her and a full day field trip out to the campo (countryside) at a government medical outreach. The outreach was held at a small public school where doctors, nurses and dentists all came out to give free "check-ups". I got to see some lady's rotten molar get ripped out!
Forth Stop - Somoto. Just spent one afternoon and a night in this little border town. But, Somoto gave us access to an amazing river, canyon hike. Some of the best I have experienced. We hired a guide to show us the back entrance to the canyon, and with lifejackets we swam, floated, and cliff jumped our way through the canyon.
From Somoto we made a 12 hour travel day to the San Salvador, El Salvador and as soon as we arrived we b-linded it to the beach to the lazy surf town of El Tunco. El Tunco is the home of El Sunzal, a easy rolling point break where we have be learning to hand ten.
So far El Salvador has been a pleasant surprise. A black cloud made up of gangs and drug cartels hovers over the country and gives it a bad rep, but so far El Salvadorenos have been some of the kindest people we have come across in our journey.
Well to back track a bit, here are some stories of our journey from Costa Rica into Nicaragua, the land of volcanoes, lakes and more gallo pinto...
What we've been up to...
After crossing the border from Costa Rica to Nicaragua we hopped on a long, cramped three hour bus ride (which should have only taken 1 hour) in a beat up, barley running school bus. Of course we were standing up the whole way, carefully contorting our bodies to barely squeeze in, all the while looking for something or someone to hold on to when the spastic driver decided to suddenly speed up and slam on the breaks. After traveling by public transport in Central America for 6 months, you learn to embrace the uncomfortable and chaotic atmosphere. We notice that the locals have no shame to practically sit on top of you if their is the slightest bit of space, hand you their kid(s) to sit on your lap, or sweat and perspire constantly all over you. These things made it almost unbearable to travel via public transport at first, but now we just go with it.. not even thinking twice about exchanging sweat beads with a stranger.
We ended up in Granada, which is a beautiful spanish colonial city right on the sweet lake, Lago Cocilbolca (19th largest lake in the world). The town itself is filled with ancient churches, colorful homes, and Granadinos who spend the majority of the day escaping the heat by relaxing in their rocking chairs in any shade possible. You almost wouldn't think that you are in the western hemispheres second poorest country hanging out in just Granada. If you spend enough time there, you start to see evidence of the poverty as in infiltrates into the central park and the tourist district. We began to see the street children addicted to shoe glue roaming the streets and the skin and bone horses lugging around anything from a stack of beaten up moldy mattresses at once to loads of construction materials to take back to the campo. The outskirts of the city is worse off, struggling with extreme poverty, malnutrition and unfortunately drug and alcohol abuse.
We made it off the bus in one hot and sweaty piece (with our bags thankfully, which is always a gamble when some random person grabs it from you and throws it on top of the bus... you can only pray it shows up when you get off).
We randomly came across a living arrangement at a hostel/family home where the sisters (the "dueñas"), some of their children, a boyfriend, a grandpa, and some other random people all lived. It turned out to be a very entertaining situation, a bit reminiscent of our hometown Burqueños. We came home one day to find an audience (including a three year old girl) at the dining room table. We walked over to see what the action was, and saw the boyfriend was giving the sister a tattoo of a chuck tailor allstar with roses around it on her calf. Classy. Another afternoon, Dom got a frantic call from the "responsible" sister advising him not to give any rent money to the other sister (the one with the new tattoo), because she was on a drinking binge and would spend it all on Toña beers. Just a little dysfunctional, but we got a kick out of it. Don't worry... we didn't pick up any tattoo souvenirs while staying there.
When we weren't hanging out at our ghetto fabulous hostel, which we eventually found a appreciation for in its own special way, we spent the majority of our time in and around the impoverished areas of Granada. Along our journey we have found that the most beneficial work has been with children and the elderly. Thats not to say we didn't make friends or spend time with anyone else, but we found that doing humanitarian work with children and elderly seemed more rewarding because often times, they are the most vulnerable in a broken poor society . We played with the kids and taught classes, focusing mainly on basic hygiene and nutritional health (check out the latest video Dom made.. "The last two weeks").
We also spent every morning going to the Hogar de los Ancianos (Old Folks' Home) and hanging out with the elderly. The majority of the patients there are abandoned and suffer from depression among other illnesses. They all have interesting and tragic stories, given that they have lived through a brutal civil war as well as several natural disasters. We met one man maybe in his mid fifties, who unfortunately is crippled with only one leg due to diabetes and suffers from severe arthritis and depression. Because the Hogar de Ancianos operates on donations, there is a dire need for resources, including pain medication. Dom got to chatting with him and found out that he actually has a prosthetic leg, but hasn't used it for over a year due to his increasing arthritic pain and lack of personnel to help support him while ambulating. Dom and Humberto spent the next week walking for one to two hours every morning. Humberto made great progress just in one week, and the help and inspiration that Dom gave him brightened his spirits and gave him hope to keep practicing.
With some generous donations from friends we were able to donate 500 tablets of Ibuprofen, 500 tablets of Tylenol, 500 tablets of Aspirin, a ton of wound care supplies, antibacterial ointment, anti-inflammatory ointment, etc.. for the ancianos. We also found out that although the elderly nicaragüenses are frail, they do have latino blood and LOVE to dance.. walker or wheelchair bound.. not a problem! So, what better way to lift the spirits of the elderly than to provide them some emotional and physical therapy through dance and music? We hired a musical group from Masaya that plays the traditional marimba instrument and hired a local friend and her family to cook up some arroz a la valenciana (chicken, sausage, veggies and rice) with maduros, tortillas and fresh tropical fruit refresco. The band played for two hours while the elderly ate the delicious food (something other that the monotonous gallo pinto) and then danced joyfully.
With the left over money from the DandY fund, we helped the tiny school in the campo, Salomon de la Selva, convert an old hacienda building in two to create a small library and study area for the kids. We donated ply wood, paint, wood planks and even got some book donations from the local library! We were able to share the finishing touches with the teachers and kids. Everyone was enthusiastic and excited about their new "Mini Biblioteca". Yasmin made another "public health in a box", with medications and wound care supplies and taught/discussed with the three teachers of the school about first aid, wound care and what to do in case of so and so illness.
Once again, thanks for all the generous donations and support from everyone back home. Without your help, we would not have been able to do all these wonderful things!
All in all, Granada turned out to be a great experience for us both. We survived the heat, but look forward to discovering the cool coffee highlands of North Central Nicaragua..
Educación Plus
Educación plus is a non profit organization (eduplusnicaragua.wordpress.com) founded and run by a local Nicaraguan. Its main focus is to provide nutrition and an education program to 120 impoverished and malnourished children that live in the slums outside of Granada in efforts to keep them off the streets. We have been visiting the tiny school (which is run out of the owner Ervin's home) on a regular basis, both teaching and helping with nutritious meal preparation.
A couple of friends from New Mexico (Mateo and Heather) came down to visit us for vacation, and we put them to work! Heather, a nurse work friend of Yasmin's, helped raise money at the UNMH Medical ICU to help the dandy cause. With the money donated from the MICU, Heather purchased tubs of children vitamins from Costco and brought them down south. The money also went towards a first aid kit which included wound care materials, lice/scabies shampoo, medicine, etc. Heather and Yasmin discussed and taught the basic principles of first aid to Ervin, his daughter and the other volunteers.
We took Mateo and Heather to visit Educación plus to help prepare a meal and play with the kids for an afternoon. We purchased all the ingredients from the street market and grocery store and continued on to help prepare the food for the kids that day. The meal consisted of vegetable chicken soup, bananas, milk, and a daily vitamin (much better than rice and soda!).
Escuela Salomon de la Selva
Salomon de la Selva consists of three teachers, 60 students, 7 grades (k-6th), and three classrooms.
We assembled 60 packages (toothpaste, toothbrush, soap, and information and activities regarding good dental and hand hygiene) together for the children of a rural school 30 minutes outside of Granada. To help teach the kids about dental and personal hygiene, a group of 14 UNM Conexiones students (that happened to also be in Granada) got to come along for the ride. The UNM students were a huge helpe and all the kids of Salomon had a great time with them.
The UNM students also brought school supplies, games, books, toothbrushes, toothpaste, and more for the kids.
Huge thanks to the UNMH MICU crew, the awesome UNM students and everyone who donated!!!
The following video is a recap of all the fun. Enjoy.
The past three weeks we have spent in Granada, Nicaragua visiting different programs and schools for children. It has truly been an eye opening experience.
Nicaragua is the second poorest country, next to Haiti, in our hemisphere. Poverty is very evident in day to day life, whether you are in the city or in the country side. Major issues that we have seen, which is caused by the extreme poverty, are malnutrition, drugs (mainly children ranging in age from 10 to 18 who are addicted to sniffing shoe glue), and lack of education.
We can get into all of these issues later.
After visiting a few schools and nutritional programs, we have decided the best impact we can have with limited resources is to educate.
We plan to go about this by delivering "DandY packages" to all of these programs.
What's included in the package: toothbrush, toothpaste, and hand soap.
Pretty simple! We are planning on delivering the packages this week and will be giving short lessons to each class that we visit on proper brushing and hand washing techniques.
So stay tuned and thanks again for the donation money that is making this all happen!
We arrived in San Jose, Costa Rica for one reason. Find that 1970's VW Dream Bus, buy it, and drive it back to the U S of A. Through researching on-line for a couple of weeks, I became an expert on what to look for when buying a Bus. We looked at about 9 different busses in just a few days. They all LOOKED great on-line, but in reality there were just rusty old busses with nice paint jobs. Every bus that we looked at was simply not going to make it back to the US.
Bummer.
From San Jose we wanted to go to Monteverde to experience the best jungles and cloud forests Central America has to offer. I thought the bus left from San Jose at 7:50am. Nope. We arrived at the empy bus station only to be offered 3 hour taxi rides to Monteverde for $200!!! What! A kind man then jumped in and recommend that we take another bus line that would drop us off at a town near Monteverde, and from there we could catch a bus to Monteverde. Nope.
We got dropped off on the side of the highway 6km from La Junta. The next bus that was to pass would be a 5 hour wait, but given that its rainy season, that wasn't certain. Not gonna happen. Luckily, we were able to share a taxi to La Junta. From La Junta we were told by some locals that we could hitch a ride to Monteverde, a rough 10 km road east. Nope. All we were offered were taxis that wanted to charge us $70. I thought Central America was suppose to be cheap!
Waiting on the side of the road in hopes of getting picked up by the non-existent through traveler, a SUV full of three gringos stopped to ask ME for directions! I guess my six foot stature is starting to fit in with the five foot and some change locals.
"Where do you want to go?", I asked
"Monteverde", Pete replied.
Hell yeah I can give you directions! I thought to myself.
"Sure I know where it is" I replied, not really knowing.
From there Yasmin and I enjoyed our first A/C transit in months to Monteverde, which by the way was beautiful!
Huge thanks to Pete, Scott, and Steve for the ride and the beers! Enjoy the office!
DOM
One of "The Ones", 3rd cylinder didn't work
I dont' know what this look is called, but whatever it is, is it working?
Arriving in Xela to meet up with our friend Steve, whom we met at the Casa Guatemala orphanage and is now a trekking guide, meant one thing- climb the highest volcano (point) in Central America. Tajumulco, or in Mayan "walk to the clouds", sits in north western Guatemala at 4220 meters. We wanted to end our time spent in "Chapinlandia" with a bang, and even though it's rainy season, we decided last minute that we were up for the adventure... rain or shine.
Steve is now volunteering for a non-profit trekking organization called Quetzaltrekkers. All profits generated from this trekking outfit go to support a local street children's school. Quezaltrekkers has been in operation for over fifteen years and gives children the opportunity to attend school and even go to university. Check it out! http://www.quetzaltrekkers.com
The journey began at 5 am with a chicken bus ride in a suped-up blue bird school bus going no slower than 90 mph through high windy mountain roads. After a pit stop in the town of San Marcos and a plate full of pancakes and fresh fruit, and yet another chaotic bus ride, we made it with sleepy eyes to the road that would take us to the trail head.
After a stellar three hour hike into the misty clouds, we made it to the base camp that sits right below the peak. All three of us took a relaxing half hour siesta under the sun, until the afternoon rains began and didn't stop until after dark. The following day, Dom and I woke up at 4:30 in the morning to catch the sunrise from the top of central america and welcome the day. "La Pacha mama" or "mother earth" answered our prayers and the weather was impeccable. As soon as we summited, the crescent moon slowly disappeared, the sun penetrated through the wave of clouds opening the sky and exposing the earth's beauty below. We admired the view, which included Volcan Santa Maria (one of the worlds top five most active volcanoes right outside of Xela that erupts every 20 minutes), the myriad of volcanoes that surrounds Lago Atitlan, and the mountain range that extends into southern Mexico.
We are now revived and ready to continue our travels as we hop on a plane and fly south to San Jose, Costa Rica... stay tuned for more DandY adventures!
Mucho amor,
Yasmin & Dom
This pup befriended us at the trail head and decided to join the adventure
Last few steps to the top
Dom keepin' it real in his fluorescent chompa!
Camp site with Tajumulco in the background
Steve, Yasmin and Dom on the hike down...Calidad!
Ever wonder what happened to those old bluebird school buses?
