The El Tular Situation

We can only watch from a distance, albeit with care and concern. The courage to live with it is something to be seen to be believed. As this year’s delegation to El Tular (more below) was coming to an end we were treated to share in the “Festival of Maize”. It was an astonishing event. So much talent, so much artistry, so much beauty from such meagre soil brought tears to every eye. People must have been designing, sewing, writing, composing, choreographing, rehearsing for months to put on such a show of music and dance, tradition and modernity, skill and energy. The corner of the few yards of metalled road outside the gates of the poverty stricken school became Covent Garden for a day. Music, dancing, from the ancient traditions of the indigenous people to the break dancing of Los Angeles gangs, moving speeches and festive food transformed El Tular for a day.

The Festival of Maize is an ancient tradition recently revived, more like the old Lammas Tide than harvest festival, taking place when the crop is ripening. The 2010 harvest had been ruined by inclement weather and people were really feeling the pinch after a year of scratching a living with such bits of agricultural work that could be found to augment the fifty percent maize crop and the zero beans crop they had been left with. We asked Audelino how they were managing in this twelfth month. He said, “Like we always do. We have just one tortilla for the meal instead of two.” But this year the ripening beans and maize were looking very good for most people, pumping additional energy into the festivities. Then just as the harvest time arrived so did harmless sounding Tropical Depression No. 12.

Right in the middle of harvest time, at what should have been the beginning of the dry season, tropical rain fell day and night for weeks, cutting the community off from the rest of civilisation with swollen rivers and footbridges destroyed, rendering houses unsafe to live in, ruining the bean harvest and the rest of the maize, polluting the water supply. Most of our readers heard the story and I should like to thank you all for your generous, compassionate response.

I take the liberty of reproducing a translation of the report we got from our partner organisation El Bálsamo.

El Balsamo Association

Report on the distribution of foodstuffs in El Tular and Los Clara

Since the 10^th October El Salvador has been suffering as the result of what was called Tropical Depression No. 12, torrential tropical rain which poured continuously for several weeks, causing serious damage, floods, landslides and isolation in more than 30 municipalities. The immediate impacts on the affected communities are shortages of basic foodstuffs, such as rice, sugar, beans, salt, coffee and maize flour, clean dry clothing for the under 5s, clean drinking water among other things.

Our Association has been working in solidarity with these families, and thanks to the prompt response from Wellsprings in England we have been able to bring some help to families in El Tular, Los Pintines and Los Clara, in the form of basic foodstuffs, clean water and clothing.

The local Wellsprings committee in El Tular took on the responsibility of distributing - in addition to drinking water and emergency warm, dry clothing shared among the children - four pounds each of beans, rice, flour and sugar and one pound of coffee to every family (including those in Los Pintines). And the local Community Council dealt with the distribution in Los Claras.

258 families, adding up to some 1548 people were helped. Our Association observed the distribution in both areas, and we were solemnly charged by all the people, especially those in the remote Los Claras with the task of expressing their gratitude to the associates of Wellsprings in England for their solidarity and help through these difficult times.

With best wishes

Rosy Herrera

Co-ordinator of Programmes

Then the other day I was able to call an old friend Luis in El Tular. (Telecommunications are improving and it is increasingly possible to get through to one or two people. The signal is poor and Luis still has to hang his mobile on just the right branch of his mango tree for it to work!) I asked him how things were going on. He said “Oh things are pretty well getting back to normal. The people who had to move out of their houses have gone back now that the earth is drying out and they are setting about repairing them. And we have been lucky. There is work in the sugar cane harvest just now so all the men are off to work at 3 am to get some money to buy maize and beans.” “Lucky”, he said!

But generally things are improving a bit. Those young people who have managed to find employment as a result of our education programme radically reduce the vulnerability of their families. They may only earn five dollars a day, but five dollars buys quite a lot of maize and beans. And the money they earn always goes straight back into the family’s subsistence until such time as they have a family of their own. It doesn’t always go into maize and beans. It has been known to go into a telly. But what the hell, that means a family, or a whole neighbourhood even, has taken a step towards joining the rest of the human race.

Women and development

An area of life in El Tular that has been really changed by our intervention and in particular our encouragement of the Asociación El Balsamo has been in the role of the women. Culturally the women, whose traditional work entails co-operation, sharing sections of river for the washing of absolutely everything, lifting water jars and faggots onto one another’s heads and safeguarding each other on the long journeys for water and fuel, sharing child care etc. adjust more easily to new forms of co-operation than the men, who tend to be fiercely independent. So they quickly adapt to small business enterprises, vegetable garden, making, bottling and selling shampoo from the aloevera that grows wild in the region, or making and selling jewellery formed from the natural resources of the jungle. But the problem was a strong culture of women’s place being in the home, and certainly not getting involved in any activity which might have included men. I remember when we first suggested women’s being represented on the Wellsprings committee in El Tular, Audelino, who was the first chair telling me that he couldn’t morally work with the kind of woman that would feel at home in that kind of male company! Judít is now in her second year as chair of the committee, and Audelino has been at pains to share all his managerial skills with her, and when the women go to market with their wares, a couple of the leading males of the Community Association go with them and Samuel was at great pains to assure me that they only went to help with the heavy lifting, and wouldn’t dream of interfering in the policy making! These are the kind of changes that can only come about when we intervening outsiders can stay long enough to build trust. On the one hand we have to give the decision making power to the powerless, but at the same time we have to convince them that it is worth their while to do the same among themselves. It’s called preaching what you practice!

Home Front

The redistribution of decision making is high on the agenda of the Trustees at the moment. The gossip is that by having the time and the energy to work on Wellsprings I’ve somehow been something of a leading figure in the project, despite all the invaluable work of the others. But when you get old enough the energy diminishes, and the time you have gets a bit uncertain, not to mention going a bit gaga. (Nothing to do with her!) So we are working hard on being more of a collective. So it was fortunate that five of the trustees and a couple of faithful friends from the beginning went on the delegation this year, good for us and good for the people of El Tular to see.It was a great visit, not least because it was quite hard, (our dear friend Norma, who has formerly organised the visits is sadly suffering poor health now, and was unable to give us the leadership she has in the past). So we had to do quite a lot of organising and decision making on the hoof, and make some major managerial decisions with the committee in El Tular, and with our friends in El Bálsamo. At the same time our revisiting of the shrines of Archbishop Romero and the thousands of people who died for their faith in the repression years including the Jesuit martyrs, and seeing other people devoting their lives to the liberation and healing of the people of El Salvador renewed our commitment and energy.

Two people who had not been on a delegation before were Truda and Howard Sutcliffe. Both of them have years of experience of working with people in difficult circumstances and they worked as hard as the rest of us in dealing with various problems, as well as enjoying the experience and learning a lot. Howard has years of experience in community development work, so the other Trust members were delighted when he accepted an invitation to become a trustee at our meeting this month.

Greetings

Christmas and New Year greetings to all, and so many thanks for your continuing and faithful friendship and support.

Brian