Alex

Very early this morning (3:30 am), the CCLP group left to go to the airport to catch their flight back to the States. Lacey and I slept in until 7 or 7:30 before we breakfasted with Alvaro and Javier and left to go to Connie's house in Izalco, where we'll be staying for the rest of our time here.

      Instead of taking a van or a small bus, as we had been with the CCLP group, our ride this morning was in a sedan. The driver bore a striking resemblance to my dad: tall, lean but with a small pooch in the stomach, working man's-hands, a mustache and a bit of chin stubble, laugh lines around the eyes, etc. His name, if I remember correctly, was Alex. I wasn't feeling well and I rode up front to avoid motion sickness, and I was not conversational at all until I was surprised to hear the driver ask, in English, "So how do you like your stay in El Salvador?" "I like it a lot," I replied, and then was quiet for a while. I was looking at all the billboards and ads and signs in Spanish. After a while, when we'd gotten onto the highway, the driver said, "What do you think? This is a new project here in El Salvador. This highway." "It's nice!" I said. "It reminds me a lot of driving through Portland, Oregon." "Oh, I've been there! I know Portland," said Alex. "Yeah, my family lives in Washington. My sister lives in Bremerton, and others live in Seattle." "Oh, really? I know those areas." I said. "Yeah? Do you take the ferry over to Bremerton often?" he asked. "My family and I did when I was young," I said. "We haven't gone in many years, not since we moved to Ellensburg." Later, he pointed off to the left. "That's where I live now," he said, pointing at Lourdes. I have wondered since the first time we passed that town how to pronounce the name, since it's not a common Spanish spelling. Was it pronounced "Lords?" That just sounded too English. Was it "Lord-es?" I took this opportunity to ask him. He said it's pronounced "Lo-oor-des." As we crossed a bridge over a small creek, he explained that a few years ago the bridge had collapsed and was recently rebuilt. Lacey joined the conversation at this point, exclaiming that it's amazing that such a small creek could grow so much so as to destroy a bridge. The conversation continued until we reached Connie's. During this time, we talked a little bit about economics. I asked him if it was true that much of El Salvador's economy depends on remittances, and he said yes. 16% of their economy depends on money being sent back from the U.S.! Alex told us that he doesn't think that's so good because people here don't work as much any more like they should, because they just get money sent to them from the U.S. He pointed to a sugar cane field on our left, and said that, for example, people used to work the cane fields and harvest sugar, but now people come from Honduras and Guatemala to do that work because some Salvadoreans have gotten lazy and won't do that work anymore. He said that the U.S. dollar, the currency here in El Salvador, is worth a lot more in Honduras, so people will come here from Honduras, get paid in dollars, and then send it back home where it's worth a lot more. I was thinking that there's a similar state in the United States: there are many people who just depend on handouts and so they don't work, but those people just collect welfare or other government aid and won't work, yet Americans complain about immigrants coming to the U.S. and working our fields. You just find me a native-born white U.S. citizen with an option for a government handout who is willing to work in those fields, then tell me who's taking whose job! Anyway, I digress. The point is, there are immigrants who come to the U.S. to work and send money back home where the dollar might be worth more, just like people are doing here in El Salvador. The U.S. is apparently not the only country with this economic issue.
                      Alex now works as a driver. He drives school children in the morning, first shift workers in the afternoon, and late-shift workers in the evening. He wanted to get a job in a call center, like those for customer service, but he wasn't able to because he lacked the necessary IT training. Apparently, driving and working in call-centers are some of the best-paid jobs here in El Salvador. For example, our CCLP bus driver, Walter, earns $20 a day, which is almost 3x minimum wage. Alex said that people who work at call centers typically earn $1000 per month, and it only costs $100-150 to rent a NICE house here in a good area! He said with English and IT, you can live very comfortably here.

             We also learned that Alex had lived in Los Angeles, California. His English was almost accent-free, and I was surprised to note that he pronounced "Los Angeles" like "loss an-gel-as", just like most U.S. natives do, instead of like "Lows An-hel-ees" like most Spanish-speakers do. We learned that Alex and his family had moved from El Salvador to California when he was 8 years old, and he was raised and schooled in the United States. He lived there for 25 years until he got involved with some Coyotes. A coyote is a person who helps immigrants cross Mexico's border illegally. One night, they were stopped by the police and he was deported to El Salvador and would not be allowed to try to come back to the United States for 15 years. That was back in 2000, and he said that he was definitely going to go back to the U.S. after next year. Lacey asked him what some of his biggest challenges have been since he came back to El Salvador after being raised in the U.S. (where his family lives--he's here alone). He said that one of the biggest challenges was the language, because he grew up speaking only English except for some basic Spanish with his mom. He said he learned most of his Spanish after being sent back to El Salvador. Another big adjustment was the pay difference. I've had this conversation with three locals here, now: Minimum wage in El Salvador (I think it varies by department) is somewhere between 5 and 7.50 per DAY. People here are paid daily because the idea is that if they're paid per hour, they might work only 15 minutes and then say "I worked my hour." In my opinion, that idea makes little sense because people, like Alex, might work 2-3 hours in the morning, then take time off, then an hour in the afternoon, then three hours at night and say, "I worked my day." It's the same concept, just on a bigger scale. Then again, although I'm a foreigner, I'm definitely not the only one who thinks that some of the government's ideas are pretty dumb. Like I said, I've been talking with some locals and reading some signs and billboards. :)