One of my favourite things to do is to listen Rafael's war stories while driving us to the northern zone of El Salvador. In the late 80´s and early 90´s he worked for a Canadian NGO that was doing more or less what I am doing now that is, visiting schools to improve the education system in the rural areas ( the difference lies in doing so during a war vs. a post-war). "This wasn't paved then" - he says - "And it was all mined. We had to follow a mine-buster to get to our final destination". "This bridge was destroyed by the military". "This town relied on the guerrilla for its subsistence". "In this town there was LEY SECA so you couldn't find a beer. One day we brought beers and people were so happy to have it even though it was warm".
I can't help but thinking how to find a side (your side) in a conflict. From afar you can always pick and choose your ideology and wear it in a conversation the same way you wear a purse. As you get closer there is no choice but to follow the rule of the moment: pray to avoid a landmine and for a Canadian to bring you a hot beer. Closer you pray for change, which always seems to be elsewhere. In Mozote there was a masacre as there were masacres around the country. I can't help but thinking what is the difference between war and post-war.
From afar, things have changed since the peace accords in 1992. El Salvador has the biggest malls in Central America, its currency is the american dollar, it has an expanding world trade centre, has a tax free zone, it will soon have a state of the art port, etc. From within I see girls that are scared to leave their homes, youth that are counting the days to leave to the US, parentless youth, a remesa depending society, isolated and desolated towns, pregnant teens and, christian reggaeton. I know this is not new (well except for the christian reggaeton) but I don't care about the new. I rather care for the post as in post war or post modern or post colonial.
Lets not get confused with the prefix...post doesn't mean that pre is over.
On a positive note, whenever my thoughts take me to the land of hopelessness, beauty, I mean the beauty of here (the latinamerican here) makes me smile. Simply smile.
