September 22, 2010

change, please!

"Stay safe!"
Those might not have been my parents' exact parting words when they dropped me off at the Holiday Inn: Georgetown for predeparture orientation, but I think that those are the understood parting words for anybody going off on a trip, especially for two years of Peace Corps in a developing country. So how are we doing so far?

Well, I'm doing just fine, thank you very much! (So don't worry!) But what about everything else? Aaaaaand, that's where things get interesting. I have never spent more than 1 month in any one country, so I haven't had a chance to really get into, understand and, honestly, care about, daily national news in another country. But dang are things interesting here!

So if you didn't know - and I know my mom is probably trying to forget - El Salvador has a gang problem. There are two big ones - Mara Salvatrucha aka MS, and roughly translated to - slippery Salvadoran trout gang, and 18. And these gangs are good; organized and integrated in all aspects of public life: politics, police, education, transportation etc. Many of them have made it to the United States, joined gangs there, learned good tricks, were arrested, learned even better tricks in jail in the United States, and then got deported. (Actually, I think these gangs have cells in the United States now as well.) So now El Salvador has a growing gang problem, and not nearly enough money, man power or experience to deal with them all in their jails. But they're trying. They just passed a really... strict? progressive? intelligent? stupid? anti-gang law that has caused quite a push back by the gangs. And it looks like things are going to get worse before they get better. What do I mean?
Okay. The anti-gang law is kind of like Arizona's anti-immigrant law - if the police even think that you might be in a gang, they can stop you, arrest you, and put you in jail, just for suspicion of being in a gang. Well, of course gang members don't like this. So much so that the two rival gangs - MS and 18 - issued an unprecedented joint press release that threatened violence to any public transportation unit on the streets during a three day period unless the law was rescinded. Well, the law was not rescinded, and the country shut down for three days because no buses ran for fear of the threat of violence - with reason of course. Some buses that were running were stopped and one driver was pulled out and shot, and then the bus was torched. So things are pretty serious, but really only in the capitol, and Peace Corps is nice enough to not pay us enough to be able to spend much time there. :)

What happens next? We all watch our back, make sure that we are on a bus with two doors (for a quicker exit) and try to travel as infrequently as possible. And the gangs stay in power. We have some awesome volunteers here working in Youth Development (and other volunteers from other programs that have youth groups as well) that work to show kids that there is another way to live your life. You don't have to be in a gang. But it's especially hard when many dads are working in other places - often the United States, so the boys lack strong, positive male role models. Some of them go looking for and then find that role model in a gang member and the problem continues. Especially when gang members are in the same police force that is trying to stop them. The armed forces have been deployed to patrol streets and buses with the police to try and bring security, but, there are gang members in the army as well.

So we hope for change in the youth. But also a change in attitudes towards reporting. There is great fear in this country towards reporting crimes, or turning in someone. Much of this fear can be traced back to the civil war were people were pulled out of their homes in the middle of the night and shot for supporting the national army, or the guerilla fighters. And so people learned to keep their mouths shut. You didn't support anyone, or you supported whoever was asking you who you supported.

Right now, the gangs get their money from extortions, and collecting "rent". They collect rent from everyone - the little tienda on the corner, to the big supermarkets in the city; sweet little grandma sitting on the corner, to juan fulano executive. If you don't pay up, you won't be able to rely on that gang for "protection". Of course, it will be that same gang that will come and rob you, or shoot the place up. But people pay and stay mum about the whole thing. There are anonymous tip lines and special police divisions just to deal with extortions, but people won't report. They are afraid that someone will find out they told, and then they will really get it. So they pay and the money keeps coming in and the gangs keep working.

But times are changing. While some people probably think that young adults put way to much personal information online, there is still a certain anonymity to be found. And young salvadorans are realizing this. I was recently talking with some university students. They are fed up with the corruption in the public university system, and they are planning on making a facebook page and encouraging people to post comments and pictures detailing the corruption that they have seen so that something can be done. It's not exactly related to gangs, but it's a great first start for people in this country to feel comfortable with telling someone else when they've seen something outside the law.
Here's to hope and change!