Report

We made three turns around the impressive and awe-inspiring San Salvador volcano before finally landing in the Central American country of El Salvador. It was my first time in this region of the world. I was already impressed by this natural wonder, absent in Florida and even in my home country of Venezuela.

We landed and reality again knocked at the door. I stood once more at an international customs counter. Even though I explained to the officer that I was to remain in the country for 90 days, I was only given 70 days to stay. Didn’t I say 90? She gave it some thought, then reprinted “80”. I don’t know what happened but the incident told me that I was in a different country, despite familiar situations.

Two days later, I entered CARE El Salvador's San Salvador office doors, where I would work for the next 12 weeks. I was very pleased with my internship assignment and the challenge that it presented. I was given a work space with a desk and computer. This was to be my “headquarters” for the coming months. My task was to write CARE El Salvador's Annual Report. However, it later came to be a form of “Report on Life”.

I experienced good and bad moments doing this job, but the good ones definitely outweighed the less pleasant ones. I witnessed, first-hand, people overcoming poverty. I saw poor people, often dependent on others, change to become controllers of their own fate.

For example, one woman who had always wanted to study, but who had never been able to do so because of her early motherhood. Since age 15, she had been forced to dedicate her life to her children. Her husband would not even let her work so that she could better provide for their children. Her house was one of the many destroyed in the 2001 earthquake.

When CARE and other NGOs offered help to the stricken population of her town, she was one of the few who offered to assist CARE with this work. This allowed CARE to improve the recovery work. The woman is now one of the leaders of the CARE projects in her area. Indeed, after seeing his wife serve as a community leader, and after making a resultant big change in his own life, her husband was inspired to register his wife for a course at an academy to improve his education.

Two other communities greatly impressed me - Joateca and Chaguantique. The latter was about to lose a water source and some forestland due to the effects of local pollution. However, with the help of CARE and local authorities, not only did they recover the water source but they were also able to establish a Natural Park for tourism and for the preservation of an endangered monkey species.

In Joateca, I visited a community who decided to administer, by themselves, their potable water system. They are now the owners of the system and a large piece of land. I also saw poor people contributing not only leadership, time, and labor, but also money!

A prime donor of funds is the Unites States Agency for International Development (USAID). Another important one is the El Salvador Government. Another is CARE itself. The report I wrote for CARE outlined that the communities for which CARE has worked are, themselves, also a key donor to CARE projects.

All of this aid work has not only helped these poor communities to achieve better housing, better food and better water systems, but also to raise their self-esteem. They feel that they can achieve great goals. They have become decision-makers and govenors of their own fate. They are now owners of important properties. This is definitely a great “victory over poverty” as CARE states as its main goal.

My internship left me with a much greater awareness, not only of El Salvador and its wonderful people, but of the importance of helping such people to help themselves. The experience moved me to write about this in a short poem:

Central America

I saw the poor
I saw the sad
I saw the hopeless,
Before me, become glad

Working with their own hands,
They shared their valuable time
For a cause that promised,
To these poor, a better life

If the poor give the little they own
If they share the little they have
They'll see what they've never had
They'll get what they've never known

It doesn't matter how poor
It doesn't matter how broke
If you have life and desire,
You still have great hope.

Photo Gallery

Me with CARE colleagues at a local CARE office in eastern El Salvador.

Outside the CARE main office in San Salvador, El Salvador's capital city and my internship headquarters.

I relax and visit some spectacular sites, including Santa Ana Cathederal.

A plane shot down by guerillas during the country's 12-year long civil war and exhibited at the Museo de la Revolucion.

I stand dwarfed by the Mayan pyramid-like temple at Tazumai, testimony to El Salvador's magnificent culture and history.