Jazz in Ataco

I was having a great time in Juayua.  The pueblo was small, though, with a limited amount of activities for tourists and young people without children to participate in.  There was a large food market on the weekends.  A restaurant and bar, El Cadejo, was open Wednesday through Sunday.  You could usually find someone who was a friend of Cesar's there.  But the thing that kept me in Juayua for over two weeks was the people.  The locals were so open and friendly, very different from what I had experienced in other cities and countries in Central America.  Even while he saw new people shuffle through his hostel daily, Cesar was continually friendly, inviting new guests on unique adventures; he would welcome them to a get-together at his house or persuade them to come see the candlelit Semana Santa procession in the neighboring town of Nahuizalco.

One afternoon, while I was plotting my entry into Guatemala, Cesar invited me to a jazz concert in Ataco, a town about 15 miles from Juayua.  We took Cesar's yellow truck, me riding shotgun and Edu and Hector, two of my fellow guests at the hostel, riding in the back.  Edu, in his early 50s, was a short and thin man.  He had reasonably long and straight hair.  He usually had a small clutch hanging off of his shoulder.  He dressed and had an attitude that was very European.  Edu was raised in Mexico City but was a citizen of the world.  He was a continuous traveler and had been exploring Latin America for the past 15 years.

I had been to Ataco just a couple days before, but it wasn't Semana Santa then.  Now there were plentiful people and festivities in the center square.  The jazz concert was in the restaurant of a friend of Cesar's, about a block from the town center.  When we arrived, it was still daylight.  The band was setting up on a small stage.  There was grass extending out about 30 feet from the front of the stage, with the restaurant on one side and a small, grassy hill on the other.  There was a thin barrier of plants separating the band from overpowering the diners at the restaurant.  The concert was very intimate.  Although people wandered in and out, at maximum there were only about 10 or so attendees. 

The band had four members: a piano player, bassist, tenor saxophone player and drummer.  Since I play the one-handed saxophone when I'm back in Tucson, I was excited that there was a saxophonist.  I talked with Jahaziel for a few minutes before the concert began.  He had curly hair to go along with a young but handsome face.  He was tall and very thin.  His pants fit on him like he was a teenager.  He was in his mid-20s.  He spoke very good English with a small accent.  Originally from a town just outside of Panama City, he attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston for about four years.  Now he was trying to sharpen his acumen of jazz by playing with various people from Panama to Mexico City.  He was very interested in my one-handed saxophone, asking me specific questions.  He brought up Roland Kirk, the saxophonist who had played multiple instruments at once, including playing the saxophone with one hand.  He obviously knew his stuff.

Seconds after they began playing, I knew that I was in the right spot.  Jahaziel was extremely quick and dexterous with his fingers but also managed to play with his own particular style.  The drummer, Octavio, a bald man in his 30s who spent many years perfecting his trade in New York City, was extremely creative without being flashy.  The piano and bass players, the least talented musicians in the group, held their own but were usually relegated to playing backup parts.  

The crowd listening to the band

The band playing outside

After they finished fifth or sixth song, it began to drizzle.  Since they were not under a shade, they quickly transferred all of their instruments to another intimate place within the restaurant.  Now, they were playing between two large tables in a patio facing a garden.  Still, less than 10 people were actively listening.  They continued their set.  The spectators continued drinking and socializing.  I was constantly tapping my foot on the ground or my knee with my hand, increasing and decreasing in intensity as the music ebbed and flowed.

They eventually ended their set.  The piano and bass players said their goodbyes and left the restaurant.  The rest of us - including Jahaziel and Octavio - ordered food and continued socializing.  I sat between Jahaziel and Octavio.  As we devoured our food and drank our spirits, we became louder and more enthusiastic as we traded stories and anecdotes.  Jahaziel told me about playing at Berklee and the differences in jazz in Latin America versus the United States.  Octavio told me about how he met his girlfriend in New York City and had convinced her to move back to El Salvador with him.  

As the concert attendees became more inebriated, they lost their inhibitions and began pushing Jahaziel and Octavio to play more songs, this time as a duet.  The musicians eventually acquiesced.  This was, by far, the best part of the evening.  Naturally, they continued to be amazing musicians.  However, the spectators - with a bit of alcohol courage - became much more extroverted and free-spirited.  Some of them danced in their seats.  Others were in complete awe and amazement.  Edu kept comparing the musicians' technical and musical skills to Louie Armstrong and Charlie Parker.

The Jahaziel and Octavio duet

When the concert ended, we all went our separate ways.  Cesar, Hector, and I walked to Cesar's truck around the corner.  However, I felt like I still had that jazz high, and I didn't want to lose it so quickly.  I volunteered to ride in the bed of Cesar's truck, standing and facing forward over the cab.  The ride back to Juayua was one of the most enjoyable car rides I've ever been on.  It was midnight, and there were few cars on the highway.  The only lights I could see were the headlights on Cesar's truck.  We went around corners and curves, with me shifting my weight back and forth.  As we approached Juayua, it started to rain mercilessly.  I didn't mind.

The murder rate of El Salvador and one of its indirect impacts

Statistics were recently released regarding El Salvador's murder rate.  Data from the National Civil Police stated that there were 481 murders in March, 2015.  That's more than 15 murders per day in a country of only 6.3 million residents.  At this rate, El Salvador will overtake Honduras as the murder capitol in the world by the end of the year.

Of course, this is terrible for the people who are directly affected by the murders and the threat of violence.  But, as a traveler, I see first hand how this negatively affects the tourist industry.  This tends to be one of the only things that people in the United States and Europe hear about El Salvador.  And, naturally, if people have a choice to go on a vacation to a safer country versus a more violent country one, they tend to choose the former.  However, after spending almost a month traveling around El Salvador - some of it actually during the month of March - I never felt unsafe or in danger.  I walked through some of the seediest parts of downtown and central San Salvador... alone.  I took buses at night through western El Salvador... alone.  Looking back on it, I probably made some not-too-wise decisions.  But I still didn't have any safety problems to speak of.

Violence in El Salvador tends to be restricted to the gangs.  There are certain neighborhoods and cities where it is a good idea to steer clear of.  Generally, though, tourists don't have to worry.  Those parts of the country never appear in the tourist books or websites.  It is people like Cesar, the owner of a hostel I stayed at in Juayua, who are indirectly financially hurt by news like this.  Not as many tourists come to his pueblo.  This impacts the hostels, hotels, and tour and transport companies.  

Gisela, Cesar's sister who also lives in Juayua, told me over and over what a beautiful and wonderful corner of the globe that she lives in.  And I would have to agree with her.  I am saddened that people like her brother and all of his employees will feel El Salvador's violence problems in their wallets.

Coffee of western El Salvador

Many people enjoy wine.  They become involved with its production as a form of recreation, relaxation, or profession.  People indulge themselves in wine's various tastes, appearances, aromas, and textures.  I've never liked wine that much though.  However, I do like coffee.  I assume this is one reason why I have found coffee so fascinating over the last few months.  I actually began enjoying coffee later in life.  I started drinking and appreciating coffee about six months ago, when I was 28.  I now have multiple coffee-related machines at my house and am getting more in toon with the processing of coffee beans around the world.  It excited me that the Central American countries on my current trip were heavily invested in coffee production.

Cesar Magaña, the owner of my hostal in Juayua, El Salvador, is a coffee geek.  Cesar, 36, is tall, about 6'2", and has a thick beard and curly, dark hair.  He carries himself around with a humorous confidence that naturally draws people closer to him.  Cesar grew up in Juayua, a small pueblo south of Santa Ana, a large and economically important city in El Salvador.  His father and grandfather grew coffee on fincas just outside of Juayua.  When his father died a few years, Cesar inherited prime land for farming coffee.  Since then, he has developed and enhanced his trade.  He grows, dries, and roasts his coffee and serves it at a local restaurant or on coffee tours.  He also sells the roasted beans in specialty markets, mainly in Europe.

The history of coffee in El Salvador - like many in places - is fraught with war, politics, and intrigue.  The coffee bean was brought to El Salvador for domestic production in the early 1800s.  However, once finca owners saw the enormous economic potential of coffee, they soon began to grow it for mass and international sources.  By about 1880, coffee had become El Salvador's main and practically only export crop.  It had completely taken indigo's place, El Salvador's previous main crop.  El Salvador did not have the external technical and financial help that Guatemala and Costa Rica had.  However, coffee developed vigorously, partly because the yield of coffee per hectare generally rose with the size of the finca, an general anomaly in farming.

In 1979, things in El Salvador took a turn for the worst.  The civil war was beginning to take hold, effecting coffee farmers and their investments negatively.  Cesar says that his father wasn't hurt financially by the civil unrest of the 1980s.  This was mainly due to Juayua being in the west of the country.  The main fighting, guerrilla tactics, and "war taxes" of coffee were in the north portion of El Salvador.  Coffee production dropped 19 percent in El Salvador from 1979 to 1986, a direct result of decreased investment.  

Coffee production today has waned significantly.  Between 1870 and 1914, an average of 58.7 percent of government revenue was derived from coffee.  During the 1970s coffee production grew, and in 1980 it was 50 percent of national GDP.  In 2002, however, following the civil war and the invasion off coffee leaf rust, only 3.5 percent of GDP was from coffee.  Coffee leaf rust, a terrible epidemic effecting many of the coffee producing countries in the past few years, has disastrously invaded El Salvador.  Cesar complained of his production being horrendous during the last few years due to this fungus.   

I decided to go on a coffee tour.  A woman and her two children who were both in their twenties accompanied me on the tour.  The woman had moved to the Bay Area in the 1970s from El Salvador.  The tour took place in the center of Juayua.  Here, Cesar's team dried and roasted the coffee and developed various types of varieties of coffee plants.  We were guided around the coffee plants, with Cesar explaining the reasoning behind each of his coffee-based decisions.  Afterward, with Cesar acting as our barista, we enjoyed as many cups of coffee as we wanted.  I enjoyed normal black coffee - Cesar doesn't approve of sugar in good coffee, lattes, cappuccinos, and corditos.  That day, I had more coffee than I had ever had, somewhere around seven or eight cups!  When I think about it, it probably was not a healthy amount but it was definitely worth it!

Cesar explaining his coffee production to my tour group 

Cesar's newly roasted beans

Cesar's roaster

Cesar acting as our barista

A couple of days following the coffee tour, I was sitting around Cesar's hostal when he casually invited me to ride along in his truck to run some errands at his various coffee fincas.  I enthusiastically accepted the invitation.  We climbed into his yellow, 1978, 4-wheel truck and bounced up the dirt roads to his coffee farms.  We eventually made stops at all three of his coffee fincas.  I saw the workers toiling away in the midday sun.   Cesar runs a relatively small operation.  He has between two and five workers at a time depending on the time of year.  Cesar told me that he pays the supervisor of the workers about $125 per month.  The supervisor, his wife, and their kids live rent-free in a house on Cesar's property.  Cesar said that he is looking to increase the man's wage to about $150 per month soon.

Cesar's truck

Cesar explaining his coffee production at one of his three fincas

Cesar with two of his workers in the background

The view from one of Cesar's fincas

The road up to one of Cesar's fincas

Among other things, depending on the weather and fungus outbreaks, Cesar's entire production varies year-to-year.  He generally produces between 2,000 to 4,000 pounds of coffee per year which he sells at $6 per pound on the specialty coffee market.  That means, on good years, he makes about $24,000; on bad years he brings in about $12,000.  Cesar admits that this is a labor of love, not money.  During the five or so years that he has been in the business, he has still put in more money than he's made.  He actually brings in most of his money from the hostal and coffee tours.

I can do without wine.  However, I'm now becoming more cognizant that I would not do so well if coffee disappeared.  I was luckily enough to come in to contact with Cesar.  He meticulously showed me a small but important part of each of the processes of coffee production.  I am now a little bit smarter and more aware of the coffee I'm consuming.  

You can check his webpage out at luchuzacafe.com.

A complicated situation of violence in El Salvador

When I was in Honduras - specifically Tegucigalpa - my mother wanted me to hurry on to El Salvador as quickly as I could.  Both she and I had read all of the terrible statistics that focus on Honduran crime and violence.  Before my trip, I was under the impression that Honduras was the most dangerous country in Central America.  After spending time in Honduras and El Salvador, I still feel that way.  However, I now realize that the situation is much more complicated than I originally thought.  

Violence is a normal part of everyday life in parts of Central America

El Salvador has some of the same problems as Honduras: gangs, violence, extreme poverty.  However, because I knew the Castanedas and met friendly travelers along the way, I was relieved of having the constant fears about potential violence that I had been racked with in Tegucigalpa.  However, when I talked with people who had spent the majority of their life in El Salvador, they told me various stories that were similar to the ones I had heard about Honduras.  Antonio told me about gangs levying taxes in San Salvador.  Andrea, a middle-aged and heavyset woman I met in Juayua, recounted the numerous violent communities and their affected citizens.

The United States has a primary and for many Americans embarrassing role in the violence that currently plagues El Salvador.  The main proprietors of violence and crime in El Salvador are members of gangs, or maras in colloquial Salvadoran Spanish.  The two main maras are Mara Salvatrucha and their rivals, Calle 18.  However, these are not simply El Salvadoran maras; both of these maras have American roots.  During the El Salvadoran Civil War of the 1980s, many El Salvadorans fled to America.  Many of the El Salvadorans were children of leftist guerrillas.  They often left behind destruction of their communities and parents killed or missing in combat.  Interestingly, the United States openly supported the Salvadoran Military Government who fought against the guerrillas.  Because they had no significant guidance or support otherwise, these children joined maras, principally in Los Angeles.  Many mara members were arrested in the United States and sent back to El Salvador, their country of birth. 

Two mara members and their child 

Mara members flashing their gang signs

After they had been deported, the mara members continued the lifestyle that they had known for most of their life.  Now there are about 25,000 gang members currently in El Salvador and about another 9,000 locked up.  Similar to Honduran newspapers, El Salvadorian newspapers seem to feature the high rate of homicides seemingly daily.  Around 2012, there was a gang truce between Mara Salvatrucha and Calle 18.  The monthly rate of homicides dropped dramatically, from 16 murders per day to about five.  However the recent murder rate has climbed back up to about 12 murders a day because of an apparent truce collapse.  In fact, in January of this year, around 300 people abandoned the village of San Luis La Herradura because of threats by a gang to raze it because they did not comply with extortion payments.  Although Honduras was first on the list of intentional homicides in 2012, El Salvador was not far behind at number four with 41.2 intentional homicides per 100,000 people.

The effects of the El Salvadorian Civil War

Orlando told me that he had never seriously thought about moving out of the country during the civil war.  His entire family lived in El Salvador and his business was booming.  He said that, although he is naturally interested in the government, he has never been an outspoken proponent or opponent of any political party or movement.  He claims that that was the main reason he and his family have remained unharmed through all of the turmoil that has gripped El Salvador over the years.  Even after asking him pointed questions and listening to his various political stories, I still have no clue about his political leanings.  

Coming from the United States, I find this a strange way of thinking.  In the United States, it is encouraged, crucial, fundamental, and almost necessary that you openly support issues that you care deeply about.  However, through my travels through many countries around the world, remaining quiet about your political beliefs seems to be the more sane approach.

Orlando and Ana Maria had plenty of personal stories about their lives during the civil war.  One of the, however, stands out.  Orlando told me that one day during the mid-1980s, while he was outside of his factory with his brother and some his employees, a bus pulled up to deposit and collect passengers.  Suddenly, a woman who was a part of the guerrilla leftist movement, through a homemade grenade at the bus.  Orlando has deduced that she intended to injure or kill the bus driver and/or his passengers.  The bus driver quickly and instinctively shut the sliding door.  The grenade ricocheted off of the glass door and exploded near the woman who had thrown it.  It instantaneously, the grenade blew off both of her arms and completely disfigured her face.  As she hysterically screamed due the extreme pain and her unlikely impending death, two men who were with her tried desperately to obtain a car so that they could drive her to the hospital.  Orlando was frantically trying to evade the group of guerrillas.  Eventually they stopped a car in the street, carjacked it, and drove off, injured woman in tow.

In 1980, Oscar Romero, the Archbishop of San Salvador, was gunned down while giving a mass at a hospital.  Romero heavily preached and was an activist for the downtrodden in El Salvador.  He was basically aligned with the guerrilla movement.  Now, Romero has a similar reputation in El Salvador as Selena, the singer who was killed in 1995, does in the United States.  Everyone seems to worship him, although, like all people, he had his faults and vices.  Many people say that Romero's death officially threw the country into civil war.  After years of controversies within the administration of the Vatican, Romero will be canonized on May 23 of this year. 

Oscar Romero

The hospital chapel where Romero was killed

Romero mementos being sold near the main church in central San Salvador

El Salvador's civil war led to death squads, the recruitment of child soldiers, and other human rights violations, mostly by the government-supported military.  The civil war came to an end with the Chapultepec Peace Agreement in 1992, with both sides agreeing to share power in a democratically elected government.  All told, over 75,000 people were killed during the fighting and an untold number of disappearances remain a mystery to this day.

The Castanedas

My mother works with a woman, Cristina Castaneda, in Tucson who grew up in San Salvador.  I went out to lunch with Cristina a month or two ago, and she told me that her family in San Salvador would be happy to host me.  I eagerly accepted the invitation.  I was elated that I would be able to stay with a family who has lived through the previous decades in San Salvador.  

I arrived at the Castanedas' house late on a Saturday night after a long day of traveling.  Cristina's parents, Orlando and Ana Maria, lived in a four-story house in Barrio Miramonte, a neighborhood near the center of San Salvador.  They had lived in the same house since the 1970s, changing the purpose of various rooms over time to fit their needs.  Although their daughter lived in Tucson, both of their sons lived in the same neighborhood.  One brother, Fernando, 33, lived a block away with his wife and young one-year-old child.  He had a huge house with many extra bedrooms.  He rented his house out to five young people who were working or going to college.  The other brother, Antonio, 37, ran a gym a couple blocks away.  He had been overweight for most of his life but, about 7 years ago, had become a dedicated body-builder and had placed sixth in a national competition last year.  He was still single and, to my understanding, intended to stay that way.

Fernando in the Castanedas' dining room

Photo of Cristina shamelessly taken from Facebook

Photo of Antonio shamelessly taken from Facebook

Orlando, Ana Maria, and me near La Libertad

It seems like Orlando's entire family has been entrepreneurs in one form or another.  His brother had owned a hardware store.  Fernando owns business renting sound equipment out to large events.  Orlando still runs a business after 40-plus years, constructing mainly tables, benches, chairs, boxes attached to motorcycles, and specialty items.  During the civil war of the 1980s, when all three of his kids were young children, Orlando's business was booming.  Naturally, many other businesses were not willing to sell in El Salvador because of the overwhelming danger and tenuous political environment.  Orlando expanded his warehouse and construction facility in the distribution center of San Salvador.  However, soon after the civil war came to a close in 1992, his business diminished because of all of the competing stores popping-up around town.  A few years ago Orlando closed and sold his warehouse.  Fernando allowed his father to build a three-story factory behind his house about four years ago.

The Castanedas are very skilled in speaking English compared to the general El Salvadorian family.  Cristina speaks almost flawless English.  She had attended a private British university in El Salvador and now has lived the United States for years.  Ana Maria seems to be the most nervous when speaking English.  She has not spent an extended time in a English-speaking country.  Beginning when he was 16, Orlando spent 11 years in Northern California although he still speaks with a heavy accent.  Fernando and Antonio speak very good English because they spent extended periods in the United States and had taken English classes continuously when they were in school.  The Castanedas' maid and her daughter spoke no apparent English at all.  They were from a poor and small community outside of a slightly less poor and slightly less small pueblo called Apaneca, about an hour outside of San Salvador.  They had received very little education, much less English training.

Migration

I made my way to San Salvador via buses through Copan.  I caught a taxi from where the bus dropped me off in Ocotepeque, a town a couple of miles away from the border, straight to the border town of El Poy.  The taxi ride took about 10 minutes and was down a straight road void of much traffic besides the occasional pedestrian.  This was the second time I had crossed a Honduran border, the first time coming just six days prior.  I was much more confident this time.  I easily went to the migration office, exchanged my Honduran currency for Salvadoran American dollars, and even helped answer some questions for a person distributing a Honduran tourism census.

A few happy taxi drivers posing at El Poy

The Migration Office on the El Salvadorian side of the border

The official-looking border

On my bus ride from Citalá, the border town in the El Salvadorian side, to San Salvador, I sat next to a glasses salesman from Apopa, El Salvador, a city just north of San Salvador.  He was about 50-years-old and had four children.  We started chatting.  He had taken a year-and-a-half long trip around the United States in 2000 and 2001.  I assumed he had just gone to work in the United States, and I asked him multiple times.  But he remained adamant that he had simply gone on a road-trip voyage, and I believed him.  He said he had flown into Los Angeles and then taken buses from city-to-city, much like I am currently doing in his part of the world.  I couldn't help but think about my road-trip after college, where I traveled around the United States, Canada, and Alaska by van.  He said that he went to Seattle and Chicago and Maine.  He made friends in Texas and Wisconsin.  He stayed with a man at his cabin in the woods, where he hunted and and learned about this man's culture and traditions.  He spoke little to no English, which made this man's journey even more impressive.

Glasses salesman from Apopa

Most immigrants from El Salvador and Honduras come to the United States to work and live, not to travel.  I have met numerous people in those countries who have spent time working in the United States.  I have also met people desperately wanting to go to work and live in the United States.  It seemed as if everyone in El Salvador or Honduras knew multiple close friends or family members currently living the United States.  There is a deep desire for most people to immigrate to a place where there are more economic and social opportunities.  This general attitude towards emigration is opposite of the attitudes of people in Nicaragua.  There, they generally want to continue living in their country despite the weak economy.  There tends not to be as much violence and coercion in Nicaragua as opposed to in El Salvador and Honduras.

When I was on a walk around the relatively small community of Gracias, I stopped into Casa Galeano, a museum and garden concerned with educating people about the indigenous tribes in the area.  I met two people who worked there.  Both of them were about 50.  One was a short and stocky woman.  She had a curious and inquisitive personality; however, I could tell she was not educated.  She helped clean the museum daily.  The other person was a well-built but worn man.  He was missing most of his front teeth and worked in the garden.

Many years ago, the man had made his trek to the United States.  He took "La Bestia," or the beast in English, the train system in Mexico which most immigrants take to the United States border.  His trip north was arduous but not uncommon.  He saw people get cut in half right by the shear power of the train right in front of him and watched as people were robbed and beaten by gang members in broad daylight.  When he reached the border, he crossed only to get picked up immediately by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement police just south of Houston.  He was put on a plane and flown back to Honduras.  He said that he was now content with his life and planned on spending the rest of his days in Gracias.

Man that I met in Casa Galeano

The woman on the other hand was still eager to improve her life.  She wasn't married and planned on leaving in the next year or two.  She had a daughter who had at least one child.  Her daughter spent time at the museum too, occasionally cleaning but usually attending to her young child.  She planned on riding La Bestia north, knowing perfectly well that it is much more dangerous for women, especially solo women.  In the United States, she planned on becoming a housekeeper or maid or anything that would pay her.  She wanted to stay in touch with me, I'm assuming, because she didn't often get the chance to speak to Americans.  I gave her my name and information but never heard from her.

Woman that I met in Casa Galeano 

I can understand the variant views on emigrating to the United States.  I admire the ambitious attitude of the woman and also respect the content and fulfilled demeanor on the man.  It is a extremely different migration culture in El Salvador and Honduras from the United States.  In the United States, we tend to emigrate for adventure or the opportunity of a higher, more prestigious salary.  In Central America, migration is mainly due to the search for a more secure future.