Priority to assist people in rural areas

It is easy to ignore the rural communities outside of the capital of San Salvador. Perhaps too easy. And that is key to understanding the challenges El Salvador faces as it begins to rebuild from the most destructive earth quake in 15 years.

Days of travel to different parts of El Salvador confirm that the scope of the earthquake’s devastation was far wider than first thought. Some cities, such as Armenia in the Sonsonate department (or province) in western El Salvador, were isolated for days by damaged roads.

In Armenia one week after January 13 earthquake Brenda Baires Aguilar and her father, Carlos, were still searching for items that could be salvaged; a cherished table for Aguilar’s daughter was all that could be found.

Meanwhile, Aguilar’s neighbors in Armenia expressed a refrain heard throughout El Salvador: that the response of the national government was slow, patchy and plagued by inefficiency and favoritism. Such complaints have put added pressures on international agencies and coordinating bodies, such as the Action by Churches Together (ACT) alliance, to respond to poor communities with little political clout or power.

One such community is San Francisco Javier, in the eastern department of Usulutan, where there are large pockets of destruction that are not immediately apparent – though the dirt roads are lined with residents who anxiously, and sometimes angrily, query visitors about when help is on the way.

Up one road is the family of Carlos Antonio Aparacio, Ana Cristina Chevez and their three children, aged 5 to 21. The family’s brick home is now a dry, skeletal heap of stone and cement; in the week since the "earth felt like it was jumping," as Aparacio describes it, the family has recovered little. The Aparacios now sleep protected only by a patchwork of plastic sheeting and wood. Aparacio, a poor farmer, said he expects nothing from the government and believes his "only hope" will come from other sources.

A truck sent by the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) from Honduras just arrived in El Salvador bringing tents and plastic sheeting for temporary housing. Omar Quintanilla, coordinator of ACT-LWF in Usulutan, said rebuilding houses in rural areas throughout Usulutan will be the most important priority for ACT. In the initial emergency phase, ACT-LWF is providing assistance to more than 800 families in the region, with food provisions and plastic sheeting. Quintanilla hopes eventually that such assistance can be provided to some 2,000 families in all.

The reconstruction work, Quintanilla said, will be done with full community participation – the kind of projects, he said, in which communities "feel empowered by the experience."

That may not be easy. The complaints about favoritism stem from allegations that the governing ARENA party has favored its supporters with material assistance following the earthquake – an unfortunate legacy of a bitter and violent decade-long civil war that ended in 1991 and cost some 75,000 lives. "We have a very clear vision," said Quintanilla of the ACT response. "We cannot work with people who will not allow community participation."

Politics and the weight of history are all part of the challenges; so are sheer numbers. There are at least 263,000 displaced persons in the country. Among them, Pedro Ramos Mena, a 70-year-old gardener now living in a camp for the displaced – some 7,000 and growing - in the Cafetalon soccer stadium on the edge of San Salvador.

A sign "Casa Pedro" greets visitors, as does Mena’s dog, Canello. Mena’s only request is a cane for his arthritic legs and for better quarters: he does not feel secure at night with the dropping temperatures and so many people wandering around.

"I am waiting," he said, "for God to give me a partial landing."

Chris Herlinger, press officer for the ACT response in El Salvador, is the information officer for the Church World Service (CWS) Emergency Response Program, New York.