Santa Marta, El Salvador

“We are very poor” Hotche told me my first night in his house. We sat in a rough circle on plastic restaurant chairs as the candles flickered and the rain pounded steadily onto the corrugated roof. The power had gone off that evening and we knew we’d have to wait for morning before the line was repaired. To pass the time the whole family sat looking over old pictures from the few precious albums kept hidden in the back room. Their story, told through a few old pictures, is one that seems typical of the region, at least to an outsider like me, in that they were seemingly apolitical till the army attacked their village and they were forced to flee. The El Salvadoran military seemingly never learned the “hearts and minds” ideology adopted by their U.S counterparts and so, through their vicious tactics against civilians, successfully managed to create far more guerillas than they killed. The men of Santa Marta mostly went to the mountains to fight while their women carried possessions and children across the fearsome river Lempa and into a refugee camp in Honduras. “That’s me in Honduras” Hotche told me, pointing to a faded shot of a man in shirtsleeves standing expressionless over a grave, “we had to leave my grandmother there.” Fifteen years later Hotche and his wife have returned, plus three children all of who were born in the camp.
They’ve come back to a land only marginally better from the one they knew ten years ago. The poverty is still there despite the red FMLN’s Plastered on every surface and the sleazy guarantees broadcast through television by the ARENA party. There is still mostly bean puree for breakfast in Santa Marta, a town actually far better off than many in the region. That clinic there has some drugs and though they’re few in numbers it’s a far site worse in nearby San Sunte’ where most citizens can’t afford the medication their forced to buy. The violence also is not over, vicious gangs have taken over the place of the death squads and armed boy-soldiers with M-16s almost as big as they are patrol the streets of quiet Victoria. As Dr Perez once told me, “I think now is much more dangerous than in the war. In the war there were two sides and you knew who they were, now anyone could kill you.”
For Hotche and his family the worst seems to be behind them, but others are less sure. According to one former guerilla I met they’ve kept large amounts of their former weapons hidden in the mountains, should the conflict start again one day. If it did, if the war between left and righ started tomorrow, the most shocking thing for one to realize is that it would change very little. There would still be thousands of pirate DVD merchants scraping a living on the streets of San Salvador, international aid organizations would continue to dump millions of Dollars, Euros and Pounds into the country to see it quickly disappear. The social and geo-political issues in El Salvador are so complicated and the roots so deep that, if anything, it will take a major push by the entire country to get to some compromise between the haves and the have-not’s. For now Hotche continues to live in abject poverty in a small town that remains invisible to many, even inside El Salvador.

The Road to Santa Marta, El Salvador

Victoria was full of dark young men in camouflage carrying M-16’s, lounging near the town square as they used their caps to keep fly’s away. I put my pack down, the soldiers looked at me and I looked at them, no one spoke. I was worried, had never been to Victoria in the light so wasn’t sure if the armies presence was something out of the ordinary. I looked around the town square, watching the locals queuing for busses, the shops selling beans and rice, a tiny market taking place under the arches of a colonial style building. Everything seemed normal, no one was noticeably anxious and so I sat down, read my book and ate some ice cream as I waited for a pick up truck for Santa Marta. After about two hours of wondering around and being stared at I was feeling really uneasy, keen to get to the village and find out at last whether they were expecting me or not. This last point was a big issue, in a town like Santa Marta there isn’t a hostel or even a guest house and I’ve yet to find anything resembling a restaurant. If I was turning up unannounced it might be almost impossible finding somewhere to stay and, being the rainy season, I could hardly camp outside. Realizing that I should have thought about this earlier I pushed all paranoiac thoughts from my head and returned to one of the worst books I have ever read, waiting for my ride.
A few hours later I was on the road again, pulling into Santa Marta aboard a clapped out pick-up in the middle of a thunderstorm. I thanked the driver for the lift, jumped into a sea of thick mud and trudged despondently over to the health center where I discovered Dr Perez was due back any minute. When he finally arrived he stopped at the doorway and looked at me with a half smile on his face, obviously my message hadn’t got through all the way to Santa Marta. Disconcerted now, I said hello in a slightly awkward manner and asked if there was any chance I could volunteer for a week. Never one to be put off by extraordinary circumstances Dr Perez smiled a toothy grin and, realizing that I didn’t even have a place to stay, said “first we will see some patients, then we will find you accommodation." Relieved but slightly taken aback I was soon seated at my usual place beside Doc P, taking notes and doing odd jobs as best I could. In the several hours I worked that day we saw dozens of patients, mostly children with various parasites.

Granada to Managua

I woke up in my massive chambers with the sun shining through the holes in the ceiling and beaten-up cars careening along the street outside. My head hurt horrifically and after grabbing an aspirin I discovered that I’d missed Arma’s insanely early departure to the Corn Islands and was now, at least temporarily alone. Still suffering from a combination of possible concussion and alcohol poisoning I packed my pack and jumped from the hostel to a speedy transit bus that would take me to Nicaragua’s capital, Managua. The plan was to go straight to the city, change for a chicken bus to Leon and see about getting to El Salvador tomorrow. If I could have ignored Managua I would have, I was apprehensive about going back there and for good reason. Mostly destroyed in a series of earthquakes and never rebuilt the city is a heap of concrete crisscrossed with the dark scars of highways, the sort of place where hordes of children follow you up the street for a dollar and a siren is never far away. Still apprehensive about traveling alone I slung the bag on the roof of the bus and clambered inside the small space, finding it full of dark passive faces.

As we whizzed quickly down the highway past the edge of lake Nicagua and out into a landscape of flat, dry planes punctuated with barbed fences and shabby settlements I felt at peace again. This is the real Central America for me, busses belching smoke as the conductor leans out of the window yelling the names of his stops, ‘Maaassssayyyyya, Massssssaaayyyya, Masssssssayyyyyaaaaa’ at siren-like volume. As we passed a pick-up truck, it’s small bed crowded with more than ten white shirted Nicaraguan men, as we dodged around an army truck filled with plastic chairs, I remembered why I loved traveling. There is something magical about leaning out of a bus window and watching such a foreign world drift by.

I was in luck on this particular bus ride because I happened to be sitting next to a very nice Dutch couple called Mathieu and Anchor, sitting with their Lonely Planet and working out a route to El Salvador. They’d traveled all the way from Carnival in Brazil and had the light, funny air of confidence that Arma had shown. As I’ve said I my original plan had been to go by chicken bus to Leon and then work my way up through Honduras straight to Managua but after five minutes I decided on traveling instead with my new friends by Tica Bus to somewhere in the south of El Salvador. When the bus stopped in Managua the three of us jumped down together and hefted our packs into the back of a cab in really good time, wading through the heat and almost visible pollution. From there we went careering off down a collection of fairly sordid streets and stopped in front of the Tica Bus headquarters where I bought a $25 dollar ticket straight to El Salvador, a trip of 15 hours leaving at the ungodly time of four AM. We also ended up staying at a hotel run by Tica Bus, the area around the terminal contained guesthouses of such dodgy quality and dubious security that they made the Tranquilo in San Jose seem like a five star resort.

After settling into a very clean three bed room with fan we caught another cab to “central” but instead of a plaza and church like in most Central American cities the center of Managua is a sprawl of expensive malls and hotels that clash horribly if you’ve been outside the town and seen the miles of slums and rubbish dumps. In a display of sudden weakness we went into the food court for McDonalds, cheesecake and fried chicken and the movies for a slice of Hollywood. In the corner of the galleria was a full sized fiberglass horse for children to ride on and it made me smile to see Nicaragua develop such weird ideas about what Americans liked to do in their spare time. About three hours later we emerged from Pirates of the Caribbean 3 feeling confused and cheated by the films bizarre surrealism and massive bevy of special affects that did not make up for the lack of concrete plot. Feeling pissed off the three of us skipped dinner and went home, settling down for an alcohol free night and falling straight asleep despite a bizarre man next door who snored like a pig rooting for truffles.

Ruined Hospital and Tree


Granada, Nicaragua

The room in the ruined hospital was dark, the only light coming from half collapsed windows high up in the decaying ceiling. A pigeon sits there, looking down at us standing in this dirty place full of abandoned medical records turning slowly into dust. Outside a herd of wind goats run carefully over the remains of a shrine to the Virgin Mary, her figurine long since gone. Standing as it is in the center of this field of rubble it seems to represent the state of many things in this amazing yet sad country. Turning to Arma I tell her, “when god’s gone, you know it’s got bad.”
Granada is to me the very heart of description, a place of innate vividness and color where the perfect photo is constantly riding past in the back of a donkey cart or sitting in the foul smelling market cutting steak for dinner. From the ruined hospital to the town square it’s alive and moving with a strange energy, looking up you can see the almost constant milky-white explosions of firecrackers thrown into the ether. Walking down tarpaulin lanes filled with closed up shops inside the Mercado Central you can buy iguanas and turtles, aviators and Playstation knock-offs. Through the streets there are massive religious parades, children beating drums and hitting those plonckity-plonk xylophone things. I like to stand by the side of the road and watch, looking at the life rolling past me even as the thunder crashes overhead in a flurry of tropical storms.
I showed Arma all this, we walked with camera clicking for hours. As the sun went down we ate pasta and drunk Coca-Colas and Cuba Libres at the open air bar outside the Bearded Monkey. Later a band played and I danced with Gringa gap year students and exchanged travel advice with backpackers heading south. There was a sense of fun in the bars, couples winding themselves around each other in Latin dance as those of us less supple nodded our heads in appreciation. If the night had ended there it would have been better, instead hours later I was dancing in Bar Canoes, a place by the water where the cows walk past and the palm trees sway in the wind.


Hospital Gate


Ruined Hospital



Roof top in Central Market


Limes



Shoes


The Nicaraguan equivalent of Tesco's


Exploring Corruption



The Wonders of New Glasses

San Jose to Granada

The last few days I spent in San Jose were fraught and stressful, I’d had my camera stolen in a bar and devoted the rest of the time to finding a new one. There are places in San Jose, near the infamous Marcado Borbon with its piles of produce and grubby shop holders, where you can buy the hundreds of digital cameras and camcorders stolen from tourists every day. This area has the reputation of being very dangerous and though I shop there for fresh fruit almost daily the thought of carrying massive wads of cash around didn’t appeal in the slightest. Luckily, after mooching about the hostel for a few hours I met André, a blonde South African surfer with a very strong accent who’d fallen foul of thieves and didn’t want to pay $300 for a new camera. ‘Alright Bru’ he smiled when I told him about the “Black Market”, ‘sounds great.’ The next day we took a taxi through the outskirts of the red-light district towards the market but became lodged in fearsome traffic jams. As Tico after Tico revved his engine, beeped his horn and became increasingly agitated André got talking to our driver with the help of my horrible translations:

Gringo’s: Ah, it’s very busy here!

Taxi Driver: @#*&ing busses, they clog up all the roads. (He gives a five-minute explanation of the entire San Jose traffic system complete with eloquent hand gestures.) Why are you going to Marcado Borbon anyway?

Gringo’s: (Bashfully) We had our camera’s stolen and we really need to buy new ones, do you know a shop?
Taxi Driver: See, that is the problem with tourists. You must hide your stuff like all Tico’s do, look… (he swerves across the road to show us his socks, explaining that he hides his wallet there.) A lot of Costa Rican’s rob tourists. Many of my friends do, but I am a taxi driver and all I do is drive my taxi. Hey, do you want any cocaine?

Gringo’s: (to each other) did he say… I think he… what??? (to Taxi Driver) we’re alright thanks!

Taxi Driver: (Pulling up at Marcado Borbon) Ok, watch out for thieves because they’re probably going to rob you here… bye!

The camera shops we found when we got out of the cab were bizarre, places selling mountains of mobile phones and foothills of welding equipment for some strange reason. After two hours of bartering we found what we were looking for and went back to the hostel where I met my friend Emma and took her to the movies.


Plaza Morazon, somewhere in the Red Light District


Sleazy market

This morning I caught the bus straight to Granada. We left San Jose as the sun was beginning to come up over the roofs of the 70’s era government buildings and the green dome of the national theatre. I’d been unable to find anyone traveling up north but the need to return to the road proper was making me antsy so at the last minute I forfeited my plans to travel with an English girl to the beach and took a taxi to the Ticabus headquarters instead. Nothing happened till the border, but there amid the fruit juice sellers and crowds, moneychangers and armed policemen I bumped into Arma. A 32 year old Dutch woman, she’d just finished working in Costa Rica and was heading north to Cancun, Mexico. We decided it was less lonely traveling together and for the rest of the bus ride we sat together as I pondered over a pile of $1 DVD’s I’d borrowed. Later we arrived in Granada, capital of Nicaragua’s growing tourist scene. The tiled pavements and crumbling colonial roofs are a delight to someone who’s been dealing with the 1984esq architecture of San Jose.


Rosie in San Jose

Arma in Granada

Last night I landed in Costa Rica, the plane touching down at Juan Santa Maria and the heavy door opening to tropical heat. I stood alone on the airport bus as it rattled it’s way to the terminal, disgorging groups of lost looking tourists who searched nervously for their bags and were met by cheerful tour guides. I alone stood near the baggage carousel and waited, looking around at posters tacked to the walls, some threatening to prosecute sex offenders and others promising to reward gringos with the best in the way of shining white hotels and tacky, palm thatched restaurants. Presently my Mum appeared, an amazing occurrence considering we’d flown from opposite sides of the world and still managed to arrive in San Jose within ten minutes of each other. After many hugs we grabbed our packs and headed for the exit where a large brass band was busy playing mariachi music in the underground car park.

This morning I woke to parrots hooting outside the red painted window of Hostel Tranquilo, reminding me of times I spent here last year. Most of the staff has changed and, because it’s off-season, there aren’t any backpackers sleeping on the floor and in hammocks by the reception yet it’s still the dirty pit of inequity I remember. There are the piles of cigarettes in bamboo ashtrays, wine bottles with oozing candles sprouting from them, red lamps hanging from the ceiling. We meet Penny here in her tiny room and Mum is amazed by the leopard-striped tiles in the bathroom and the beds that defy all scientific principles by refusing to collapse in a heap. For breakfast I commandeer a taxi that takes us speeding through the town, past Plaza Morazan with its grand bandstand and cast iron statue of Simon Bolivar and through the barrios to Marcado Borbon.

A sprawling maze of fruit shops and dirty Soda’s Mercado Borbon looks like a dingy Soviet subway system that just happens to sell piles of bananas. Damien, an old friend of mine once said of it, “Costa Rica exports all it’s best fruit, then all the grade #2 stuff gets sent to Mercado Central and what’s left over ends up in Mercado Borbon.” Whether this is true or not, what’s certain is that in this subterranean Aladdin’s cave you can by bags of watermelons, papaya’s, coconuts and bananas for a few quid. After getting as much as I can carry we jump into another taxi and high-tail it over to a bus station on the edge of town, a razor wire fortress of rebar gates that services the small mountain towns of the Tarazzu Valley. It was in San Marcos de Tarazzu that I lived for almost three months last year, carrying my machete and learning to pick coffee from the Robles family. It seems right to me that my first few days back in Costa Rica be spent there.

The ride back to the valley takes us three hours in the thick fog, our driver edging his way along a sheer ravine. I regret coming back at night, I don’t see enough to reminisce and because it’s rainy season the sky opens up just as the sun goes down. We arrive without incident in San Marcos however, though Penny is enthralled by the pastel colored dresses worn by the female Panamanian Indian migrant workers. Once off the bus I search the main street for a taxi that knows where the Vargas’s house is and we heap our bags in the back and clamber in, heading up a rocky path dotted with coffee farms.

‘Tonnnn’ yells Mama when I knock at her door, still unable to pronounce my name. She’s wearing a dressing gown and has obviously just woken up though it can’t have been later than seven. I’ve missed her a lot, this bustling little woman who coo’s over me and starts talking excitedly in very fast Spanish. Calin, her husband, comes to the door next and gives me a tremendous bear hug as he shows me to the guesthouse where I used to live. It takes about ten minutes for them to open the door before I can slide into my old bed and go to sleep and I actually remember when Prouty broke it a year before, the lock never working properly again.

Mercado Borbon


The Robles Family

Elian in his families fields

Atlanta, Virginia

In almost an hour and a half I will be leaving for Central America for the sixth time since I first rolled across the Mexican boarder in a Shackleton bus, leaning out the window as we left a trail of dust in our wake. I remember fences made of dilapidated car doors, chipped shrines of the Virgin Mary clinging to the roadside, mariachi bands in dusty squares, cowboy hat wearing men driving pickups full of cows. Now though I sit here at my gate in Atlanta’s airport and watch the Latino’s begin to congregate beside me, thinking that I’m more at ease than I have been for weeks. A few hours ago I was in Boston and, though my friends there are some of the dearest I will ever have, the pressures of work had reached a painful breaking point of sleepless nights that I knew I must escape.

Soon I will be in Central America, backpacking my way across an area of juxtaposition; waterfalls, volcanos and beaches set against civil strife, poverty and a slight sheen of tropical dirtiness and decay that is becoming increasingly comforting to me the more I travel. Daringly I have only bought a one-way ticket to Costa Rica and yet, within eight weeks, I plan to arrive dirty and tired back in Boston having followed a route I have not even planned. For the first three weeks I will be traveling with mum and her friend Penny through Costa Rica then I’m off up North alone, only dust, footprints and the odd pair of socks left behind in my wake.

So Today as I sit here in this mammoth airport with it’s flocks of milling Americans I am making a commitment, three actually, never an easy thing for me at the best of times and under my present circumstances probably doomed to dormancy.
The first is that I will explore my first full continent this trip, Belize, Honduras and Panama my final targets in this goal that has spanned a long time. The second is that I shall make it all the way to Boston by any means possible and the third; however hostile the terrain gets, I shall write an entry in my blog for every day that I’m backpacking.

Boston, MA

It’s four in the morning on a Thursday and I should be sleeping, warm in my relatively luxurious bed across the common in 150. Instead I’m sitting on a cold floor next to a dismantled futon in someone else’s grotty apartment next to the State House garden, a giant bronze eagle souring up towards my window on it’s massive stone plinth. Library books are spread about me, as is a empty gallon of chocolate chip ice cream , several bananas and a flashlight I’ve propped towards my text so I can read as I type. Now I’ve spaced out for a few hours, time I spent looking out of the window and trying to work. The latter is a painful process of keypunching, head holding and yawning as I try to balance my torch on a table beside me.

I wish I’d just gone home to sleep instead of trying to do my work, but a awful English deadline looms six hours away and as the sun rises I still can’t be bothered to walk back to my dorm from my friends house. I’ve been here a long time, since before noon yesterday and at first the prospect of working from a roof seemed to a good one. I set up my torch and books but the wind drove me off and I was relegated to the living room. A good idea really, if I had fallen asleep it would have been really easy to roll off the tiny space I’d been crouched on and become squashed four floors below. Oh god, I’m tired and writing was definitely a bad idea, as was ice cream for two breakfasts in a row. You know your tired, I've decided, when your playing Final Countdown and singing slowly along to the lyrics in a monotone. I guess Kings of leon and that hey ho-hey ho song by the Ramones will have to do and keep me awake. Luckily help is on the way, for looking across the common in the growing light I can see the lights going on in Capital Coffee, a safe haven for businessmen, politicians and caffeine starved students. University is nearly over for the semester, soon I’ll be in Costa Rica and able to relax for the first time in a while. I’m keen to keep writing now but whatever sense is left in me knows that my vocabulary has halved and my sentences transformed into the equivalent of sludge.

Suffolk University, Boston MA

I live on Boston Common, only a five minute walk through fairy-light covered trees separating me from the Capital Building with its magical golden dome. If one were to stand on the eleven floor of my dormitory you could see the frog pond far bellow with it’s ice skaters, the M.I.T power plant and even the long snaking line of the Charles River stretched out below you. As luck would have it however I live on the fifth floor, the view from my room not one of stately majesty but instead a dingy alley through which the occasional crack dealer runs, blue lights somewhere far behind. It doesn’t really matter that I seldom look out of the window though; my current living situation is usually interesting enough to keep me occupied for some time.

150 Tremont is a fascinating building to live in; it’s Victorian walls and horizontal flagpoles conceal a bizarre dichotomy of student life amid shabby furniture and halogen light bulbs, walking through the door is like peeling the bark from a dying tree and examining the insects scuttling below. Whether it’s eight in the evening or five in the morning I can lie on bed with my boots on and listen to the signs of life echoing around our utilitarian corridors, usually loud music and shouted curses. There are roughly four hundred of us here, each living in a separate reality with it’s own morals, social structure and time zone. Like the stray gas modules I was once forced to watch in school, we bounce off one another, ricocheting through life and occasionally combusting in fits of anger.

There is lumbering Bart who punched a policeman in the face during a night out in China Town and fled the scene. There is my roommate Raj who sits late at night on a chair in the communal bathroom, a curious expression on his face as listens to Citizen Cope on repeat and ruminates over continual cigarettes which he then stubs out in the sink. I could write about Taylor with her massive sunglasses and contempt for almost everything, bottle of vodka stuck in an expensive purse. There’s Tim, caught unscrewing a door and turning it into a table, Amanda who shattered a homeless mans jaw in a street fight, the third floor jocks with their wiffle bat games in the corridor and the sixth floor reprobates and their massive jars of condoms in the corner. Now I feel bad not including the stammering Macquaid with his notebook crammed full of disturbing drawings and various guests who seem to spend their waking hours throwing up in the toilet.

In Tremont there is exemplified everything one can find both shocking and exemplary about American culture. I have seen countless vile excesses of drugs and alcohol, spurred by a realization that no parent figure exists in the dorms. Along side this however, there exists a code where on the most part friend supports friend through the pitfalls of early adulthood without qualm or question. The school has another dorm that’s ridiculously nice, more of a hotel with its plush fittings and plate glass windows yet strangely not half as charming as 150.

Santa Marta, El Salvador


My time in El Salvador is almost over, with this ghastly revelation one must suck the marrow from every moment till at last the plane door shuts and my time here is finished. As departure comes closer though, it’s necessary to reflect in writing and try to make some sense out of this place, how ever impossible that task seems to me now. How can one understand El Salvador when the towns we pass by are either strewn with bullet holes or have disappeared, burned back into the jungle by ruthless government soldiers? What is reality when the old woman you are living with sits in her chair at night and talks, eyes glazed, of pregnant women thrown on spikes by armed men?

I’m writing this in a hammock, somewhere in the North East near the Honduran boarder. Appropriately I’m wearing my green Che shirt open to the heat, machete on the floor beside me as I listen to the sound of cocks crowing in the growing twilight. My memories are fragmented now by a need to sleep, flashes of mountains reaching far into the gathering dusk, a cow wandering dusty streets with a perplexed expression on her face, political slogans and bullet holes sprayed across whitewashed walls. Through this sea of thought I see Kyle, clinging to the back of a pick-up truck as I film him talking about guerillas he has known. If images can stay with you forever then these might. There was a church as we drove through the jungle to La Mora, it’s roof gone, the edges of it’s windows stained black with soot. It’s crumbling façade caught my eye and wouldn’t let go until the church finally disappeared around a bend and was gone.

I viewed all this through the viewfinder of the video camera I carried slung over one shoulder. Filming in the heat and dust was hard. I remember keeping focus on the person I was interviewing while a team of builders knocked down the house behind me, trying to be able to hear as a hoard of insects started their singing in the tree above a meeting I was trying to record. Every morning Roy would toss me the film bag as I’d check the batteries and grab the tripod. Sometimes we’d have to run to capture a moment on time, stills cameras bouncing up and down on our chests, laying the tripod just as an ex-guerilla, a teacher, a doctor began talking. Sometimes it was incredibly moving, the camera rolling as a man describes how he'd been tortured during the war and a doctor tells of his struggle to prevent AIDS and HIV. In the end perhaps we're wannabe war reporters, slugging beers and talking to girls at night, fingers clicking on camera triggers during the day, a constant stream of footage carving it's way into our tapes.

Sometimes though, there's a time to stop. I remember now hanging with one hand onto the back of a pick-up truck I’d haggled hard to use, finger far away from the film button as Roy crouched down trying to light a cigarette. The sun was going down, the sky rosy, orange, blood red all at the same time as if in mourning for the past day. My lens cap was on, I'd tried to get the sunset on camera at first, but there are some things you have to see for yourself. Around us all was still as the light fled over the horizon, leaving only the truck, the wind and us.


Are you sitting comfortably?


Roy and Camera, San Salvador


Arrival at the Airport



Camera Rolling...



The Suffolk Documentary Team Setting Up Shop, Santa Marta

Santa Marta, El Salvador

A man once told me that, roughly speaking, El Salvador has one doctor for every six thousand people. His name is Aristides Peres and for him the above isn’t just some mindless statistic, it’s an every day reality and job description. Dr Peres is one of a six member medical team in the remote village of Santa Marta, a two-hour long pick-up truck ride from the nearest town along pot-holed tracks almost impassable in the rainy season. We went there to interview several men who’d once met congressman Joe Moakley during the 80s and ended up staying three days. The first time I met the doctor he stood tired, stethoscope draped over his shoulders, a dog walking aimlessly along the floor of the medical centre as we interviewed him about AIDS (SIDA in Spanish.) His English was good and he reminded me of another man a long time ago, a fat doctor in Cambodia who played the violin every Thursday night and educated tourists about T.B between every song.
After Dr Perez had finished speaking and Roy had began to pack up our equipment I approached him. Our initial conversation was short and to the point:

ME: Hello, I enjoyed your speech. I was just wondering… I’m a wilderness paramedic by the way… I was thinking that I’d really like to help you in any way I can.

Dr Perez: Ok, can you come in five minutes? I’m must do a government health check on children at a school in the mountains. You can help me?

Me: (slightly taken aback, having expected to be given a job scrubbing the floors at best) Yes, of course…

I bounded up to Judy seconds later, a massive smile on my face as I asked her permission to accompany the doctor. She smiled and told me to get going. Ten minutes later I was walking out of the centre with a medical team that consisted of the doctor, a young looking dentist with long hair and aviators, a ferocious female nurse and another man with a stack of files under one arm. Together we climbed high up a dusty hill above the village, weaving erratically around docile cows lying in the middle of the road. The sun was out and the air hot and dry with the ever-present smell of animal dung. As we passed old men taking a break from work each raised their cowboy hat slightly in greeting, nodding their silent respect to the doctor who seemed to know every one. Eventually the village disappeared behind us and ten minutes later we’d arrived at the blue walled complex that was the school of Los Rodeo. As we entered through a massive steel gate Dr Perez turned to me, ‘remember to lock it. The children see us come and think we give them vaccinations so they run away.’ This I did as the others set up shop in the schools open air atrium, tables dragged out, dentist tools set up and piles of forms disgorged from bags. All the children lined up in front of us, laughs and smiles contrasting with limbs thin from malnutrition and arms riddled with ringworm. They took great sport in sneaking like tigers to pounce from behind and slap me over the head before disappearing behind a wall of their friends, everyone giggling shyly. The doctor pulled out a chair designed for a six year old and turned to me, ‘If I tell you what to write can you record each child?’

Three hours later I’d seen dozens of children, most with some small complaint like a common cold though a few had intestinal parasites. We worked like a production line, each child stepping forward to have his arms, mouth, eyes and ears examined before being given a slip for medicine and sent to the next area to be measured. I took down information, name of patient, age, sex, complaint in Spanish. My shirtsleeves were rolled up and sweat poring off my brow by the time we finished. There were other things I’d see working with Dr Perez, disturbing things I’d rather write about later when they are not so vivid.


Cow in the Road, Santa Marta


Mural on the wall of a school, Santa Marta


Kids


The Dusty Roads of Santa Marta

San Salvador, El Salvador

We were walking down an empty street when I noticed the policeman. He stood, high above us on the edge of a small park, a mountain bike resting against one blue-trousered leg. He wore a cap and carried a truncheon, his face indistinct in the near dark of the El Salvadorian night. We’d seen him earlier when we’d wondered down a quiet avenue and spotted the police station, two officers sitting listlessly by the forever open door. Both Roy and I had been drinking so, camera at the ready we sauntered up smiling and I introduced us in pigeon Spanish, “Hola, nosotros es Journalistas de una periodico en de Eustados Eunidos, donde es graffiti political por photographia?” This translates vaguely to ‘hello, we’re journalists from a newspaper in the United States, where is the political graffiti we can photograph?’ It was a harmless lie, more likely to get us an interview than admitting we were two college students on spring break.

Perhaps it was my Spanish, maybe they didn’t believe the story, it could have even been that the policemen were taken aback by two hairy gringos with a paparazzi style camera and the stink of tequila on their breath suddenly appearing from the night and demanding directions. Whatever, they gave us bull-shit instructions and waved vaguely towards the entire village before returning to the more serious business of putting their feet up on desks and looking bored. Disheartened by this sudden failure we slouched off up the hill towards our guesthouse, buildings pitted with bullet holes all around us, mangy dogs slinking from shadow to shadow. It’s an odd feeling to walk through a sleeping town and know that ten years before the entire place was filled with flying bullets and explosions, I can never put the past together with the future in places like that.

As we crossed the park, almost home now, the policeman appeared on his bike. He sat looking at us for a few seconds before signaling that we should follow him through the strands of palm trees towards a grubby red pavilion, it’s paint chipped and tile floor dirty. Just by its entrance he stopped and put the bike down, pointing above our heads at something. Looking up I could see what appeared to be the tail of an aircraft, olive green, stuck to a pole in the middle of the park. “American” the man said in Spanish, “from the war.”

For the next half an hour we talked to the policeman, who was soon joined by another. Roy set up the tripod and camera, snapping pictures and searing the darkness with his high-powered flash. Every so often he’d glance up from the viewfinder and ask me to translate for him, then something would catch his eye and he’d return to the camera, trying to photograph the plane. The tail section was definitely that of a military aircraft or helicopter we decided and the writing in English stenciled all over it seemed to confirm what the man had said. The conversation between our new friends and us went something like this, all be it with many mistakes and awkward pauses due to the language barrier:
Me: American, you’re sure?
Policeman: Si, a warplane. The Americans fought in the war.
Roy (to me): The Americans were actually fighting here? They must just mean the plane is American.
Me: (to the policeman) Only American planes or also American pilots?
Policeman: Si, pilots too
Me: You’re sure the Americans we’re here?
Policeman: Yes, and the Israeli’s.
Me (Half miming): The Americans were on the ground and in the air?
Policeman: Yes, the Israeli’s trained the troops and the Americans also fought.
Me: And the American’s dropped bombs (miming an explosion) here?
Policeman: Many bombs, in the hills there is a village the Americans destroyed. There are unexploded American bombs there. (He writes the name down)
Me (to Roy): I might be getting the translation slightly wrong but he seems sure that American pilots and troops we’re actually fighting here during the war. Did anyone ever mention that before?
Roy: S***. He seems sure?
Me: Yes. He also says they destroyed a village.

Afterwards, lying half asleep in my hammock I thought about what the man had said. My own countrymen dropping bombs on innocent people for the greater good, it reminded me horribly of Cambodia and the two 50 ton bombs turned into the pillars of a gate, marking the entrance to Aki Ra’s landmine museum at Siem Reap. It seems tragic that in the countries I love the most the people who are so amazingly kind to me have the least reason to be so. I should feel ashamed when they welcome me into their house and give me their food, after the damage the western world has done they should with every right lock their door and turn me away.


Unexploded Bomb in Northern El Salvador

San Salvador, El Salvador

El Salvador is a mess, from it’s shit strewn streets to the crimson-rimmed bullet holes in the clothes of long dead priests. The roadside advertisements are faded from the sun, by the entrance of every bank there is a man leaning languidly on the barrel of his scarred pump action shotgun. For the past few days all I’ve witnessed here are signs of conflict, from the blood stained robes of Arch Bishop Romero to stories of rebellion and torture told to us by a former guerilla. The worst part is there is little to balance these gruesome sights, the Capital San Salvador is a bleak eyesore of decay and cat piss that winds it’s way across the land in a series of malls and highways. There is no real center like the ones in most Central American cities, only dirty streets and the plush tennis courts of the American Embassy.

What seemed to have affected me most are the symbols at the Jesuit University here in San Salvador, the UCA. Walking through the airy, tropical campus I can’t make sense of the fact that on these well-manicured lawns six priests were executed by the El Salvadorian army less than thirty years ago, rose bushes now guarding the plot their innocent blood one stained. On your way to the universities museum one passes a fence that the hit squad scaled to access the compound and a small rock that marks where the Jesuits housekeeper and her young daughter were slain by a vicious slew of bullets to the head. Kyle leads us around the compound and tells us about the men who died, how they came from Spain to help El Salvador and ended up face down in the mud. To back up what he’s saying an American Jesuit showed us piles of photo albums taken the day the priests were murdered. The bullet holes in the walls, bodies slumped in never-ending sleep, those photos I will never forget, should never forget.

Confronted by the sight of such brutality and lost goodness I am filled with an immense sadness and sense of futileness that I don’t think anyone of conscience can truthfully ignore and put out of mind. In this strange land emotion runs wild and the most surprising people in my group cry without warning, probably trying to rationalize the incomprehensible. Later, sitting in an air-conditioned room in the American embassy I wonder why those responsible for El Salvador’s decline seem so unrepentant. Three U.S representatives in almost identical suits talked to us for an hour about GDP growth and political polarization, not once touching on the history of American involvement in the area. The question is of course, if I was in their position would I do any different, could I do any different?



The UCA


The fence the hit squad used to acess UCA



Roses Mark the Spot of the Killings


The Priests are Buried in the Chapel of the UCA

Suffolk, Boston

Making my way up Tremont Street today I bumped into Barry, an old Shackletonian who once worked in the Boston Office and was one of the last to walk away from the school. It felt odd speaking to her there outside the Suffolk buildings, dressed in my grubby suit jacket with a computer bag slung over one shoulder, a high school student no longer. We gossiped for a few moments before parting and, as I walked across the infernal wind tunnel to class I was struck with a sudden sadness. It’s the same feeling I always get when thinking of Shackleton, a sense of regret now the doors of Base Camp have closed and the busses finally put out of commission and left to rust in a junkyard somewhere. Though I am often overly sentimental when writing about my old home on spring hill it still seems tragic that no one else will have the opportunities the few of us experienced. I’m still only twenty-one and yet thanks to that school I’ve seen hundreds of miles of America, Central America and Asia, talked to a myriad of people and been given some of the most important life lessons one could wish to have.

Thinking back I remember Liz and Nikki standing laughing by a trail in Maine with backpacks on, Simon leaning against the temple of Angkor Thom with his camera out, Steve talking Spanish in Nicaragua with an complacent border guard. I don’t think I’ll ever again have the honor of working with such a committed group of educators and mentors, only a handful of whom I’ve mentioned above. Though I didn’t always respect or listen to them and was at times quite rude they were literally my parents away from home, my guides through the wilderness and at times both my biggest critics and largest supporters.

As I interact with students here and listen to what they have to say, I feel deeply that what this country (and perhaps this world) really needs are schools where the students are given an opportunity, whether they take it or not, to step away from everything they’ve known before and develop an expressed thirst for learning. Shackleton was by no means perfect but to this day I’ve never seen nor heard of any institution that comes as close constructively breaking the hard mold of humdrum normality and unoriginality as much as Shackleton did. I hope that somewhere there are other people like Luke O’Neil, making huge sacrifices so as to pursue their crazy dreams and that one day I’ll have a school like Shackleton to send my children to.

Mum’s been on at me for a long time to start writing again. Occasionally I glance at Student at Large, gathering electronic dust as my life moves on and leaves it behind but the effort to write, edit and proof read always seems too much. In my defense, a lot has happened over the past year and a half that’s affected my entire family and me and made writing difficulty. I’m hoping that I just needed a break from the blog scene while I sorted things out and picked my way through a haphazard first term of University. Now the snow is melting on the common, transforming it from a winter wonderland to something that resembles a ravaged park in downtown Sarajevo. People’s mood seems to reflect the increasingly volatile weather, tempers fray more easily than before and I’m increasingly pressed to provide all the requests of alcohol runs now I’m finally twenty-one. I find myself thinking more and more of El Salvador, waiting for Sunday when I’ll finally be shouldering my backpack once again and boarding a plane heading south. I think it’s this next adventure down south that’s spearheading my renewed attempts to journal again and I’m hoping that this entry isn’t merely a one off.

It’s probably best that for once I actively explain why I’m heading out from America in a flash of hiking boots and backpack instead of having the reader guess from the occasional dropped hint. The trip I’ll be taking next week is different from anything I’ve had the opportunity to do since I left Shackleton. I won’t be doing anything stupid for one thing; chances are there will be no machete strapped to my pack and a severe lack of bizarre Nicaraguans with rifles sharing my bus. In truth I’m not even traveling by public transport, this expedition will be by mini-van, a luxury that fills me with trepidation. Several months I was selected to take part in a Suffolk trip to El Salvador that would follow the footsteps of a Suffolk Law graduate, Joe Moakley. Former congressman Moakley is famous in Central America for his role in uncovering a conspiracy concerning the deaths of El Salvadorian missionaries and their housekeeper. We’re going down, video camera in hand to gain insight into the political events that has left El Salvador one of the most scarred places on earth.

Now preparations are nearing completion, the date of departure nearly upon us. I’ve been growing a slight beard so an El Salvadorian barber will have something to shave off with his close edged razor and thick brush. In the Moakley institute where the aforementioned congressman’s files are stored I checked over piles of equipment and wrote down a list of camera parts I would need. After a great deal of nagging I even managed to persuade my best friend Roy to sign up and join the small group of fifteen though I’m worried slightly at his enthusiasm concerning the machete he hopes to buy the minute we land. Now however the sun is setting in Boston, dinner waiting in sickly heaps in the dormitory cafeteria and Roy and Freddy returning soon from a weekend in Maine. I’ll leave thoughts of Central America behind and return to the mundane task of doing homework, something that never ceases to fill me with dread and is unfortunately never as interesting as procrastination.