Chicken Bus - or Chickens on a Bus?

CHALATENANGO, EL SALVADOR - Have you heard of the chicken buses of El Salvador? Lots of people in central America don't have cars. If they need to travel a great distance across the country, they take a "chicken bus," so called because there's a chance you'll be sitting next to some livestock. These colorful former school busses are seen frequently on El Salvador's roadways. It's truly the long-distance transportation system of the people.

Well, I regret to say I never got to ride a chicken bus. Instead I rode one of those plush air-conditioned mini-buses with a bunch of other gringos. And on our first day together, I was thinking the chicken bus would've been more fun.

This was our first day of going out as a group and delivering stuff. Michele and I are both finding the experience to be well worth the trip -- extremely educational and rewarding.

It's hot down here, the hours were long today and signs of extreme poverty are all around us. I'm fine dealing with that. What I'm having trouble getting used to is being part of a tour bus group. My frustration boiled over in an e-mail I wrote at the end of the evening:

Michele and I are both very independent travellers, and spending all day long in a wad with these people just exhausted the hell out of me. To think I'm down for two more days of it is just more than I can fathom. I haven't told Michele this, and thought I would use this opportunity to vent these feelings to SOMEONE without stressing out my wife with my bitching. But Jesus Christ Almighty, I just can't handle being herded around like this. Moooooo....

Looking back at this e-mail made me realize what a mean-assed jerk I am. As it turned out, Michele and I actually came around and grew quite fond of the people in our tour group. In fact, we plan to remain in touch with several of them.

But on our first day together, I was still finding my sea legs with this group. Not at all used to this style of travel, I was mostly irritated. Michele, meanwhile, was oblivious to everything since riding on trains or busses puts her to sleep instantly.

While my wife slept though most of it, I was just plain crabby. There's something about the collective psychology of tour bus travel that just doesn't sit well with me.

Take lunch, for instance. For many travellers, it's an afterthought. But to me, lunch in a foreign country can and should be an intimate cultural experience. No matter what town I'm in, I wince everytime I see a tour bus empty a load of rubes in front of a McDonald's. It's such a waste, completely missing the whole point of travelling.

Of course, I realize I'm far from being objective on this issue. As you can probably tell just by looking at these pictures I'm posting of myself, I am indeed an enthusiastic eater. But putting all the self-deprecating fat jokes aside for a moment, I have to say I truly believe food is powerful. It can be the catalyst that allows people to connect.

Today, as our tour group settled in for a midday meal at a nice, safe fried chicken chain in Chalatenango, Michele and I mercifully broke loose with a former flight attendant in our group who spoke fluent Spanish. We followed her as she ducked and weaved through Chalatenango's outdoor market, stopping frequently to ask one of the natives where the best lunch spot could be found.

We didn't know where we were going, but were certain the food and the experience would probably be something to write home about. Oh, and it was.

We followed our bilingual hero all the way to El Paraiso, a fabulous but hidden lunch spot that features unbelievably scrumptious local fare. The waitresses, proud of their food, suffered through our horrible spanish to suggest what we should order.

A couple of pieces of cheese were served as an appetizer along with my favorite Salvadoran beer, Bahia. And Michele had a tasty pina colada. For the main course, we ended up with a well-marinated steak with chunky salsa on the side, perfectly fluffy salvadoran rice and a tender, sweet fried plantain on the side. It was wonderful, and the waitresses seemed genuinely pleased that we enjoyed it so much.

Tourists in El Salvador are rare enough, but must certainly be unheard of in this little hole in the wall. The entire bill for me and Michele came to just under $10. This, you must understand, was considered the nicest and most expensive restaurant in town.

You won't be surprised to learn that pictures of my plate were dutifully taken, glowing digital images of which were hence shared with the chickens back on the bus. They only had two responses: First, that I must have a stomach made of steel to have taken such a foolish chance to eat at such a place, and second, that it was quite odd that one would take photographs of their luncheon plate. I just couldn't help but think, these are not my people.

Oh, was I irritated. As we all rode back in the usual wad toward our hotel later that night, my fellow passengers spotted a bunch of prostitutes on a San Salvador street corner directly outside our bus window.

Here, suddenly, was my chance to be an obnoxious prick; an opportunity to hurl something horribly vulgar into the air. I couldn't help myself.

"Check the adam's apple on 'em," I announced proudly, my voice booming all over the bus. "Those are a bunch of trannies."

It was my feeble last-ditch effort to guage whether there were any kindred spirits aboard who shared my deeply flawed, deplorable sense of humor. Luckily, there were more than a few takers who giggled and seemed quite pleased with my observation. Maybe these folks aren't so bad after all.

Well, most of them, anyway. One of the women on board, upon hearing my delightfully tacky declaration, thought quietly for a minute as she peered carefully out the bus window at the jiggling ass cheeks protruding from some manwhore's shiny red leather lingerie. At long last, she squinted her eyes a little and sweetly asked, "What's a tranny?"

The Mayor & Me

CHALATENANGO, EL SALVADOR - There I am posing with the mayor of Chalatenango, Dr. Jose Rigoberto Mejia Menjivar.

We were in town for a graduation ceremony of a women's cosmetology school. The Airline Ambassadors group we were travelling with presented new sewing machines to some of the women.


This beautiful small village offered us some fascinating views of everyday life in a far-flung area of El Salvador.



The graduation ceremony was extremely interesting, but good god was it HOT in there. It was the closest I came to having a heat stroke on the whole trip.

The ceremony began with the pledge of allegiance to the flag of El Salvador, then a tape recording of their national anthem.

I would later find out that many of the graduating women had made their outfits especially for the occasion themselves. You don't see people who make their own clothes much anymore in the U.S. We Americans mainly depend on Chinese adolescents to take care of that job, which is pretty much the case no matter where you shop.

What struck me about these women was their attitude. They were humble and gracious. After the free new sewing machines were handed out, one of the ladies stopped and spoke to us gringos sitting in the front row. Speaking to us in english, she said, "Thank You" to every damn one of us.

It was a beautiful little moment, but I felt sort of guilty. I don't know who in our group rounded up these free sewing machines, but Michele and I didn't. We had only brought kids' clothes to hand out on this trip. These wonderful people in El Salvador need so much more than just kids' clothes. I know that now, and I'll remember it when I come back.

We have so much money and resources in America, and one big lesson I took from this trip was how ridiculously easy it can be for us to answer someone else's prayers.

Life Lessons from Some Snatchy Little Boogers

I'll be honest: The kids at the first place we're visiting are some snatchy little boogers.

Our very first stop on this volunteer mission is a state-sponsored daycare center where parents must pay a fee of 75 cents a day for their kids to attend while Mom and Dad - or often, just single moms - attempt to scratch out a living.

The kids are sweet enough, smart, good-looking. Most of them, we're told, had dressed up in nice new clothing especially for our visit.

The children are clearly comfortable with visitors. They sang and danced for us. Many of them crawled up on our laps and shoulders, hanging on like little monkeys to a tree branch.

And as far as they're concerned, there are no language barriers here. Throughout our morning visit, they're chirping like birds, asking us questions we certainly did not understand in rapid-fire Spanish. Conjuring up my best espanol, I tried to tell the young'uns that I spoke English and couldn't understand what they were asking me. And just like plenty of American adults I know, they'd just stubbornly ask the question again, still speaking their same language but this time a little slower and in a raised, slightly-frustrated voice.



In the end, it all just sort of worked itself out. The looks on our faces and the interest we showed in them hopefully spoke volumes. They could tell we were charmed.

You can relate to children regardless of what language they speak. They make it easy.

But boy, are these litle devils snatchy! It's the only word I can think of to adequatey describe them. Without any advance warning, they'll quickly grab stuff from right out of your hand. Everything from toys to candy to digital cameras are fair game. The kids assume that if you have it out within their reach, they can paw at it. It's all a little disorienting to a guy with very little experience handling large groups of young'uns.

Exhausted already, I needed a short break. I decided to take a walk around campus and look around.


Everything appeared to be neat and clean. All the bathrooms were tidy and smelled fine. The classrooms were brightly decorated with all sorts of instructional cartoon drawings. Posters of El Salvador's well-coiffed first lady hung on the walls.

So who are these kids? Where do they come from? In the overall scheme of El Salvador's economic system, I wondered, where do these kids and their families rank? This being our first official stop on the volunteer trip, I had nothing else to compare it to.

Once the classroom festivities were over with, it was time to head outside to let the kids take turns beating a pinata. The whole pinata party deal at first seemed like such a patronizing latin cliche, but it turns out such rituals are still a highly-embraced element of the local culture. Salvadoran kids always have and always will love a good pinata party.


Just moments after someone finally knocked the candy-filled monster into the dirt, I noticed a few of the women gravitating toward a nearby room. It was here where my dear wife discovered some toddlers who absolutely stole her heart.



Right when it was almost time to go, we began to lighten the load of our donation-stuffed suitcase. The daycare workers sifted through the loot, setting aside what they thought would be useful for the kids and toddlers here, and leaving the rest for us to bring to our next stops.

After watching them sort through the clothing, I glanced around what seemed to be a pretty nice daycare center. Ever the cynical bastard, I silently wondered how badly they needed our donations. Are they used to seeing a busload of white folks roll up with handouts and a pinata party on a regular basis? They seemed to be.

I'm ashamed to admit that I had these thoughts. What the hell is wrong with me to be thinking these things? After much thought, I have concluded this disgusting cynicism is the likely result of the purely American mental environment I left behind.

I knew what was waiting for me back in Austin. My television will tell me twenty times per day that I need to purchase a new car. My e-mail will once again hit me up to earn a college degree from home while purchasing a case of wholesale Viagra at a considerable discount.

On my telephone voice mail at work, I'll inevitably hear from a childless married couple who will be in desperate need of a 5-bedroom house with at least 3,000 square feet. My mailbox will be stuffed with tempting offers to get myself into much further debt. And while I sit in my car waiting for a traffic light to change, I'll fiddle with my cell phone in a lame attempt to ignore the beggar on the corner who probably has his own apartment somewhere in town and is just looking for beer money.

In the U.S. everyone from the street begger to the corporate media baron is hustling us around the clock. Nearly all possible forms of human connection has been co-opted by profit-seeking middlemen. We don't go to public parks or community centers anymore. Instead, we seek to cure our lonliness by crawling into air-conditioned cars and going shopping. We're enthusiastically encouraged to do so by the media, our peers, and even our own president. If we don't shop, the terrorists win. All of it is the worst kind of empty noise, and I'm convinced it has done something awful to us, even to the majority who either don't realize what our consumer culture has done to them, or are unwilling to so much as acknowledge it. I know it's done something awful to me.

The kids at this daycare, even the older ones, don't seem to be as afflicted by the brand-conscious consumerism commonly found among even the youngest Americans. Poverty, I suppose, will have that effect. I would later come to understand that at this modest but apparently well-run daycare, they did need our donations.

And even more important, they really just needed us; for someone to simply show up and let them know that someone gives a crap about them and what's happening in their lives. If you stop to think about it, it's what all of us humans crave but don't always get. So why did our attempt at this basic human-to-human connection seem to be especially appreciated here in El Salvador? I have thought about that question many times since returning home.

We came to this daycare expecting to come face-to-face with unwashed, unwanted children living in astonishing poverty. It's not exactly what we found today, although it will appear in spades tomorrow.

Still, what we did find here deeply touched our hearts. Michele will never forget holding that baby -- the one with such a haunting look on her face, who for nearly half an hour wanted nothing more from my wife than to be held and spoken to.

And now months later, I'm comfortably ensconsed behind a keyboard in my air-conditioned monstrosity of a house, only beginning to truly understand what our visit with these pint-sized daycare runts and the harried mujeres who try to keep up with them helped me and Michele to learn about ourselves.

Dude, You're Getting Downsized

As we walked in San Salvador's central district, we noticed a huge building just one block away from our hotel. I was shocked. I rubbed my eyes and did a double-take. Could it be? Is it really?

That giant crooked "E" on the side of the building was unmistakable. Sure enough, Austin's largest private employer has a huge call center smack in the middle of downtown San Salvador.

What's Dell doing in this third-world country? Saving a ton of cash, that's what.

A CNN article says call center employees can make at least $600 a month in a country where the minimum wage is about $150 a month. Do the math, and you can clearly see why companies like Dell would rather move as many jobs as possible to places like El Salvador.

As I snapped this picture, my mind flashed back to 2001, when I was a local TV news reporter. I remembered standing with a cameraman across the street from Dell headquarters in Round Rock, watching hundreds of shaken people walk out to their cars with boxes in their arms. Just three years later, Dell would open up brand new call centers in Canada, India and El Salvador.

The only thing that stops companies like Dell from shipping all U.S. call center jobs overseas, from what I can tell, is a lack of qualified English-speaking applicants. The Salvadoran government is working with American companies to try to fix that problem with local education programs. But in case it doesn't work, the CNN article says those companies are now luring young Salvadoran immigrants in the US to come back to their mother country for a nice high-tech job.

Fortunately, the biggest employers in Austin have always been the state government and the University of Texas. But among Austin's private-sector employers, Dell has been the biggest game in town for well over a decade. Now, after what I've seen in El Salvador, I'm wondering how much longer that will that be the case.

A Rough Ride Into San Salvador

The cab driver pictured here tried to kill us.

Well, he didn't really, but our comfort and safety didn't appear to be foremost in his mind as he chauffeured us into El Salvador's capital city. The driver came uncomfortably close to rear-ending a rickety truck in front of us. Michele nearly peed herself, while I smiled and enjoyed the adrenaline rush. All in all, it was a fabulous welcome to San Salvador.

45 minutes after we left the beach resort, we were dropped off at Hotel Villa Serena, completely awake and ready for another new adventure. The rough ride into San Salvador was just a taste of what was to come. We knew we had arrived in a much different, much more exciting place.

And Now, A Short Pupusas Break

All this talk of El Salvador got me hungry for some pupusas. Luckily, you can get them fresh and hot right here in Austin.

Just when I thought my town couldn't offer any more surprises, a hot tip from some fellow foodies led me to El Zunzal restaurant in east Austin.

Tucked away right off of East 7th Street next to HEB, El Zunzal is serving up a mouth-watering menu of Salvadoran favorites. And you'd better be able to speak a little Spanish. Comprende?

On my first visit a couple weeks ago, I had to satisfy my craving for pupusas, which were pretty much a spot-on copy of what we ate in El Salvador. The only thing I noticed that was different was the spicy slaw-like curtido looked different here. It was much more purple than what we remembered getting on our trip, but it still tasted the same.

Michele and I noticed a couple of other dishes there that we're determined to come back and try: First, the pollo frito en tejadas, which I read all about in this restaurant review from our local newspaper. It's spiced chicken that's grilled, fried and topped with a thick sauce of tomatoes, onions and peppers, then placed on a bed of shredded cabbage. Sign me up, please. Second, as we bit down on our pupusas, we noticed some steaming, heaven-scented bowls of seafood soup wafting by to other tables. We could tell it was amazing.

As we got ready to leave the restaurant, I looked up and noticed a familiar crest hanging on the wall. It's the national symbol of El Salvador, which is proudly displayed not only across the country, but by Salvadoran immigrants all over the world.

All around the restaurant, little pieces of El Salvador are everywhere. You can see it in the food, in the beer, in the art on the walls. Just being here - eating a pupusa and soaking up the atmosphere - reminded me just how much I fell in love with the land and the people of El Salvador.

If a visit to El Zunzal can have that effect on someone who's only spent a week in El Salvador, I can only imagine how Austin's Salvadoran immigrants must feel when they come here.

On the Outside, Looking In

When our time was up at Costa del Sol, we were more than ready to move on. We needed a break from our break.

Sure, the beach area is nice. But we felt isolated from the very thing we came here to find in the first place. I started to feel guilty just for being here.

Before we left, we noticed a boy who parked his bicycle on the beach and began walking toward us. He had trinkets to sell, and quickly zeroed in on my dear wife.

I'm not sure if Michele actually liked the stuff he was slinging, or if she just felt like giving him a break. But she took the bait and bought a couple of bracelets.

This would be the one and only time we were ever approached like this at Costa del Sol. You're much more likely to be mobbed with hucksters in places like Cancun or Costa Rica. But El Salvador remains mostly unspoiled by the ugly engines of consumerist, ticky-tacky tourism. The daiquiri-swilling gringos have not yet arrived here in masses.

But I can tell it's just a matter of time. This country - the land, the coast - is too beautiful, too breathtaking. I'm a real estate agent, and I see too many broken-down shacks here that offer exactly the same jaw-dropping views that fetch millions in California or far west Austin.

El Salvador, I am told, has changed tremendously since its civil war ended a dozen or so years ago. But it looks to me like the changes are just beginning.

There will be a bright future here, for a few. And yet I'm certain the inevitable boom in El Salvador tourism and real estate will be of little benefit to the vast majority of its people. That's how things have always worked here.

When it came to the quite fascinating subject of El Salvador, I was a typically clueless American up until a few months ago. I couldn't have even found this country on a map. But as we planned our trip, I started reading up.

Today, I know much more. Maybe too much.

Horrible things happened here more than two decades ago, and I'm sad to say U.S. fingerprints are all over it.

There I was in a Louisiana classroom those many years ago, innocently learning the alphabet and trying not to wet my pants, blissfully unaware that El Salvador's poor and their church leaders were starting to organize against an oppressive system of feudalism.

While my top concern was whether Momma would be willing to spring for an Atari, Ronald Regan was gravely warning the grown-ups that evil communism was on the march in El Salvador. He - that is, we - spent millions of our tax dollars on guns and bullets to help the Salvadoran government's military kill its own people.

Before the war was over, over 80,000 civilians would die.

Even today, Uncle Sam still pulls the strings here, imposing his will on Salvadoran elections to ensure the ruling ARENA party continues its dominance.

The people of El Salvador can't control who's in charge of U.S. policy, yet so many of those decisions have a bigger direct impact on their lives than on our own. In this context, it seems particulary cruel that most of us who can vote don't bother. Very few are even paying attention.

Back on the beach, the kid with the trinkets lucked out again. Another woman at our hotel wanted a few necklaces, but was low on cash. She asked the kid to follow her to her table at the resort so she could grab her purse.

Walking together, they approached the line between the beach's sand and the resort's rear entrance. The kid came right up to the threshold, and then abruptly stopped.

The woman looked back at the boy and waved her arm, signaling him to keep following her.

"Come over here," she told him, still waving her hand inwardly. "My table's right here."

Nervously glancing over at the rifle-toting hotel guard, the boy didn't budge an inch. He knew the rules.

In this corner of Central America, there is a clear, bright line in the sand between the haves and have-nots. That line is much clearer, much bigger and much wider than in the United States.

There's a good reason why the wealthy few invest in thick exterior walls topped with razor wire and hire guards armed with assault rifles. In the pursuit of economic prosperity, the vast majority of people in El Salvador are just like that boy on the beach who sells trinkets from his bicycle: They are stuck in a system that perpeptually keeps them on the outside, looking in.