Sunday, September 25, 2011
Crime and Fatigue
Awareness of crime – especially violent crime – is pervasive in El Salvador, a country with one of the highest homicide rates in the world. Houses are surrounded by walls topped with razor wire. Armed (which is not necessarily the same thing as “trained”) guards stand outside banks, jewelry stores, even ice cream shops, and security is big business. A people that clearly prizes hospitality as a virtue (more on that in a later post) seems also hesitant to open doors. When in a car, we drove with doors locked and windows up.
When I visited in July, the newspaper reported that the Department of Sonsonate with a population of about a half million people, had already endured 300 homicides for the year. While I was not directly affected personally, my visit to Chalatenango was complicated by violence. Apparently a refusal (or inability?) to pay extortion fees to organized crime led to two workers on that bus route being assassinated. The drivers’ perceived reluctance on the part of authorities to protect them adequately, which led to a bus drivers’ strike that lasted a few days. I was fortunate that Crispaz was able to arrange for a driver to get me there and back; most people do not have that luxury.
The US State Department calls public transportation “risky and not recommended.” On the other hand, buses, though hardly comfortable, are frequent, convenient, and inexpensive – within San Salvador, fares are 20 cents. Tens of thousands of people ride the buses daily, the vast majority without incident. I first took some bus rides with Salvadorans, then alone – and also without incident -- but always to friendly warnings that I should keep my pack on my lap, be home by dark, and, if mugged, just cooperate. Standard advice, I suppose.
A dirt road up the gorgeous volcano of San Salvador rises up out San Ramon, through the community of Las Nubes – still without safe drinking water in 2011 – and high above the capital. I mentioned in passing that, if time permitted, I would love to walk to the top. Several people – both Salvadorans and North American expatriates alike – told me that it would not be safe, and the likelihood of being mugged, even up there, would be very high. My friend Gustavo eventually offered to take me up with a group, but more out of generosity than because he thought it was a good idea. So, we never did go all the way up.
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| Maria Teresa, Sarai, Gustavo, Hector, and Sylvia took me part way up the volcano. |
All of this kept me wondering just how cautious I should be. Was I too worried? Not worried enough? I certainly did not feel worried on the 20-minute daytime bus trips to San Ramon. On the other hand, when my poor sense of direction left a couple of women who had escorted me taking the bus home after dark, I was desperately nervous until I got their call that they had arrived home safely.
I started to think that maybe my worry had been overblown, that I had listened to the warnings too attentively. I thought with some shame of my undergraduate days in New Orleans. As a freshman, I had been warned not to take the bus downtown, but to stick to the streetcar – which, by the way, is considerably slower. I followed that advice for three years before I was willing to brave being the only white person on the bus downtown. I was self-conscious and nervous. You can bet that I kept my pack on my lap, planned to be home before dark, and was prepared to cooperate with any muggers. Nobody on the bus, however, seemed to have any reaction to my presence whatsoever. I felt stupid, alarmist, and racist.
On the other hand, the risks about which I had been warned are all too real in El Salvador. The fact that Salvadorans face them daily does not make them less dangerous, just common. I had the chance to put this dilemma to Brian Rude, a Lutheran minister from Canada who has been working in Salvadoran prison ministry for years. He related that he has been mugged a number of times, and his apartment robbed on other occasions. He addresses the situation by having a policy of never carrying with him anything he is not willing to give up. I thought of St. Francis of Assisi, who justified his order’s vow of corporate poverty on the grounds that if they owned property, they might feel the urge to defend it, and therefore to harm those who were trying to take it.
So, there is legitimate reason to feel concerned about security in El Salvador. It also must be, I would imagine, really exhausting to maintain that level of vigilance over the long haul. The long-term effects of this vigilance cannot be good for the psychological health of individuals or of society as a whole.
-Chris Welch '11
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