Post-hurricane projects build community spirit in El Salvador

Mennonite Central Committee
Saturday, 21 October 2000

SAN MARTIN, El Salvador -- The houses of La Linea, named for the abandoned railroad track that runs along the outskirts of town, perch on the edges of deep ravines. Most residents fled their original homes during El Salvador's 12-year civil war. They live lives as precarious as their shacks, one storm away from a slide into disaster.

Before Hurricane Mitch, the casa comunal, or community building, was one more reminder of La Linea's problems. Vandals had destroyed the windows, and holes gaped in the roof. But on Sept. 24, more than 300 people gathered in and around the newly repaired building to celebrate the completion of post-hurricane projects.

Funded by Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) and organized and carried out by the residents themselves, the projects included building retaining walls and a drainage system. More significantly, the work brought together people who are ignored by most of Salvadoran society and divided by fear and mistrust among themselves. At the celebration, they sang along to MCC volunteer Paul Brohaugh's new version of "This Land is Your Land" (see 'The Sky Is a Blue Sombrero': Singing in El Salvador ).

Hurricane Mitch's effects on La Linea were not as dramatic as the devastation in other parts of the region, according to MCC El Salvador country co-representative Byron Peachey. Instead, the solid of week of rain in late October 1998 exacerbated the chronic problem of narrow dirt roads washing out and crumbling into mud.

"This is sort of a forgotten community," he explained. "The people of La Linea get little attention from the municipality [of San Martin], in terms of infrastructure or services, because most of them are technically squatters on the railroad company's land."

Driven off their land during the war, poor Salvadorans drifted in to La Linea after the peace accords were signed in 1992. Today, MCC is working with the residents there to overcome the demoralizing attitude that La Linea is a place for transients.

"People who earn enough money to move elsewhere often leave La Linea, but few can," Peachey said. "For those who come and take their place, it's a step up from a cardboard shack or living crowded in someone else's house. Many people won't move on. For them, this is home."

Sam Nickels and Cindy Hunter, MCC volunteers in La Linea at the time, had witnessed La Linea's neglect and felt strongly that the residents had a right to basic human dignity. Nickels approached Noel Larin and Bernarda Mendez, two leaders of the Baptist mission church that is MCC's partner in La Linea, with the idea of organizing the post-hurricane improvement projects.

From the beginning, Larin and Mendez worked to give all residents a voice. They developed a planning commission with representatives from six colonias, or neighborhoods, with equal numbers of men and women.

"People tend to be divided between who goes to which church, who belongs to which gang. I'm quite sure [the commission] was made up of people who never would have had occasion to work together before," Peachey said.

Some churches in La Linea teach that any type of organizing for social improvement is a sin.

"There's a hymn that says, I want to walk on streets of gold with Jesus," Mendez said. "People sing that song, but they ignore their own streets that are crumbling."

The success the commission had in overcoming theological differences was evident at the celebration, she added, when a man from one of these churches thanked the group for bringing the community together.

The commission agreed to complete six projects that would benefit the entire community, including building retaining walls, laying stone to reinforce dirt roads and creating a drainage system. All work would be volunteer labor, with the exception of a small sum paid to Larin to keep the books and coordinate purchases.

"Bernarda had also talked about how it was a shame that people who were rained out of their homes had no place to go. Every year when the rains come, someone's house is in danger," Peachey said.

With this long-term goal in mind, the community building was refurbished. La Linea residents also use the building for community and church group meetings, and as a clinic and medicine storage area.

Construction began in September 1999, and the recent celebration marked the completion of most projects.

The process has been a step toward creating a sense of ownership, Peachey said. "La Linea is made up of people who've come from all over the country. Maybe the way people worked together was a statement of, 'We're all living here, we've got to learn how to work together and make this a community.'"

For more information, or to contact Mennonite Central Committee, see their website at: www.mcc.org