El Salvador Study Abroad 2010: Equipo Maiz

At Equipo Maiz, a publisher company in San Salvador, we were presented with the history of El Salvador in an interactive way with pictures that described the different time periods. It is an excellent technique to use in the future perhaps in my field of practice. The presenter did a wonderful job of clearly explaining the history of the country and its implications still present to this day. What struck me the most about the history of this country was fact that the United States funded the civil war which took place from 1980-1992. More than 1.5 million dollars a day was given to the Salvadoran government so that they can "get rid of" the "communists (Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front political party)." What's worse is that the U.S. knew that the money was used not to help the people here, but it was used to get rid of the problem no matter the cost (literally). The "communists" that the U.S. and the Salvadoran government thought were going to take over, were actually just the poor people who were fighting for justice, for their rights. It saddens me that all of those billions of dollars could have been used to help el pueblo- the people, but instead it was all spent on the FMLN, which never went away. In fact, their new president, Mauricio Funes is from the FMLN political party. I am grateful, that the Salvadoran people make a distinction between the the U.S. government and the U.S. people because our country really did some serious damage to this country that has suffered and still is suffering from the effects of the war. The country's economic as well as its infrastructure needs to be rebuilt. Unfortunately, their government does not see the need to address these issues. I cannot believe that so much time has passed and you can still see the consequences of such a decision made 30 years ago.