Another Scoop of PC El Salvador

From Dylan, with some thoughts from Laura:

The past three days we have been attending a conference at the Hotel Entrepinos in San Ignacio with about 99% of the El Salvador volunteers and staff, and several representatives from Peace Corps Washington.

Rising trends in crime have caused PC to reevaluate their presence in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. PCVs in these three countries are more than twice as likely to be victims of violent crime than the average PCV worldwide. The rate is about 8-12 incidents per year in El Salvador (out of 150 volunteers) since 2006. “Violent crime” includes any crime that has the threat of violence, such as armed bus robberies, even if no violence actually occurs.

We have been shown maps of violent crime rates in the general population in all three of these countries. The Peace Corps situation differs greatly in each. In El Salvador, these crimes occur in predictable patterns. First, fewer than two per year occur in the volunteers’ communities. They almost universally happen outside of our communities. Second, almost all of the incidents happen either on public transportation or in San Salvador. The public transportation component is entirely accounted for on inter-departmental (interstate) routes, or on urban San Salvador busses. None occur on local bus routes between our sites and local pueblos.

In Honduras, while there are some concentrations of violent crime around the major metropolitan areas, along known drug trafficking routes, and on the Atlantic Coast (where the best SCUBA is, lastimosamente), the rest of the country is peppered with concentrations of violent crime as well. No region of the country showed up as a light color on the map. The result was that PC/W felt they had to get the volunteers out of Honduras and rethink entirely how the program might be able to exist safely. A few off-hand comments we have heard at this conference suggest that there is some doubt that PC will be able to return to Honduras at all, at least for the foreseeable future.

Guatemala, in contrast, was highly concentrated. Moreover, volunteers were already concentrated in safer areas, and the headquarters of PC/G had been moved outside of the capital a half a decade ago. PC/W still decided to shrink the program, and a few PCVs are being uprooted, but the disruptions there have been lesser than they will be here.

Like Guatemala, El Salvador’s violent crime is highly concentrated in a few regions. Like Honduras, volunteers are distributed all over the country. So we fall somewhere in the middle. Because crime is somewhat concentrated, PC/W feels that the changes to the program can be put into place while volunteers are still here. The idea will be to reduce the number of volunteers from the current 110 down to about 50, and to concentrate those fifty into two or three of the safest regions of the country.

To reduce the population they are doing several things. First, the new group that had been scheduled for January was canceled (see footnote 1), and they will not be bringing any more this year.

Second, the two groups before that were smaller than the usual 30 (helping us to get down to the current 110. The group that arrived in February 2010 has been asked to leave a month early, and most will be gone in the next few weeks. Our group, who were originally scheduled to leave in September, 2010 is being shipped home in April 2010. There was a lot of controversy regarding this decision.

In addition to reducing the population of PCVs, they will be creating several “clusters” of volunteers in “designated areas” of the country, and creating regional offices in those areas so that volunteers do not need to go to San Sal, or take the bus routes that are dangerous. This is a good idea well targeted to resolve the problems.

In mid-February an assessment team from PC/W will be coming to El Salvador to evaluate what regions of the country will be authorized to receive volunteers. They are expected to provide the results of the assessment in mid-March. Though they must have a short list of areas that will be considered, that’s a closely held secret. Rumors are floating around that include the Ataco area in Santa Ana, and the Gotera area in Morazan. “Everyone knows” that our region, the La Palma-San Ignacio region, would be an excellent candidate, because the resources are here and it’s very safe. But there’s been no official confirmation that it’s even under consideration.

Which leaves us in limbo. After our group leaves in April 2010 PC/ES will be down to 34 or fewer volunteers (some of the volunteers in groups more recent than ours have already left). That leaves slots open for some of our group to apply to extend. Such an application will only be considered if our sites are already in one of the designated areas identified by the assessment team. Laura and I have received verbal and informal reassurance that our efforts to stay will be supported by the local staff, so the only question that remains will be whether this region will be designated to continue to receive volunteers.

So at this point we feel that staying in El Salvador until September has become “Plan B,” and going home in April has become “Plan A.” this means we’ll be looking for jobs over the next few months. When March-April roll around, if we still don’t have jobs, and PC offers us the chance to stay, we’ll consider it then. In the meantime, we have a lot of work to wrap up in El Centro.