El Salvador and Back Again
El Salvador, I <3 you and will be back very soon. Whether it's the beaches of La Libertad, La Paz, and Usulatan, or the mountainous hills of Sonsonate or Morazan filled with delicious coffee, there is much to do in this hyper tiny (but dense) country. Everyone is very friendly and amiable, shockingly so from this American's perspective.
The civil war from 1980-1992 ripped El Salvador apart. I have trouble putting to words what it makes me feel like to learn about the atrocities that occurred there at the hands of their anti-leftist republican government and its wide-sweeping military arm. It makes it even harder to swallow when you learn that the United States strongly backed the government of El Salvador both with copious amounts of money, weapons and military training throughout the civil war.
There is tons of info out there on the civil war, but if you want a cliff notes version Noam Chomsky has summed it up fairly well (note: this short essay was written in 1993, a mere one year after the war ended; much has changed in the country since then but the history is the same). A particularly horrible and well-known massacre was the Massacre of El Mozote, but sadly there are many more that have occurred in the last 150 years or so.
On the bright side, the country has clearly recovered and doing very well right now aside from having an economy strongly tied to the US. It doesn't help that the US dollar was adopted as the official currency in 2001.
They are currently in an election season right now (election days: March 9-17, 2009), with the two leading parties being ARENA (republican) and <a http://www.fmln.org.sv/">FMLN (democrat). What really excites me about this election is the simple fact that the FMLN is a serious contender for the presidential seat this time around. I mean we're talking about a party that if you were even remotely associated with during the civil war times (especially the early years), it meant there was a bullseye on your forehead. The country is filled with FMLN flags, advertisements and people really excited for this election. Such an amazing contrast to how it must have been 20-25 years ago.
Since I have never lived in El Salvador, I'm not going to try and pretend I know which party is "best" for the country, but still it excites me in the direction that it seems like El Salvador is headed.
Not to just completely switch gears, but while I was there a kickass family member gave me a tour of La Constancia, a brewery who runs a very nice facility in San Salvador producing a variety of light beers and pilsners both for export and nationally available. They also happen to produce a whole bunch of Coca Cola products that you'd recognize as well as a variety of the El Salvador favorite, Kolashanpán, known as La Tropical Superchampán. Kolashanpán is probably the best soda ever, I broke a 5 month soda strike to drink the stuff.
La Constancia also happens to have a female brewmaster, which is not exactly a very common occurrence for a high-production facility like that. Damn cool.
Touring a high production beer facility is fascinating. I've done a bit of home brewing and also toured some small time setups, but to see everything on a huge scale is really great. Far and away, the most interesting part to be able to see/touch would be the bottling/canning lines. Really makes you appreciate what goes into something as simple as a bottle of beer. Plus it's fun to grab an unlabeled, unpasteurized bottle off the line and crack it open right there for a taste.
