Rosa takes us to see one of the projects with which she is working, a coop to make natural lotions and shampoos. Five women work together to grow plants like rosemary and aloe in a garden behind a small building. Inside, their one glass display case is filled with a variety of hand-made items. There are half a dozen bras in different sizes and colors. There are a couple of baby bibs and crib blankets, as well as bottles of shampoo and moisturizer that the women make in their workshop. Our little group buys the last of their inventory before we walk across the garden to an adjoining building that houses a sewing workshop for disabled war veterans. The rolling sales rack has one bright blue T-shirt for a small woman, a long sleeve, lacy white blouse for a little girl, one large denim shirt for a medium-size man.
The rack illustrates a problem for small businesses in places like Cinquera. No one has any money. There are no large employers in Cinquera, or even small employers, for that matter. Without remittances from relatives in the United States, life in Cinquera would grind to a halt. Even with them, money is scarce. The women can’t afford enough of any one bolt of material to make one item in many sizes, and not enough Cinquerans would have money to buy the items anyway. The women don’t have much experience or training in business – they haven’t considered other business models, like individual orders for their tailoring. They will probably never be one of the big export businesses that the government insists will spring up in the wake of CAFTA. Right now, they would be satisfied to make a profit of any size.
Cinquera used to be a farming community. About forty percent of Salvadorans still earn their living in that way. The Cinquera’ fields covered the rolling fields around the village. But part of the enemy strategy of the war was to destroy the crops. As Cinquera was abandoned and bombed, the forest slowly began to creep in to cover the fields. By the time of the peace accords, the land had completely reverted to forest, and the villagers had to make a choice: should they clear the land again for farming, or should they manage the land as a second-growth forest? They chose the latter. They hope that over time, ecotourists will come to visit, bringing money and jobs. A few people, like Rosa, have trained as forest rangers, and they are proud of their new professions. The people of Cinquera have an admirable track record of coming together in the face of adversity to pull off complex development projects. By 1992, when the peace accords ended the war, all that was left of the village was the two-story bell tower on the church; the rest was rubble. Today, the citizens support enough teachers so that kids in the village can go to school through ninth grade. They also support a dozen high schoolers in boarding school, and four young people in university, with the understanding that they will come back to their village to live and work as professionals. There is a clinic and a tiny general store, a community hall and a park. The rebuilding continues; El Salvador suffers from frequent earthquakes, and a large quake in 2001 reduced some rebuilt houses to ruins.
Rosa in the community organizing office
The coop women in thier garden
"Education for girls...is everybody's responsibility" has not always been true in El Salvador
