Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Back from El Salvador

I returned from El Salvador on Sunday around four in the morning, needless to say, it was a very long flight.

But the travel time was well worth it.

The issue of migration is present at all times in El Salvador; homeless children sleeping on sidewalks, people running around barefoot, contaminated water, unsanitary/miserable living conditions, trash everywhere, ridiculously high gas prices, overpriced or non-existent medicine, unemployment, malnourished children, lack of education or none at all, Israel who is in the first grade and cannot write his name, Glenda who is 15 and going to school for the first time, HIV and AIDS on the rise...the list just goes on and on.

It's no surprise that families wish to flee their homeland, their government is simply making it impossible for them to survive. Some say that the already minute middle class is progressively diminishing. But in my opinion there's no middle class; instead there's the rich, poor and poorer.

My springbreak was very depressing, it absolutely breaks me that people are helplessly living a life that's not even fit for an animal. I'm grateful that I was granted the opportunity to visit El Salvador, but I'm still shaken by my experience.

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