By Yonatan Simkovich, Staff Writer
This summer, I had the privilege of joining a mission organized by Yeshiva University to Guatemala with an itinerary promising volunteering opportunities, Spanish lessons and a hike up a volcano. Shortly before the trip, the schedule was altered to add a day in the neighboring country of El Salvador, which gave us an opportunity to experience something truly special. In the past few years, El Salvador has been transformed into something almost unrecognizable.
What was previously a poverty-stricken nation controlled by drug cartels and overrun with crime has become the safest country in all of Latin America thanks to President Nayib Bukele, who was elected in 2019 and proceeded to jail 2% of the population without a fair trial. Despite condemnation from human rights NGOs, this resulted in a drastic reduction in homicide and an 87.8% approval rating. This is what made it possible to spend a day of our trip in El Salvador, where we brought clothes and school supplies to its tiny Jewish community. Reflecting on how odd it must be for a Salvadoran to be born in one of the murder capitals of the world and then suddenly find themself in a stable and developing country, I found myself comparing it to how spending time in Israel increased my own appreciation for America.
It is strange that I was never more grateful for America than I was after I left it. In the aftermath of October 7, I was in my first year of Yeshivat Har Etzion, surrounded by soldiers, barbed wire and the sound of fighter jets flying overhead. Often my thoughts would turn back to the States, home to a flourishing civilization which does not have to constantly fight for its survival. When I returned to America to spend the summer at a sleepaway camp, I could no longer take America for granted. That summer, I performed the uniquely American ritual of shopping in a massive rural Walmart with national pride. While the war made me more appreciative of Israel as well, living in a free country at war helped me appreciate living in a free country at peace.
On the Yeshiva University trip, I found that Salvadorans had acquired the same type of appreciation for personal safety that I had during my time in Israel. While we were visiting a courtyard which served as the center for the entirety of the Jewish community, a man named Asher agreed to an interview and kindly answered my questions about El Salvador in his broken English, which was still far superior to my broken Spanish.
Over the sound of Salvadoran covers of popular Jewish songs such as “Od Yoter Tov,” I asked him how the past few years have changed his perception of his country. “Now I feel proud to be Salvadoran, you know? In the past, if you said ‘I’m Salvadoran,’ it was like, ‘I’m so sorry for you,’” he said. “In the past, you couldn’t go to work in a different city or a different town, because maybe that town was taken by a different gang than where you were born.”
When I asked Asher how the sociopolitical changes around him affected him as a person, I was a bit surprised to find that he expressed thoughts about gratitude which reminded me of how I felt while in Israel. “You don’t know exactly how much it affects your mindset to live in an unsafe country until you experience what it really means to live in a very safe place,” he said.
Since his election in 2019, Nayib Bukele’s government has also invested hundreds of millions of dollars into improving its education system and has opened hundreds of new schools. The educational system overhaul has drawn international attention, with the Global Partnership for Education praising its “sustained domestic investment in early childhood education and rising regional momentum for education reform.” Asher contrasted these newfound opportunities with the system he grew up in, and how the gap between El Salvador and first-world countries is slowly closing. “I see the five-, six-, seven-year-old kids with a tablet, with a computer, learning about how the internet works. I remember myself when I was at school, I had no access to the internet. I had no computer. And it’s really hard because all of the countries – I’m saying all first-world countries – that’s that advantage that they have. And that’s why for me it’s important to see that the country is changing in a good way.”
Finally, I asked Asher about newfound national pride – where does it come from and how does it affect people? He told me that in the past, foreigners primarily came to his country for the low prices induced by poverty, but now they come for his country’s safety and beauty. The surge of tourists coming to El Salvador for pleasure is just one of the many new developments that make him take pride in his country. “Now that you are proud of your country, you are not going to allow someone just to take it, you know. This is your country, it’s your land. It’s you, it’s your soul.”
Later that night, as our cohort rode through heavy highway traffic caused by construction work shortly after crossing the border into Guatemala, our driver told us that the road barely needs to be repaired on the El Salvador side of the border. Thanks to corrupt officials in the Guatemalan government bought off by local construction companies, however, the very same highway in Guatemala is repaired four times every year. In Central America, this is a normal phenomenon. Guatemalans have repeatedly blocked the highway in protest, but the corrupt system remains in control.
Though corruption still exists in El Salvador and its economy continues to perform poorly, the improvements in safety, education and public infrastructure allow Salvadorans to not just be optimistic about where their country is headed, but to become more appreciative of it as well. As Asher put it, “Because El Salvador has become safer, more people from other countries have come to invest in El Salvador. And now as a Salvadoran you know that your country has value, a real value in life.”
[Caption: A Salvadoran woman walking down a street in Antigua, El Salvador.]
Photo Credit: Yonatan Simkovich