Delegation Report
Los Amates 1997

An hours drive from Chalatenango City (Chalate) to San Jose las Flores on rocky roads, then another three kilometers winding up and down the mountains, Los Amates is difficult to get to in the dry season, almost impossible when the rains come. The road from San Jose las Flores falls in and out of disrepair. During this visit, the delegation had to get out and walk on several occasions so that the mini van could clear the rocks in the road. One detour brought good news; we had to drive around the section of the road being paved. The community has convinced the government to rebuild the road, and to use labor from the community as well.

Many of the communities in the area, including Los Amates, are in the process of receiving electricity and water. The FMLN was able to secure a grant from an Austrian non-governmental organization (NGO) to provide these vital services. Los Amates had water at one time, but flooding from the severe rains of a few years ago destroyed the main line. Electricity will bring many benefits to the community, including badly needed refrigeration for medical supplies and lights for the new community center and school, to allow for evening classes and meetings for working adults. Los Amates is hoping to have both in place by the middle of March.

This truck remains the only motorized vehicle in the community, and is still used as a bus and an ambulance as often as it is used to haul materials and crops. The constant use on substandard roads are taking its toll, however, and the truck is in desperate need of new shocks and struts. The community is beginning to wonder how many trips the truck has left in it.

The community is interested in acquiring a second vehicle to complement the truck. A small four wheel drive pickup could be used for emergency trips and during heavy rains, using less fuel and sparing the large truck undue wear and tear.

The Day Care Center

Once the day care center is completed, it will serve a dual purpose of providing child care for busy families, as well as providing a farm to teach young children to care for small animals.

Education

Classes run from February till November. While the delegation was in Los Amates, families met to discuss whether to extend classes to include a fifth grade. Teachers and supplies are scarce but students are not, so decisions like this need to be considered carefully and realistically. The delegation left before a decision could be made.

Health

A few days before the delegation arrived, the community welcomed its first full-time nurse, Marino Iris Mejia. She has been assigned to Los Amates by the governement, though reluctantly so. Like most of the repopulated communities, Los Amates has been working with health promoters, people taken from the community and trained to provide basic medical care. Despite the obvious advantages of this approach, the government had been insisting that the promoters must be disbanded before a nurse could be provided. Thanks yet again to strong community organizing, the government backed down and provided what was promised.

Despite the controversy preceding her arrival, Iris hit the ground running when she arrived. She was preparing a vaccination program for the kids, to fight against tuberculosis, DPT, polio and measles. She also identified the need to build on the health promoters good work on issues of public health awareness and education.

Women's Project

The women are also beginning to organize with other women's groups in Chalatenango. Along with sharing experiences regarding micro enterprises like the cow project, they are discussing environmental issues, such as the deforestation of the region. For example, last year 18 women participated in a project that planted fruit trees along the river.

One challenge for this organizing is the difficulty of travel, which requires money either for fuel or for buses. Without this modest amount of money, regional organizing will not be successful.

Land

Mass default on these loans was a inevitability that threatened to undo much of the progress made by the Peace Accord process. Thanks in part to the organizing of communities like Los Amates and international pressure from sister city groups like the Coalition, USAID agreed to pay off the loans on behalf of the new land owners.

Of course, every victory only leads to the next battle. The cyclical nature of an agricultural economy requires land owners to have access to credit at reasonable terms. Farmers like those in Los Amates have no resources to purchase the seed, supplies and equipment needed to make their land productive. The usury rates of 18% - 20% currently charged for credit make borrowing money a perilous venture for the land owners, again faced with the possibility of loosing to banks what they have fought so hard to call their own.

As the government turns its focus away from agriculture and towards the finance sectors and the maquilas, once again the people of the land find the need to struggle and organize, organize and struggle.