wfn.org | Homework: Salvadorans take on the Herculean task of reconstruction

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Note #6526 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

11-May-2001
01169

Homework

Salvadorans take on the Herculean task of reconstruction 

by Alexa Smith

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador - Ines Hernandez stands in the rubble of the house
he slept in for 60 years.

	"The first part went in January," he says, kicking a jumble of rocks. "But
with the second earthquake, it all came down at once. I thought at least one
wall might stay, but it didn't."

	A calendar still affixed to a broken piece of wall flaps in the wind.
Pieces of furniture are piled in the deepest corners of what used to be the
house, in case the rains come early. The sky has been spitting drizzles of
rain for a couple of days.

	Since January, Hernandez's family has been sleeping in a lean-to that used
to be a barn.
But that is about to change.

	Hernandez is waiting for a minister to come by and perform a house
blessing. Until that happens he won't move his family into the new two-room
mud-and-cement house he and his neighbors just finished building next to the
ruins of the old one.

	It is one of 10 rural residences commissioned by the Reformed church in El
Salvador as part of its earthquake-relief effort.

	This one is in Ulappa, a mountain community approached by a road of
hand-hewn rock.

	The frame of Hernandez's brother-in-law's new place is just down the hill. 
Although the roof will be made of traditional Spanish-style tiles and the
frame is steel, the body of the house is made of wire, so that it can roll
when the earth does - instead of crumbling like Hernandez's old adobe.

	And if it is damaged by an earthquake, it can be fixed by daubing mud and
cement together and filling in the cracks.

	Ulappa is the first site where houses are going up at a cost of $2,000 to
$2,500.

	Manuel Ceron, a worker with ALFALIT, a development agency affiliated with
the Reformed church here, admits that he's new to this business of
house-building. He's up to neck in it now, searching for ways to curtail
costs.

	"Before the earthquake," Ceron said, "nobody thought of housing as a
ministry. The environment, education, health, worship, yes. But now we're
learning ... and trying to find ways to pay for building more houses."

	ALFALIT would like to start by building 500 houses and financing 4,500 more
over the next 15 years.

	"In this first year, we're reaching out to the most needy, the ones who've
lost everything and who have nowhere to go," says the Rev. Santiago Flores,
who directs ALFALIT. He envisions a "seed fund" for construction that will
be replenished by modest mortgages that will fund more construction.

	"We are doing this 'poco y poco,'" says Flores - bit by bit.

	Flores is well aware of the enormity of the task the church is tackling.

	He is pushing what he calls "dignified" housing for the poor, supported by
a "dignified" system of reconstruction not dependent on contributions from
overseas.

	The church pays volunteer workers in food.

	In a country that has 12 volcanoes and has had three major earthquakes in
the last 30 years, not to mention a long, brutal civil war, Flores has seen
too many Salvadorans perpetually stuck in "temporary" housing that has
become permanent - ramshackle shacks made of sticks, mud, cardboard and
plastic.

	Soldiers wearing camouflage are hurriedly assembling aluminum sheds -
people call them "microwaves" - for families to huddle in during the rainy
season.

	"Housing that was built after the earthquake in 1986 in Sal Salvador was
supposedly 'provisional,' but it is still there," Flores said. "It became
permanent, and the people who live in it are now the most marginalized
communities."

	In Santiago Nonualco, workman are slapping mortar between cement blocks,
building what will be the home of Cecila Joves and her three children.

	Joves will be one of the first to move into the model ALFALIT has chosen
for city construction. The home, with two bedrooms, a bath, a living room
and a kitchen, and electricity, water and sewer, costs about $3,000 to
build.

	It is next-door to an all-aluminum "microwave."

	"There is no way I could have done this without the program," Joves said.
"My situation before 	 was so horrible."

	Joves qualified for housing assistance because she has the deed to the
property.

	For her new house, she will make small mortgage payments every 15 days,
with money she earns by selling soft drinks on the sidewalk outside her
front door.

	The Rev. Migde Lucas, a Reformed church pastor in
Santa Ana, says he believes that something good will result from the
earthquake.

	"We need to look at this as an opportunity that's being presented to us ...
to reconstruct the country with dignity," he says. "... It seems like heresy
to say, 'It is great that a disaster has come,' but this is a moment we've
been given to dignify (the lives of) the poor."

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