Chocobananas and Other Dangerous Things

Chocobananas are the most delicious things I have ever eaten. They are even more delicious than liquados, and that's saying something. To make them, you take a banana, put it on a stick, dip it in pure dark chocolate, sprinkle with nuts, and stick it in the freezer until the banana becomes sweet but not so hard that you can't bite it. Chocobananas are sold by the tiny elderly couple that lives across the street from our guesthouse. Leah and I have named them Choco-abuela and Choco-abuelo (Choco-grandma and Choco-grandpa). Every time they sell us a chocobanana - which is pretty much every day because they cost 35 cents - they tell us that we are beautiful and should be very careful because the streets are dangerous for blonde girls.

Warnings like this have been a constant theme since our arrival in El Salvador one week ago. As a result, we've both been very cautious - we don't take the bus at night and don't walk far after dark. But the truth is that we're not in much danger, and the colour of our hair has very little to do with it. The main source of violence in El Salvador is gangs. They dominate the trade in the drugs that travel overland from the suppliers in South America to the lucrative markets in North America. As far as I know, there are two main gangs. They are called the Maras and Calle 18, and the violence for which El Salvador is known is largely a result of turf wars between them. They kill each other, they kill police officers, and very, very occasionally they will commit acts of terrorism to make a political point. At night, they and/or smaller criminal elements will mug people and extort businesses. But they don't target foreigners here the way that they do in Ivory Coast. The Ivoirien government had a habit of blaming the French for all its problems and whipping up anti-caucasian sentiment to distract the populace from its own corruption and incompetency. Hence, it is very dangerous to have white skin in the Ivory Coast whenever there is political unrest, and there has been a lot of political unrest in that country.

Here, the government has good reason to blame the gang problem on foreigners, but it chooses not to (more on the history and evolution of Salvadoran gangs in another post). As a result, foreigners aren't targeted in a xenophobic frenzy for the purpose of hurting them. Here, a foreigner might be targeted because a mugger thinks they'll have a nice cell phone. It's easy to avoid this kind of problem by not wearing flashy jewelery, taking trusted taxis after dark and not carrying a nice cell phone or large amounts of cash. I bought my phone in Burkina Faso for a pittance. It has no bells and whistles and if a mugger took it from me he'd probably give it back in disgust. That actually happened to an American NGO worker I met yesterday, and her phone is nicer than mine. The really good thing about San Salvador is that so many people are willing to help. Through Rosie, we're plugged in with all the ex-pat NGO workers and the knowledge they've gained from living here for months or years. And Salvadorans are super nice to us too. Yesterday Leah and I asked a woman for help in getting off the bus at the right stop, and she helped us cross the lane of traffic to get to the bus, paid our fares and made sure we got off safely. Her name was Norma and I'm sad that we'll probably never see her again.

To tell you the truth, I'm probably never going to encounter violence during my time here. The Salvadorans who warn us to be careful are right to do so and we take them seriously, but I trust more in the lived experience of other foreigners since I'm likely to get the same treatment as them. They have consistently reported that things are fine as long as you're careful, and that traffic is way more dangerous than gangs or muggers. The thing that is actually the most dangerous is crossing the street to get my chocobananas.