It’s ‘Domingo Quince’ meaning Sunday the 15^th: the day of the presidential elections. There was no escaping the suspense with all the political campaigning on the streets, TV/radio and off course in everyday conversations. The rivalry is between FMLN, the left, and Arena, the right party.

As we try to stay neutral and understand as much as possible about the context, we are mostly surrounded by FMLN supporters, the left party. According to a lot of people the left has never had a candidate as strong as Mauricio Funes. From the military rulers and two decennia of the right calling the shots, the left has never been in power. In the polls the left was winning, so the anticipation about this historic change was huge. As we learned more and more about the history; fraud, repression and tricks implemented during elections we began to realize the possibility of a big anti-climax.

The government, businesses and the people organized a lot of options for people to vote, like free public transportation, discounts in different restaurants for the voters, etc. So on this Sunday everyone was gone for most of the day. In the evening the results started coming in. The final result was the FMLN winning with a close 51%.

We were invited by our friends from the hotel to the celebration of this historic day in El Salvador. A gathering at Plaza Masferrer could best be described with visual aid.

We’re entering our second week with this historic event,
Keep on checking our blog, Salut!

This is the first week of our Quick Scan/Inceptive phase, meaning visiting different locations in order to select our locations for the Case Study.

We started off on Tuesday with a visit to Paraíso de Osorio accompanied by people from Fundasal. We drove up a mountain for quite some time and had opportunities to enjoy the view of the big lake.


When we arrived at the location we began talking to people about the natural disasters that occurred and the vulnerability of the place. It’s obvious that interviewing offers a lot more information that we imagined. We focused on the process and the solutions and/or possibilities for the future generation. We experienced a lot curiosity in the sense that we tried to make pictures while young girls were sniggering and making pictures of us as well.

Read more about Paraíso de Osorio in our Quick Scan report.

On Wednesday we visited Santa Tecla, with our friend Roberto from Fundasal who lives there. While we did not talk to anyone specific we drove around different places which had meaning in the response process. For example a partially deserted place where people were not able to return because of economical & political reasons, to a big open football fields where the shelters were placed.


Read more about Santa Tecla in our Quick Scan report.

Thursday was the day of Los Manantiales & Mejicanos. We already learned a lot about the programs of Fundasal and we could switch from generic to specific questions in the interviews. The weather on this day was the hottest of the entire week and we experienced a little envy to the children of Los Manantiales playing in outside swimming pools. Both places, Los Manantiales & Mejicanos, showed potential for case studies, but these as well as every other location we visited were mostly affected by the earthquake of ’86. We might have to reconsider the UE-norm of a 10 year timeframe for when the last natural disaster happened.



Read more about Los Manantiales & Mejicanos in our Quick Scan report.

We round up this week with a visit two more locations in La Paz, San Pedro & Santa Maria Ostuma. Here we met keyfigures of the response process, a community leader, a local priest and City Hall council. These interviews were very productive. We were able to learn a lot about the process, social networking and plans, provided that a lot of the key information was bodied in negativity about others. We round up the day by meeting a contact from UCA, during ‘Salsa night’ in the bar next to our hotel. We might have to brush up on our salsa skills as well as our Spanish.


Read more about San Pedro & Santa Maria Ostuma in our Quick Scan report.

This is it for this week,
Please check the Quick Scan reports for a detailed description of these visits

At midnight a coalition of the constantly underground moving plates resulted in a little earthquake, apparently very common in El Salvador. The house was only shaking for a mere ten seconds and we were able to continue our sleep. We now understand that this dynamic is interpreted as a source of energy. It was clearly a sign of the day ahead of us.

We had a meeting at the Fundasal headquarters at 8:30 in the morning (AM). Our driver Ramon, from Fundasal, picked us up and guided us during the trip, pointing out impressive areas and architecture. We saw some very dense living areas and houses build up with concrete, bricks and metal sheets. Approaching the headquarters we entered a slum area with a track running through and finally climbing a closed complex on top of a hill, enclosed by the barrio. For us this complex is a very impressive working place with a view of the mountain and a build up settlement vaguely visible.


The meeting with Fundasal was very insightful, resulting in a couple of important possibilities for the research. We introduced ourself, were introduced to the team and presented our Project Plan 4.0. While the Fundasal team and we put a lot of work load on the translator we had a positive back and forth about our quick scan. This resulted in a planned tour across ten areas for the coming week, driven and accompanied by a member of Fundasal. On the downside we experienced a lot of difficulty pointing out the essence of our case study and the flexibility. After the meeting Ramon brought us to our next appointment at UCA with Sandra Poisat. This trip we reflected at our approach in explaining the case study.




The meeting with Sandra Poisat was very productive. We were able to explain the UE aims of study in detail, same goes for the Tool Box and our Incentive-Map. The feedback was remarkable, quickly understanding our graphic illustrating and aiming at the main goals of our research. It resulted in new contacts with expertise in architecture and urban planning with disasters as a theme, literature, working places and an invitation to participate in lectures.



We round up this hectic day with a good feeling and are continuing to process our work and simultaneously translate the essence to Spanish. For a overview of the established network and locations we refer to the notules or our meeting summaries still in process, accessible to Urban Emergencies affiliated.

This is it for today,
Please keep checking the blog and, let’s keep this dynamic

After a good night sleep in this comfortable climate, the sun rises and wakes us up for the first experience of San Salvador by day. We made plans with our hostess Carmen and Werner to visit the market, Latiendonna, to stock up on fruit and fish for the coming days. We took the bus and were immediately reminded about the upcoming elections. The FLMN planned a parade, touring through the city, and the preparations caused delays and made our bus and all other traffic take a detour. The presidential election literally colors the streets. Cars with Arena or FLMN flags hanging out cruise the streets honking their horns. Poles are painted in the colors of the Arena party and everywhere you look, you see posters with the candidates.

The market is crowded. Whole families work and shop around. All kind of food is prepared fresh and salesmen try to sell anything from phones to nail clippers. There’s fruit in abundance, for example we bought 20 little mangos weighing around two kilos for two (US) dollars.

In the spirit of duality, Arena/FLMN night/day San Salvador, we visited the shopping local shopping mall, Metrocentro. Prices are way higher then the market, comparable to Dutch supermarket prices. It’s the familiar vibe of looking at and being looked at, flirting and showing off your status, all too familiar with the Downtown cities back home. We tried to buy some local chips for our phones, which we’ll receive tomorrow. We’ll post our local numbers on the blog for direct communications with you.

During our trips, we’ve tested the GPS. The results are pretty accurate and we’re organizing our working methods to use this tool to efficiency.

This is it for today,
Please keep checking the blog and we appreciate the replies.

Friday morning it finally was our turn to fly of towards our adventure in El Salvador. The flied was pretty smooth and due to our own energy level maybe even relaxing. Every time we tried to read or watch a movie we felt asleep again. Even a little three our long screaming Salvadorian child couldn’t keep us awake on the last flight from Houston to our final destination El Salvador.

At the airport Roberto Aguilar, who is chief of promotion at Fundasal, and his daughter Maria picked us up and drove us to the city. Arriving at night is always a bit strange, no views, just some lights and dark silhouettes of buildings and landscape. You get this image in your head, and the next day it seems to be a whole different story.

Having the image of google earth fresh in mind, the city seems less organized then it looks in 2d. Even though I can investigate a map for hours this is a little more exciting.

The wife of Edin, chief of Fundasal, is waiting for us at our Hostel and gives us a warm welcome. By not speaking English she makes us clear that we have to stress learning Spanish the coming days. Although the understanding is goes pretty well, throwing the words out of your mouth seems to be a lot more difficult. We are lucky to have Werner around, who works as a translator for the moment and is the boyfriend of Carmen, who runs the guesthouse. Afterwards we sit down with down and have some conversation over a beer. The safety situation is always a topic, the police station is right a across the road and the whole neighborhood is good to go, every shop is secured by a guy with a shotgun though. But that’s giving some comfort.

Comfort we find back in the bathroom by intimately showering while the cockroaches make out. Haven’t spoke about the bar next door where the local band plays American pop songs till deep in the night.