More than 23 years ago – September 2001 to be exact – I moved with my two children to the southeast of Spain.
Good times and bad times were had. One great thing was that it left us all with good Spanish skills. More than a couple of decades later, I decided to up sticks again and make another move at the age of 60.
This time, the jump was bigger and, as I said to my son hosting me here in El Salvador, “Charlie, I’m very good at jumping, just not so good at landing.”
Perhaps I am the old dog to whom you can’t teach new tricks. All I know is, the stark contrast between where I had been and where I now found myself was jaw-dropping.
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Security was heavy both inside and outside the airport. We stayed in the city of San Salvador for two days. What struck me initially was the humidity, the presence of guns, the plastic, the plant-growth and the abundance of US brands. It appeared returning migrants brought US culture back with them.
We soon embarked on the three-hour drive to the small city of Berlín, a town set among volcanoes. I was relieved to leave the chaos of the city and to be heading to the tranquil countryside. Or so I thought.
This is where the jaw-dropping began, as the chaos continued. No hard or soft shoulders, razor-sharp bends, maniacal motorcyclists, blind overtaking, and stray dogs all over the place. It turned my own shoulders hard. Being a bad passenger at the best of times, I was reeling, but my astonishment at the mind-boggling poverty was a distraction. Thank God for small mercies. And yes, my jaw was at half-mast.
There were vendors of everything everywhere. All generations lined the highway, trying to flag down the hurtling traffic in the hope of a sale. Bananas, coconuts, papayas, avocados, water, cola, balloons(!), sheets of aluminium, coffee beans, clothes, motorbike parts, flowers, cars, pupusas (thick, spongy corn tortillas) and more pupusas adorned the roughshod sides of the highway, along with the forlorn homes these vendors live in.
And all this with a backdrop of glorious and abundant flora. I seemed to have arrived in the land of chaos and non-stop growth. I could only hope that the latter might be the case for the relatively new president, Nayib Bukele, and his great reforms.
[ El Salvador plans first ‘Bitcoin City’ powered by a volcanoOpens in new window ]
My ever-tremulous heart looked over the edges of canyons as we wound our way up the volcanoes, playing chicken with young lads on motorbikes (and chickens). I invoked my long-neglected guardian angel that day.
We finally arrived in Berlín, which has now been my home for a short while.
I live on a dirt road with clucking chickens and skulking street dogs. My senses have taken a while to adapt, but adapting they are. Everything is different from what I’m used to. It’s a sensorial readjustment.
And, yes, perhaps it has been too long since I was rambling down in the street. Perhaps I’m not the toughie I thought I was. Perhaps I’m clutching my shabby first-world coat a little bit too tightly.
The world’s first Bitcoin city is full of first-world eccentrics, not least my second-born, Charlie, anxious to watch the new currency work in real time, with real products.
All over the town, the familiar Bitcoin sign adorns shopfronts. Everywhere, someone is trying to sell you something, and many of the transactions can happen, directly from vendor to purchaser, in seconds flat, through a facility created by Bitcoin developers called the Lightning Network.
I won’t get into it. I should leave that to the experts, but it is fascinating to watch this once-deemed “Ponzi scheme” rise from the ashes of disrepute. You can buy accommodation, fruit, vegetables, milk, bread, meat, endless corn products, clothes, shoes, pots, butter, land, houses, cows and furniture.
The Irish are represented well here, with two of Charlie’s friends, Rob Comer from Mayo and Joe Hayes from Kerry flying the flag (literally) down by the coast. And more power to all these pioneering young men.
As for me, who knows?
I have climbed a volcano. I have used Bitcoin. I live each day with the roar of motorbikes and ire-filled preachers on their microphones. I marvel daily at the plant-life and magnificent butterflies that bejewel the environment. I have basked in the gloriously welcoming smiles of the local people and have received warm hugs from the local women I have met.
Despite the poverty, I see a people who laugh a lot, people who interact readily. What I don’t see are people engrossed with their phones or behind locked doors shutting out a cold world. It’s a noisy, smelly, vibrant landscape in a growing economy.
It is quite a wonder, El Salvador.
Perhaps I will get a teaching job in the capital. For now, I am making bone broth, peanut butter and lemon curd to sell in a farmers’ market.
I have become one of the ubiquitous vendors, hoping to make a buck. Or a satoshi.
[ The ‘cult’ of Bukele: El Salvador’s millennial strongman heads for second termOpens in new window ]
- In September 2001 Maureen Stevens moved with her two children to the south eastof Spain. She has recently moved to El Salvador.
- If you live overseas and would like to share your experience with Irish Times Abroad, email abroad@irishtimes.com with a little information about you and what you do.
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