By Charlotte Skeffington

For the Beachcomber

Saludos from El Salvador, where they call me Señorita Carlota. I’m currently in my eighth month of service as a Peace Corps volunteer in a rural health and sanitation program.

I don’t have a particularly extensive health background, but my experiences in non-formal education make the task at hand less daunting. The Rural Health and Sanitation Program’s overall goal is to improve remote communities’ health conditions and practices while helping host country nationals (the Salvadorans) become their own agents of change and development.

To achieve this goal, volunteers participate in educational activities that focus on community, adolescent and family health as well as improvement of access and proper use of vital infrastructure (such as latrines, stoves and potable water).

I spend most days working in the school, advising a newly formed community council, acting as a liaison between the mayor’s office and the community, playing soccer, visiting houses with a community health worker and working out the kinks of a recycling program.

My community is located in the northern central region of the country. One of our borders is the Lempa River, which divides Honduras from El Salvador. This area is mountainous. I’m lucky for the altitude, because the center of our municipality (similar to counties in the United States) is known for its heat! Up here in the hills, there always seems to be a breeze.

The road from our community to the largest nearby town is 14 kilometers of dirt, dust, gravel, rocks, boulders and rivers. There are about 10 water crossings without bridges during the rainy season. There is one bus (an old school bus) that leaves my community daily (weather permitting) at 6 a.m. for our department capital, Sensuntepeque. The bus leaves from there again at noon arriving in my neighborhood around 2 p.m. Sensunte (as the locals call it) is a “large” town where I do my shopping. Getting accustomed to the limited transportation wasn’t too challenging after growing up around a ferry schedule on Vashon.

My community is comprised of 11 smaller neighborhoods called caserios. There are about 140 houses — 600 people, a church, a kindergarten through ninth-grade school, a clinic and two tiny stores. During my first two months, I lived with a host family outside of the heart of the community. Now, I live by myself in a house in the center of the community, though there are many children in this part of the community, so it seems that I’m never really alone in my house. Instead, I’m surrounded by laughter and shenanigans.

Gracias a Díos, as they say, my community was spared major damage from the recent disastrous rains of hurricane Ida. Our only setback was a landslide on the road cutting us off from civilization for three days. Also, a bridge connecting this area to the Pan-American highway was completely washed away. I went several days later to see the damage, and it was unlike anything I have every witnessed in my life.

It was difficult to believe that there once had been a bridge there at all. A snack shack near the bridge was completely covered by sand and debris, and food had been washed out and scattered along the shore. Luckily, the river didn’t grow so large as to affect nearby homes. Unfortunately, these minor setbacks cannot compare to the devastation that hit several other parts of the country, especially San Vicente.

San Vicente was my home for my first two months in country. The Peace Corps training center is located in the city of San Vicente, and many surrounding communities are used to host volunteers. The area most affected by the rains, Vera Paz, was one of the very communities that housed volunteers during my training session. Although we are thankful that at the time there were no volunteers in session in San Vicente, sadly several host families did not survive the wreckage; and the rest have undoubtedly lost everything.

It is for this reason I wish to share with you my experience in El Salvador and ask for those who can spare something to help the many distressed victims get some sort of order back in their lives.

The people of this country have faced numerous challenges in their pursuit of development (civil war, the earthquakes of 2001, hurricane Mitch, etc). Despite these blows, many Salvadorans have put their best face forward, always remembering what has happened and those they have lost but resisting the desire to dwell on the past, looking hopefully and enthusiastically towards the future.

At the very least I ask that you keep these people in your thoughts and prayers. This trauma came without much warning — it came while many were sleeping. Many have lost loved ones: Children were swept away by rushing waters and crushed by boulders. Many lives have been turned upside-down. As the Salvadorans put their best face forward, it will be helpful to know that they have support from fellow compassionate people.

In the future, I hope to share more of my experience with the community of Vashon and recruit partnerships on projects. Our community council is making progress every meeting and eventually will be ready to take on a larger scale project — improved stoves, amplification of our water system, latrines … Just you wait, Vashon.

— Charlotte Skeffington is 2004 graduate of Vashon High School and a 2008 graduate of Lewis & Clark College. Contact her at

cskeffington@gmail.com.