permaculture

["PINC" <pinc@svn.net>]

Dear Friends and acquaintances of Marta Benavides,
I talked with Marta at 6:33am today as she was feeling the most recent
aftershock in El Salvador. I will have to paraphrase her words but this
is what she said:

She and her parents are safe, her sister's house has roof damage.
Rolando and his parents are safe but they also have structural house
damage. Hermana Licia's house is falling. Jayaque, Juayua (towns to the
west and near Nahuizalco - Marta's home) have areas where  landslides
have covered houses, trucks, buses. (It seems impossible to overstate
the devastation.) Roads are strewn with huge rocks and landslides,
essentially cutting off movement between towns.

Rolando is out with the recovery crews, some with shovels, but others
with only sticks and hands to try to find people who survived. There are
many recovered who have already died. The area is near his home (Las
Colinas - the Hills!) where the hill came down, obliterating even the
location of where houses had been.

Water is an immense problem. In typical fashion, Marta is calling the
bottled water companies, asking why water hasn't been sent to those in
the recovery efforts. Finally yesterday, Biggest delivered some
hamburgers to the workers. Late yesterday heavy equipment arrived for

digging through the rubble.

Between tv news reports and videos of the devastation, the ads are
touting the government program of dollarization - 'the dollar is good
for you', etc. This to people who can not write their own names -
certainly don't have the math skills for conversion of colones to
dollars.

Marta's request is that we mobilize, each in our own community, to get
money to her. There are governments sending aid, but the ES people in
the countryside need to do the rebuilding of their homes themselves.
Knowing what and how to do is as important as having the material to do
the repair. Example: people have not yet recovered from the damage of
Hurricane Mitch of Nov 1, 1998, waiting for the government to 'help'
them.

Tax deductible donations can be sent to our nonprofit - The Interchange
Institute- and the money will get to Marta. Handcarried if you can send
money this week. Unfortunately, international organizations will not be
as flexible for the needs Marta sees. Blankets, plastic sheeting,
clothing will be sent by governments, but the people who wait for govt
help for their housing will have a long wait.

Those of us who have been with Marta in El Salvador know both the
poverty always present there and also her energy to attack the problem -
now the devastation of the Jan 14 earthquake. When she says it is
terrible everywhere, we can believe her. When she says this is what we
need, we can also believe her.

Money will be used to help people take their recovery into their own
hands, help children deal with this tremendous shock, and mobilize
communities to rebuild.

It is almost impossible to get through from the US to ES but I can relay
messages by email to contacts in ES and to Marta when she calls me. You
can send emails to me or call/fax to 1-612-823-2380. Please be aware she
would call you if possible, but it is judicious to have me as a contact
point for her.

Muchisimas gracias! Una vez mas - adelante Salvador! (one more time -
forward El Salvador)
Judy