El Salvador has two seasons – wet (“winter”) and dry (“summer”). The rain arrives in May, and leaves in November. Because El Salvador is predominantly a rural country, life is lived around the seasons. There is a time to plant and a time to harvest.
Daily our volunteers travel to different rural villages to give hands-on care to Salvadorans who live long distances from city hospitals and rural clinics. No day is ever the same – and every journey introduces new visual delights and new experiences.
The cane harvest begins as the rains end. We were recently surprised as we turned off of the main road on our way to a rural clinic in La Cabaña in the Department of San Salvador to suddenly come upon more than fifty cane trucks waiting to deposit their overflowing load to the sugar processing plant. I share these pictures with you.
The scene had a powerful effect on us as we drove along this dusty road and animatedly discussed the months of hard manual labor that went into the planting and harvesting of these loads. We reflected that producing this annual crop of cane – like that of coffee and corn – provides only about five to six months of wages for the laborers. And we know that this year, because of the international shift and drop in coffee prices, many Salvadoran coffee growers will choose to not harvest their coffee.
Yes, there is always “something new” in El Salvador to see and to reflect upon. Life here is not routine!
© El Salvador Health Mission