Plus organic gardens, potable water projects, wood saving stoves, youth lead workshops about the role of Youth Leadership in communities, shrimp farms, a Public Radio Station, community organizing, environmental conservation efforts, were what we saw this week.

The projects of La Coordinadora del Bajo Lempa are well integrated with one another.  They have the interests of the community as a whole at heart, and have been working towards the goal of community self-sufficiency for years.  Poco a poco, bit by bit, their hard work is is seeing dividends.  Organic farming and diversified crops are no longer dreams, but working models of agriculture.  There are water pipes running to communities that never thought such a thing could exist in their lives.  The turtle hatcheries are in full swing, hoping to hatch thousands of eggs over the next few months.   There is a team of ´resource guards´ that work with in the communities that lie on the Bay of Jiquilisco, educating them about sustainable use and conservation of Mangrove resources.

The youth -from 16 to 21 years old- are organizing to create dynamic and informative plays to bring entertainment and education to the communities.  In the process they are learning how to express themselves creatively, and with dignity.  The strength of of character in these young people is astounding and impressive, these are the leaders of tomorrow, and it´s been fantastic getting to know them.

We arrived safely in El Salvador! Jillian, our Bajo Lempa correspondent met us at the airport, and sent me on my way to San Salvador, so I could soak up some of the history before the delegation officially starts.

The Museo Romero at the UCA is very powerful. Even in trying and traumatic moments of war, witnesses did an amazing job collecting artifacts to testify to the tragic history. Clothes remnants, pieces of bloody rocks, ammunition shells. Intenso.

Tomorrow I meet up with the rest of the delegation to go to the Bajo Lempa – I am very excited to meet our counterparts and see the programs in action.

Ahhh, San Salvador Airport.  I have stared longingly out the windows so many times. Watching other passengers land, collect their luggage, and leave – I have only been allowed to collect my luggage, curl up in a corner, and sleep until it’s time for the next flight. The lush landscape beckoned me, but my travel documents kept me still.

As the new Operations Manager at the Oakland based Foundation for Self-Sufficiency in Central America, news of El Salvador has inundated my life. I am now intimately familiar with the geography of the Bajo Lempa region, without ever stepping out of the airport. FSSCA works closely with La Coordinadora, a grassroots community organization that works with over 90 rural communities working together to protect the largest mangrove forest in the Western Hemisphere, creating an innovative model for sustainable development.

With so many exciting changes already happened in El Salvador I am eager to visit the country for my first time. This is a time of fascinating social and political shifts that I am about to experience first hand. I will be traveling on an official delegation with FSSCA to experience the work of La Coordinadora first hand. I will be meeting the people that I work with on a daily basis, and exploring the programs that we support. Mangrove forests will be the backdrop to this exchange, and I’m really looking forward to experiencing what for me is a new part of the world, that has long been engaged in a struggle for social and environmental equality.

We’ve got a week left to get all the details pulled together. It’s a tremendous amount of work to put the office on auto-pilot for 10 days!

On January 18, as we in the U.S. were waiting with baited breath for a new President and a new era, we at FSSCA were also waiting for election news from El Salvador.    Elections are usually important, but this one was personal.  On the ticket for the National Assembly was Aristides Valencia,  a key founder of our partner organization, La Coordinadora del Bajo Lempa.     Aristides is a charismatic, thoughtful leader who has worked tirelessly since 1993 to bring together people of different political persuasions to improve living conditions in the Lempa River area.

When we received the news that Aristides was indeed elected, we were thrilled!   Indeed, the opposition party swept the municipal elections in many of the rural areas, and made gains in the National Assembly as well.    Assuming the polls stay the same,  they may also win the Presidential election in March, ushering in a new era of change.

I am not quite sure what this means yet for the work we support on the ground, but I am excited to go find out.  Together with my colleague Nathan Weller, I am planning my first trip to the Bajo Lempa area in early February. As the new Executive Director of FSSCA, I am really excited to see the work for myself, and to talk with people there about what the political changes happening nationally will mean to them at the local level.    I hope to share my thoughts with you here as I learn more about what’s going on in El Salvador.