1. (1) Email from Santa Ana (Jun.16, 2002)

2. (2) Email from Salvador (Jun.24, 2002)

3. (3) Two Foreigners in a Dangerous Country

4. (4) Email from near San Miguel (Jul.14, 2002)

5. (5) A family of seven young people who came from Honduras to El Salvador

(1) Email from Santa Ana (Jun.16, 2002)

The following day, I arrived at the border at ten in the morning. Stalls were occupied on both sides of the narrow border road. It seemed to be very hard for cars to go on the road, but I was on the bike. When I kept going to the border post, a young man came to me and said he would help me get through the paperwork of the border. Another young man soon joined him. This guy told me he would help me in El Salvador's side. They were doing business in pairs. I don't like the people of this kind of business, however, they can make it quick because they know the government workers. For example, they can pass the long waiting line. Want is more, the paperwork at the customs is extremely complicate. You are told to make some copies of the papers somewhere, to go to the bank, to go to another window next, and so on. I grant this to be a tax to enter a country so that I may not get angry. It took only several minutes to get through the both immigrations as easily as I entered Guatemala, but it was hard to get the bike in. I am afraid the paperwork would not have been finished in a day unless the help of the two men. In the beginning I expected the importation of the bike would be finished earlier than I had worried. All the documents were prepared, but it took a long time at the last phase because of the computer. An official over fifty input the data of my BMW, staring upon the same paper many times, and then looking into the screen of the PC again. It took one hour. In the days without computers, those documents were filed after being stamped, and that would be all. However, I am afraid that also in Japan we have lots of examples in which the introduction of PC's hinders an otherwise quicker procedure. Though it is written by the guidebook that the temporary importation of vehicles into El Salvador is in a month, the officer gave me two months after I talked to him. Maybe I must thank the border helper also for this. I gave him $10. As the official expense for the entrance into this country was only $1, I still have something unacceptable in my mind.

After the time-consuming procedure at the border, I rode again and I noticed it was hot. I found a gas station on the way and parked the bike. Surprisingly, there was a convenience store there. A convenience store in a gas station was probably after the US. In addition, the US currency has been used in this country since around two years ago. When I bought a bottle of soft drink, I found the change of 5 cents was missing. I told about it to a woman in the store. She answered, "We don't have the change", and didn't give it to me in a matter-of-course manner. I was stunned by her reaction.

I have been staying in Santa Ana, a town about 35 km in the east of the border, for the last ten days. Someone told me this town has an elevation of 600 m and the oldest town in El Salvador. In Guatemala the people seemed to be reserved and even heavy, but in El Salvador the people are cheerful and easily talk to me with smiles as in Mexico. They don't show the shadow of the civil war that lasted till around ten years ago. The price of the things became further lower. This hotel has a large parking lot with a roof and charges $5.7 per night. To tell the truth, this hotel is a brothel. A pack of cigarettes is sold for $1 and 1 litter bottle of vodka for $2.45. The other day I went to a restaurant for supper with a prostitute and paid only $ 2.5, including two small bottles of beer. There is a Japanese restaurant, not far from the hotel. The owner of the restaurant is from Osaka, Japan. He was sent to various countries of the world by the trading company and he got married to a woman of this town when he was 31. Since then, he has been here for 28 years. The restaurant usually doesn't serve Japanese food, however, during only this period of the World Cup, he told me, they add curry and rice, "sushi" and one more food to the menu to celebrate the games in Japan. He cooks, especially for me, the food out of menu like Japanese egg dish, chicken and egg bowl or "soba" noodle soup. Japanese food after a long time is, needless to say, super. I will move toward San Salvador, the capital in the east, in several days. Also here in this country, it rains in the evening or in the night almost every day. The other day it began to rain unusually in the morning. On the day when I leave here, I wish it will rain in the afternoon as usual.

It is written in my guidebook that there are cybercafes only in three major cities in this country. This Santa Ana is one of them. However, most cafes didn't allow me to connect my PC with their network. The only one of them did, but somehow my PC was not connected with the Internet, even though the LAN of the cafe' was totally open. But, the cafe' has a telephone and I can connect to the sole access point of my AOL in San Salvador, 60 km away, for $2 per hour.

(2) Email from San Salvador (Jun.24, 2002)

Several days ago I moved from Santa Ana to San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador. Things are further more inexpensive here than in Guatemala. For example the charge of this hotel with a TV is US5.15 per night. The communication line for my PC became hard to get after Mexico. In Guatemala City I couldn't find any after two-day effort. As a result, I had to ask a favor of the BMW office for telephone line. Here in the capital of this country I also spent two days looking for a communication line available for my PC. It has been raining almost every day since I entered Guatemala. Last night it rained very hard and my hotel room was close to be flooded. I heard Honduras has more rain. I will stay in this country for more than another month, waiting for the next dry season. Just now blackout happened again. This is the third time today. I am writing now in the dark. Blackout is very frequent in Guatemala and El Salvador. It comes almost every day like rain. I remember my native town where we had the same experience when I was a kid. I like this kind of unusuality. But there will be a football game between Korea and Germany (?) soon. I really wish electricity will be supplied again in an hour.

(3) Two Foreigners in a Dangerous Country

I heard El Salvador was introduced as a country of bandits by books years before. Reportedly, when the bandits found a ship sailing along the Pacific coast, they went down the mountain and attacked it.

In my guidebook it is written that the Olmec people lived in this country as early as 2000 BC. Since the invasion of the Spanish in the 16th century, this country had been yielding agricultural products like indigo , cotton in the same slavery situation as elsewhere in this part of the world. In the late 19th century, the export of indigo declined because of synthetic dyes, and after that coffee exports became to occupy 95 % of the national income, but the profit was seized by only 2 % of people. After several uprisings, a civil war broke out in 1980 and it lasted for 12 years till 1992. It was in the winter of 1979 when I took a trip to Guatemala and Honduras. El Salvador was reported to be already dangerous then, and so I didn't visit here. It is not an old memory that the government armies fully supported by the Reagan administration of the US murdered lots of people during this period in both El Salvador and Nicaragua. My friend Michael was then giving a medical support to the poor people in Nicaragua, being afraid of the attack from the Contra supported by his own government.

In Santa Ana the man who lived across the street of my hotel told me there was a Japanese restaurant in the town and I went there. I met Mr. Nishii at the restaurant. He grew up in Osaka, Japan and took a job with a trading company. He traveled to lots of countries of the world on business later, and he got married to a woman in that town of El Salvador. It was when he was 31 years old. He quit the company and has lived in Santa Ana for 28 years. During the period he made a contribution to this country by importing used clothes from Japan to give them to the local people free of charge, or introducing a Chinese cabbage for the first time to the country, or teaching how to cook fish. During the long stay of 28 years, he naturally experienced the civil war. He remained neutral in the civil war, but sometimes went to the base of the revolutionary army to have an argument with them. He was trusted by both the government and the revolutionary army during the civil war, and was often informed beforehand about where and when the bomb would be exploded. He has two children. His daughter wants to be a university professor and his son to be a lawyer. The daughter is especially brilliant. A huge supermarket of the US has a scholarship to send three senior high students in the five countries of Central America to a university in the US. She passed the examination was selected out of the 3000 applicants. After the graduation from the university, they have a duty to work in their countries for four years. So she took a job in a telephone company of the US in El Salvador and works as a manager responsible for all Central America. She receives an monthly salary of $4500, which is exceptionally high in this country. And, it is more than the salary I received in Japan before the journey. She now studies at a graduate school in the capital after finishing her work so that she can realize her dream. I am proud of the existence of such an excellent Japanese and his children as excellent as their father in a small country far away from Japan.

When I came back to this hotel in San Salvador one day, I saw a man sitting in a small pool of rainwater in the courtyard, getting the pants wet. All the workers of the hotel told me he was mad. He himself called himself crazy and alcoholic. He was from the US and 47 years old. He was always drinking a litter bottle of beer. He drank so much that he, I thought, could be a real alcoholic. He spoke fluent Spanish. However, I understood neither his Spanish nor English at all when he was drunk. As he taught English in South Korea before for an year, he also knew a lot about Japan. He told me he had also his Web site and I read it. It was a matter of course that he knew a lot. He has a Ph.D. on religion and social ethics. He has been visiting El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico since around ten years ago. During the period, he came into contact with the revolutionary armies like the EMLN or the Zapatista. He also became involved in the activities for the peace of this area He now keeps traveling by his van, carrying tourists from Antigua, Guatemala to Cancun, Mexico every month for two weeks from the first Saturday to the third Saturday. These two men witnessed the civil war. However, this area is now rather stable. I wish this peace will last for ever.

(4) Email from near San Miguel (Jul.14, 2002)

I visited a small town Suchitoto in the north of San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador on the way to San Miguel, the third largest city near the border of Honduras. I stayed for a week in San Miguel. The hotel was close to a large bus station. Probably because of the problems of security, there were several gun shops near the hotel and an attendant of a restaurant had a gun. Everyone told me it would be dangerous to go out of the hotel at night. In San Miguel, I went to a dentist, as the material that was put to cover the cavity of the tooth in Japan fell off. Including a dentist, it was the first time for me to be taken care of a doctor in a foreign country. Any dental clinics of Japan are always crowded, however, in that clinic there were not any other patients and the dentist immediately gave a treatment to me without reservation. The dental treatment took less than an hour and I paid US$14. I think it is quite a money in this country. The dentist put on a pair of gloves used for an operation. I have never seen this in Japan. The dentists over here are, maybe, more reliable than those in Japan. The mountain range continued from the Rocky Mountains loses its elevation, as it goes further east from Guatemala to El Salvador, and the elevation of San Miguel becomes almost sea level. The latitude of San Miguel is the same as Mindoro in the south of Manila in the Philippines, or Bangkok in Thailand, or Chennai (Madras) in the South India, or the south side of the Sahara Desert in Africa. So it is naturally hot there. In addition, there isn't an air conditioner in the cheap hotels where I usually stay for less than $6. Because of the heat and the itchy rash I got in several parts of the body from the heat, I couldn't sleep well in San Miguel. To escape from the heat, I have come back about 100 km toward the capital in the west. I feel almost chilly here.

The hotels are more expensive than I expected in the small towns around here that are not written in my guidebook. I had an idea to stay longer in this area till the rash would be gone, but the high charge of the hotels betrayed my expectation. I pay nearly $12 for this hotel, which is double compared with the previous hotels. The room has a telephone and even an air conditioner, but the telephone can be used only for the other rooms of the hotel and the air conditioner is unnecessary in this chilly climate. Even so, this expensive hotel is clean and comfortable without cockroaches or other insects. Due to the situation like this, I will leave El Salvador for Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras soon, although the permission of the bike is still valid for another three weeks. Tegucigalpa is in the distance of a day trip from the border, however, I hope it will be cooler because of its higher elevation of 1000 m. In Honduras there are two Esperantists waiting for me.

(5) A family of seven young people who came from Honduras to El Salvador

On Monday, Paola came to my room at ten immediately after I woke up. We were supposed to have a 18-year birthday party for her younger sister Guadalupe at a nearby restaurant. However, the party was from five in the evening. I guessed she had already relied on the shower of my room from the fact that she came in the morning. On the previous day it was already dark after the disco dance and I asked Paola to get some food for me and for her seven people, giving her ten dollars. Maybe as she wanted the second chance for the breakfast of the day, she told me she would accompany me to a supermarket. She told me she wanted some bread. Her request was easy because it was not a diamond. When we came back from the shopping, the owner of the hotel told her there was supposedly an important phone call to her. I didn't pay much attention to it then. Paola, soon later, told me to go to Santa Rosa with her. I was not in the mood to do so, because I already took off the shoes just before and it was hot outside. I told her I would if the place was not so far from the hotel and near the Yamaha motorcycle shop that was expected to sell a tire-welding aerosol bomb. She answered yes. Bessy joined us. Against Paola's words, Santa Rosa was not near. It took an hour by bus. In addition, it was a police station that they took me. I had asked several times to Paola about what we would do in Santa Rosa, but I didn't understand her Spanish well. But, the police was the last place I expected. I came to understand that we came to Santa Rosa because her both sisters, Ieuda (alias in case) and Guadalupe (alias) were arrested by the police. I asked many times about what happened to the two women, but I didn't understand the Spanish. Bessy wrote about it in her notebook. I read it as they were arrested by holding fake money. I though it was serious. The police of Santa Rosa told us that they had already transferred the sisters to La Union. To hear that, always-easygoing Paola cried. I thought I would accompany her till the end, as I was already involved. We took a bus for La Union. It took another one and a half hours. The place my two women took me was something like a prison. Paola went to the gate to talk to a man in charge and came back. She told me her sisters were not there. A woman who was sitting next to us near the gate told something to Paola and Bessy. I didn't understand her words at all. It was a very hard thing not to understand the language. It was before dusk when we went back to the hotel in San Miguel. A woman who was invited to the birthday party was waiting for Paola, who had not shown up at the party at five in the evening. Getting some information from the woman, Paola then took me to “Central of Government”. When we arrived at the place, someone told us we should go to another place in the same huge site. And, we walked there. The place seemed to be a prison for only men. It seemed that an unknown man wondering around the gate told my women to take us to a prison of women. The man didn't look like a criminal at first glance, but the T-shirt he wore had several holes. The situation was not normal, anyway. Besides, the dusk was coming soon. Under the circumstances like that, I was following the unidentified man with two women of 21 and 12. The women wanted to go to a women's prison, but they didn't know where it was. I thought the situation was too risky. So, I told my women that I would go back to the hotel. They followed me to the taxi and we went back to the hotel together. I believe my decision was right. First of all, it is absurd even in El Salvador that the people who were arrested today are moved to a prison on the same day.

When we went back to the hotel, I wanted to tell Paola that she would have to consult a lawyer. However, I didn’t know what to say it in Spanish. So, I took out the PC and showed her the Spanish words like “lawyer”, “law”, “court”, “detention room”, and so on. By these words I tried to explain that her sisters were probably not in a prison, but in the detention room of a police station, and to tell her to go to a lawyer's office so that she could get fundamental information. I was a little angry, because I was sent to several wrong places and wasted a half day, blindly following Paola. Nevertheless, Paola told me to accompany her to Santa Rosa the following day again. I told her to do it after getting more precise information. At that time there was a phone call from her sisters to the hotel. After answering the call she came back to my room and I understood she said, “My sisters were released from the police of La Union and they are now shopping in the town. Let's go there together tomorrow”. At last anger rose in me and I said, “I will not go. You go by yourself”. Then she said, “Lend me ten dollars”. I answered, “Why me? You should ask the owner of the hotel!”. Then, she began to weep. I was in a pinch. I felt as if I had committed a serious sin, although I knew the tears of women is often a disguise. At the moment, her husband came into the room. I asked him to make sure what happened to her sisters. He told me that the sisters were still in the police and that they were arrested not by being involved in fake money, but by the doubt of stealing money due to the report by a woman who lost money in Santa Rosa. If so, I thought their crime would not be so serious even if they had really done it. As I was a little relieved and, at the same time, I misunderstood her on account of my inability in Spanish, I gave her ten dollars. I had already made many mistakes as a result of being beaten by my own character to be easily moved by the feeling. I admitted that I was still an easy victim, but on the other hand I believed that was OK.

We expected to have a birthday party on the day, but the day turned to be the worst. I imagined the situation that the three boys of 13, 12 and 9 and Bessy of 12, who missed their mother-like sisters, would have to sleep in a room of another hotel on that night - the hotel room with only children. I gave another $10 to Paola so that she could buy the supper for all of them and me. I lost my parents when young and had the same kind of experience as that. In my case, however, it happened when I was already 18 and besides I had my older sister who was paid by her work. Unlike my case, they are all children. Although I believe all of them are much tougher than I of those days, I wish they will keep living as strongly, further than now, as my sisters and brother did.