Tough Reality: Pesticides and Herbicides

El Salvador has a high tolerance for herbicides and pesticides.  Most used here are banned in the US, Europe, and Canada.  El Salvador’s land is rocky and the weather is often harsh on the crops.  Salvadorans, in this area, live off the land.  It is critical that crops aren’t lost to bugs, etc.  To complicate the situation, most buy their seeds from Monsanto.  If you don’t know about Monsanto, I suggest the documentary film Food Inc.

Each morning, I pass men walking to the fields with huge containers of liquefied pesticides strapped on their backs.  Pesticide accidents are fairly common here.  When the skin has too much contact with pesticides, it soaks up the poison and burns organs from within, eventually causing welts on the skin.  These welts advise individuals that contact with pesticides are affecting internal organs. 

I have heard cases of these packs leaking pesticides down the worker’s back, dripping into the butt crack and burning genitals.  After studying the effects of pesticides and herbicides, I found farm workers working in these conditions have a higher rate of developing cancer, infertility, neurological damage, and even birth defects for their children.  This is an incredibly complicated and difficult situation.

Last week, my roommate’s brother noticed welts on his body.  When I returned home Friday, she had taken an hour and a half bus ride to Copapayo, where her brother lives.  She then took busses to the hospital in the capitol.  That trip takes about three and a half hours in total.  Imagine riding a public bus, crammed with people for three and a half hours, in this state.  Unfortunately most people don’t own cars and there aren’t taxies, so that was their only option.

In my optimism, I find it challenging to listen and accompany people with difficult realities like this.  It is natural for me to look at the positive or to figure out ways to alleviate the temporary pain.  That is not the response life begs of me here.