Note Taking
Note taking activity: Community Soledad
In the following article use all the techniques
demonstrated in the previous pages to practice
your note taking.
Community SoledadLocated on top of a hill overlooking the San Salvador
dump is a group of people that has lived in the same
place for over 40 years. It started when a wealthy widow
offered some of her land the homeless. Those that came
never left. They established themselves with typical
champa construction: dirt floors, adobe walls, and metal
roofs. They found an electric line and put in a community
building complete with lights. The nearest champas
also took electricity for lights to their houses. The light
bulbs were carefully guarded and removed when not in use.
This is a very poor community.
One of the ways of determining one’s poverty level in El
Salvador is by footwear. Only the newest campesinos wear
sandals. Everyone else wears tennis shoes. The condition
of the shoes and particularly the show laces is a good
estimate of relative poverty. In Soledad, even the
working men had broken shoe laces.
Their means of support is pilfering the dump. Their proudest
possession is a commercial scale to weigh the scrap iron,
plastic, etc. Although there once was a watered garden on
top of the hill, these people have never found the water pipe
and so are dependent on water is available at the street,
about 150 feet away. They run the water continuously into a
55 gallon barrel and use this for bathing and washing clothes
as well as food preparation.
Public school is available across the highway. The only
government requirement is a school uniform. Many children
share hand-me-downs. When they outgrow the largest uniform
belonging to that family, it is the end of their education.
The girls said they hoped to go as far as 7th or 8th grade.
The boys had gone as far as 4th
School is a big opportunity. Most of the people that had
left Soledad had done so by meeting someone at the school
and moving into the other’s community. There had never been an
Practical Academic Study Skills Page 19
Note Taking
official marriage in the memory of the oldest members. "Marriage" occurred when two people fell in love and moved in together.
Most of the "marriages" that occurred in Soledad were between two residents. Since the community was founded with 15 in 1950 and now held around 80 families a lot of inbreeding was occurring. There were very few new arrivals accepted. Soledad did not have the problems other communities had with campesinos, presumably, because they were too poor. Without water there was little reason for others to try to move in. also their proprietary interest in the dump may have created an exclusionary atmosphere. They really felt the dump was theirs to pillage. In a marriage occurring through school attendance, if one of the partners was from outside of Soledad, they would opt for the other’s house and essentially move up the social ladder.
The men did not leave the confines of the community except on Easter and perhaps a special holiday. The daily trip for ground maize (made into pan – bread) or other subsistence portions was made by the women each morning. A government food program distributes the necessities for making pan at many locations around San Salvador, one of which was the school.
The biggest concern expressed by Soledad residents was not the civil war. They were essentially immune. They didn’t participate at all until UNADES (the Union Nacional de Damnificados de El Salvador, colloquially, "Union of the Damned of El Salvador.") requested their aid in a demonstration as a quid pro quo for medical supplies.
Their biggest concern was that the widow who founded Soledad didn’t leave a will. Or, if she had, it was destroyed by the caretaker.
The caretaker of the property was not a relative. He was a drug addict in his 40s who was attempting to take over the entire estate to support his habit. There would not have been much concern about his chances expect that he had a brother in the Air Force that had been to the United States and therefore was connected to the power structure.
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