Priest Mario Nilson Sanchez put on a pleasant demeanor to preach to his flock on a humid Sunday in San Ildefonso, a rural, agriculturally-based village in El Salvador. Behind the scenes, though, Sanchez, 33, is less optimistic — he’s worried.
“The people here have lost their faith,” Sanchez said. “They are struggling to survive. They worry about their cattle more than their God.”
Much of that struggle to survive was worsened after Hurricane Ida’s devastating floods in 2009. More than 18 inches of rain fell during the storms, which overflowed rivers and swept away livelihoods.
“There are several families that still have nothing (because of the floods),” Sanchez said.
To aid the people of El Salvador, more than 1,200 soldiers, sailors, armen and Marines will deploy here this year as part of Beyond the Horizon 2011, a training exercise to provide humanitarian and civic assistance. But because the dental and medical efforts are located in downtown San Vicente and the nation’s lack of media outside urban areas, informing the rural community has been difficult.
“Getting the word out to the rural regions around San Vicente has been one of our main priorities,” said 1st Lt. Robert Lee, the information operations officer for the exercise. “In a lot of ways they are the backbone of the community, and they were the most affected by the hurricane.”
More than 1,500 Salvadorans received dental procedures from Airmen last week. A medical assistance exercise is set to begin April 21 and another dental exercise is set for May 23, each lasting 10 days. The assistance is given on a first-come, first-serve basis for all citizens.
Last month, Marine Lt. Col. Jeffery Wiggins and U.S. Army Maj. Wes Balmer drove to San Ildefonso to inform local media and government about the assistance.
“We went to radio stations, spoke with the chief of police and the mayor’s office,” Wiggins said. “Many of the communities don’t have a newspaper. Some don’t get radio signals. They suggested a truck with a loud speaker to drive through the towns so we requested to have that done.”
The civil affairs staff has also used fliers and word of mouth to reach out to rural communities with assistance from Salvadoran soldiers of the 5th Infantry Brigade. Sanchez, the San Ildefonso priest, didn’t find out until after Wiggins and Balmer drove more than an hour outside San Vicente, through winding roads, north into the Salvadoran hills.
“I know the good the United States can do,” Sanchez said through an interpreter. “They’ve been here before. When I found out, I wanted to let people know.”
Sanchez learned about the exercise from a local pharmacist who passed along Balmer and Wiggins’ message. The following day, Sanchez contacted Beyond the Horizon 2011’s civil affairs staff.
Sanchez mentioned the exercise in his sermons. He also invited Balmer, the chaplain for Beyond the Horizon 2011, to speak with an interpreter at his church, Parroquia De San Ildefonso.
“I was eager but also nervous,” said Balmer, who became a Chaplain in 2007 after preaching for 12 years for the Church of Christ in Fayetteville, N.C. “Not being a Spanish speaker, it was a little bit nerve racking, but I was received well and I think it helped put a face to the exercise for the rural community in San Ildefonso.”
While distance and lack of media have made it difficult to inform people about the valuable humanitarian exercise here, Balmer and the Beyond the Horizon 2011 civil affairs staff aren’t giving up.
“The goal of the medics and the dentists is to execute the care,” Lee said. “Our goal is to inform as many people as possible. Most of San Vicente is getting that information. But there are so many people in the mountains and outside the city that don’t know about it. These are the people that need us the most. If we have to work harder to give them the information, then that is what we have to do.”