Sticky, Stressful Security Situation

It has been quite a busy week here in El Salvador.  As I mentioned in my previous post, some security changes are going down but the majority of our questions are still unanswered. We had a frustrating all-volunteer conference last week with the jefes from headquarters in Washington in hopes of receiving some answers about the future of Peace Corps El Salvador.  Although it was great to see all of my friends, I was pretty disappointed with the lack of information provided to us.  The most common answer to all of our questions was, "We still do not know." 

Well, this is what we do know/what was presented to us at the conference:

• In 2011 the northern triangle region of Central America (El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala) saw a spike in crime incidents.
• The majority of crime toward volunteers happens while volunteers are traveling.
• Washington is decreasing the number of volunteers in El Salvador from 130 to only 30.  This means that the group of volunteers scheduled to leave in mid-March has been forced to close their service on Feb 20th and the group scheduled to leave in September is now leaving on April 30th.
• The capital, San Salvador is off-limits aside from medical appointments and business meetings until further notice.
• The Peace Corps office will be moving outside of San Salvador.  Instead, they will set up regional offices.
• A security assessment will be taking place starting on February 15th to determine which areas are safe for volunteers to live in and travel to.  They will also determine to what extent we are able to use public transportation.
• Volunteers will be clustered in these so-called "safe" areas.  This means that some volunteers may have to change sites.

What we still don't know:

• Where we will be able to travel within the country & whether we will ever be able to travel to the two bordering countries, Honduras and Guatemala since they are also experience security issues.
• Whether the capital will be off-limits forever.
• Where these clusters will be and how many we will have.
• Who will have to change sites.
• If the training center in San Vicente will have to be moved due to increasing crime in the area.

Our options as Peace Corps volunteers:

• Obviously, the two groups being forced to leave early don't have much of a say in that decision.  This is quite unfortunate because they were only recently given this information and are having to quickly finish up or abandon projects in their communities.  Many of these communities will be left without volunteer replacements depending on the sites chosen after the security assessment.
• For the two most recent groups to arrive the country, we have been given the option of early COS.  This means that we could close out our service now, basically stating that we have completed our time here.  We would get all the benefits of COS, such as non-competitive eligibility for federal jobs, eligibility for Peace Corps Fellowships, and per-diem readjustment allowance. This is the first time in history that Peace Corps has provided this for all volunteers in a country, regardless of their time here.
• Another option given to us was re-enrollment.  This means I could do my entire 27-month service in another country.  I would have more of a say in which country I would be placed in but even if I COSed now, I likely wouldn't start again until September at the earliest.
• Remain in-country and face the possibility of a site change and much more rigid rules concerning travel and time out of site.  Plus, the uncertainty of a possible shut-down of Peace Corps El Salvador the duration of my service.

Needless to say, I have a lot to think about over the next month.  I feel like it's virtually impossible to make a decision now because I just don't have enough information.  Until I know exactly what these changes will be, I cannot make an informed decision.