transient travels

When I was in El Salvador, Sue once took me to a little burrito place for dinner. The chefs cooked the food outside on a grill which is were we ordered. The front was open and they sold Pilsener, El Salvador’s national beer. The walls inside were red and the tables and chairs were plastic – the ones you would find in someone’s backyard for a barbeque. A plastic, floral print cloth was draped over each table, the kind that tends to peel and crack over time. It was kind of like a laid back burger joint that you would find in the U.S., except replace burgers with pupusas, tacos and burritos.

When we sat down, she leaned in and whispered that we had just walked by the son of Mauricio Funes, the then aspiring presidential candidate. He was just hanging out and eating a burrito with his friends and no one else. Sue explained that he wanted to maintain as much normalcy in his life, despite the fact that his father could soon make history.

I was awestruck even though I had never heard of him prior to visiting El Salvador. I thought it was impressive that he would go such lengths, risks even, to not change who he is through a hectic election process.

On Sunday March 15th, it proved to all work out. Mauricio Funes won El Salvador’s presidential election. The news broke across the globe and the U.S. And today my little link bureau is picking it up…

• According to the Guardian, the Bush administration warned of damaged relations if the FMNL…the Obama administration, in contrast, said it would work with whomever won Sunday’s vote.
• Julie Schwietert Collazo listed the goals of Funes on Matador Pulse.
• William Booth at the Washington Post noted that Funes compares himself to President Obama and pledged to be an agent of change in the small Central American nation.
• The New York Times reported that the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance, known as Arena, has won four successive presidential elections since 1989 before this year.
• The Los Angeles Times reported his rebuke of Calderon and what Funes considered to be government abuse and corruption upon nomination.