First Rotary Meeting

Last week Tuesday I attended the first of what will be many Rotary meetings in El Salvador. I was warmly welcomed by the Cuscatlan Club, my host club, which meets weekly at the Sheraton “El Presidente” Hotel in the upscale Santa Rosa neighborhood of San Salvador. It was a little strange but nice to go from my environment of public buses and busy streets to the quiet valet-parking world of the Sheraton.

Welcome from the Club President

The meeting kicked off at 7:15am, as approximately 30 club members gathered around the room. I arrived early, and was able to make the acquaintance of most of the attendees before the meeting started. The group began with an invocation, a Rotary pledge, and then the El Salvadoran national anthem. As we enjoyed our breakfast, members went around the room and introduced themselves. I learned that most of the members are involved professionally in construction or run local businesses. And the group was ethnically diverse with members of Latin American, European, Asian, and Middle Eastern decent (apparently there is a sizable Christian Palestinian population in El Salvador).

Through conversations and announcements, I learned that the club focuses their charitable largely on medical missions, such as open heart surgery and cleft-lip surgery, and I am going to be volunteering by sitting with families while they wait for their loved ones to finish on the operating table.

I also learned there is national Rotary conference in November which I will be excited to attend.

The meeting featured a speaker, Julio Hernandez, a well-known and (depending who you talk to) controversial political figure in El Salvador. What what my host family tells me, his political party, the FDR, used to be the political wing of the FMLN guerillas during the civil war during the 70s and 80s. However, at some point after the signing of the peace accords in 1992 – the exact point in time I am not sure – the FDR and the FMLN had a falling out. In the most recent presidential election, the FDR spoke out against Mauricio Funes, the candidate of the center-left, preferring instead to ally itself with the right-wing Arena party.

Julio Hernandez

On the topic of speaking, I made tentative plans to address the club in three weeks when their schedule opens up. I hope to then go and speak to the other San Salvador clubs as well in the weeks that follow.

The meeting was a cursory introduction to the Cuscatlan Club, and I look forward to learning more at this next Thursday’s meeting (meetings are typically Tuesday mornings, but the 15th is El Salvador’s Independence Day).