On my way back from buying vegetables today I ran into Francisco, a young man who lives in our neighborhood.  I asked did he have a cold, as he looked like many of us have in the past few weeks with “la gripe”.   No, he said, actually…my mother was killed this morning.   I was stupefied.   [...]

The current murder rate in El Salvador for 2011 (as of February 17) is 10-11 murders a day. (original article, in Spanish). The 2010 murder rate in El Salvador was 10.9 murders a day, a 9% reduction from 12 a day in 2009. Tim’s El Salvador blog reports this well in English; the original article [...]

Her name has been changed to protect her identity.  Marina is a friend of ours, and related to my husband as a 2nd cousin.    Her boyfriend, we’ll call him “Juan,” was relatively new to the neighborhood, having lived there only about 6 months.  He and Marina lived in a small house, without electricity or water.  [...]