Vibrant Village Quieted As Salvadorans Go North
Migrants to U.S, Including D.C. Area, Support Children, Elderly Left Back Home
Monday, May 8, 2006; Page A01
PIEDRAS BLANCAS, El Salvador -- It was just past noon, yet the only sign of life in the main square of this remote eastern village was an elderly man swinging in a hammock on his porch.
There was a time, Jose Nieve-Reyes Rubio, 70, explained in a gravelly voice, when the plaza would have been packed with vendors and customers by this hour, their shouts ringing through the air as they bought and sold food, clothing and every imaginable kind of trinket.
  A child rides in the main square in Piedras Blancas, once the site of a bustling market. A massive migration to the United States -- including to the Washington area -- has all but emptied the town. (By N.c. Aizenman -- The Washington Post) (( PODCAST ))
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"But that was more than 10 years ago," he said as he settled back into his hammock. "Before everyone left for the States."
Today, like villages across El Salvador, Piedras Blancas has been nearly emptied of its working-age inhabitants. Left behind are children and grandparents who live on money that relatives send from such previously unheard of places as "Manassas, Virginia," "Houston, Texas," and simply "Maryland" -- the catchall term by which people here refer to a host of Washington area suburbs.
Although exact figures are difficult to determine, the director of the village school, who has tracked the student population for two decades, estimates that more than 3,500 Piedras Blancas natives, or about 40 percent of the population, live in the United States.
In the fourth-grade class, where teacher Roney Ramirez was giving a social studies lesson on a recent afternoon, 17 of the 21 students have at least one parent abroad.
"What does the agricultural sector in our area consist of?" Ramirez, 26, asked the children.
"Farming and cattle raising!" they shouted back with the certainty born of growing up where families have lived off the land for generations.
"How many of you plan to remain here and become farmers when you grow up?" Ramirez asked.
No one raised a hand.
"Well, who is going to cultivate the land then?" Ramirez asked with a chuckle.
"Um, our grandparents?" said one student to an eruption of giggles.
