Conchas, Mangroves and Coconuts: El Salvador, Day 2

I know I said yesterday I’d tell you about some of what World Vision is doing in El Salvador, but right now I’m in a hotel in Sonsonate and the Internet connection is spotty at best. So rather than invest heavily in a lot of text I could lose if the connection drops out, I’ll just show you some of what I saw today. We’re travelling with photographer Paul Bettings, who is graciously allowing me to use some of his photos for future posts; these are some of my photos.

We visited a family in a fishing village near where we’re staying, and I was fortunate to have the opportunity to be able to follow their boys as they fished and dug for conchas, a kind of crab that lives in the mud under the mangroves. Kids start doing this type of work as young as six years old. The family earns their primary income from fishing, which the older boys help with, but as a fall back they rely on these little crabs, which the young kids can look for as well.