Yo No Me Dejo Rentear (I'm Not for Rent)

This one took some explaining before I got it. Stenciled spray paint images of this guy with a floppy beach hat and a moustache started showing up all over San Salvador a couple months ago, with no explanatory text. The images kept multiplying on walls all over town. Then a banner with the same image and the words "Yo no me dejo rentear" (I'm not for rent) popped up on a couple of important monuments in town, the one in the photo being the monument to the hermano lejano, or distant brother, i.e. Salvadorans who are abroad.

My Salvadoran friends explained that the image is of Don Ramón, a character from the sketch comedy TV series "El Chavo del Ocho." The Don Ramón character is famous for being a deadbeat, who always has some reason for not being able to pay the rent when the landlord comes around. Here in El Salvador a major social problem is extortion by gangs, euphemistically known as "rent." Gangs force bus drivers and small business people to pay protection money on a regular basis, and the news is always full of stories of people getting shot dead if they refuse to pay up. The Don Ramón publicity campaign is part of a grassroots movement to get people to stand up to the gangs en masse and stop paying the "rent." Making this work will take some real faith and courage; let's all wish them luck.