Chapter 114: That Time I Built a First-Generation New Town in South America

TL: Skye

Libertad 13th High School.

On the blackboard of one classroom in this school, which had been converted from a military barracks, the following words were written in large letters.

[Chapter 7 — The Birth of Modern San Marcos]

“Now, today we’re going to learn how the country you live in came to be what it is today.”

When Maria Conte, a recent university graduate who had just become a teacher, spoke, all sixty students opened their textbooks at once.

The first page contained photographs of San Marcos in the past.

Unpaved dirt roads.

Collapsing shacks.

Barefoot children.

“This was San Marcos before His Excellency took office. You all remember, don’t you?”

Maria pointed at the photographs.

“As you can see, most of the population lived on less than one dollar a day, and there were hardly any schools. There certainly weren’t classrooms packed with students like this one.”

The classroom fell silent.

It had only been a few years, yet the world in those photographs seemed like an entirely different one.

“The illiteracy rate was over fifty percent.”

Maria looked around at the students.

“That means five out of every ten people couldn’t read.”

The students looked down at the textbooks in their hands.

Their expressions showed that they had realized something they had always taken for granted had never actually been a given.

Maria turned to the next page.

It showed children who were little more than skin and bones.

“As recently as six years ago, our country’s food self-sufficiency rate was less than thirty percent. Most of what we ate had to be bought from abroad. And even then, there were countless children going hungry.”

Maria looked at the students and said,

“I was hungry when I was young too.”

The classroom went quiet.

“When I was your age, my father lost his job, and there was a time when we ate nothing but corn porridge for an entire month. Even that was something our neighbors shared with us.”

Maria smiled wistfully.

“Back then, that was everyday life. Being hungry was normal. But it isn’t anymore, is it? You eat three meals a day and attend school. You probably don’t realize yet just how extraordinary a change that is.”

Lucia, a girl sitting in the front row, quietly asked,

“Wasn’t it hard for you, Teacher?”

“More than it being hard, what was suffocating was having no hope that things would ever get better. Looking back now, I suppose I was fortunate that my father still sent me to school despite how difficult things were.”

Maria lifted her head.

“Then His Excellency took office. I stopped going hungry, and I was able to devote myself to my studies. And now I’m here teaching all of you.”

“Ah...”

“As you all know, there is someone who made this world possible for us.”

Maria pointed to the photograph of Yu-jin hanging in the center of the classroom above the blackboard.

“His Excellency.”

“His Excellency...”

“Shall we look at the next page?”

When the students turned the page, there was a photograph of Yu-jin declaring martial law on State Broadcasting.

“After that day, His Excellency accomplished things that were nothing short of miraculous.”

“......”

“First, he stabilized public security through the war on crime and made the country safe for its citizens. Then he sent the criminals he arrested to Tortilla Farm.”

The next page showed a photograph of Tortilla Farm.

Endless fields of sugarcane and corn.

“This is Tortilla Farm. You all know it, right?”

The students nodded.

Of course they did.

The farm was the most famous place in San Marcos.

For better or worse.

“He sold food received from overseas at half price, produced food on a massive scale at Tortilla Farm, and redistributed provincial farmland that had been illegally occupied to farmers, greatly improving the country’s food situation. After that...”

Maria went through Yu-jin’s achievements one by one.

She explained how the national registration project had brought provincial residents who had previously fallen through the cracks of government administration into the system, how attracting Korean companies and launching massive civil engineering projects had created jobs, and how the country had developed across everything from light industry to heavy industry, including an oil refinery and steel production.

Then Diego, a boy sitting in the back row, raised his hand.

“Teacher.”

“Yes, Diego?”

“Why does His Excellency do so much for our country? Strictly speaking, he’s from another country.”

Maria smiled for a moment.

“The country His Excellency came from, Korea, was once poor too. Seventy years ago, it was devastated by war. They say it was even poorer than San Marcos used to be.”

“That rich country was?”

“That’s right. But the Korean people worked themselves to the bone and built it into one of the wealthiest and most powerful countries in the world.”

Maria looked at Yu-jin’s photograph.

“His Excellency brought that experience to us. So San Marcos could follow the same path Korea once walked.”

Diego asked again,

“Then can we become like Korea too?”

“Of course.”

Maria answered firmly as she looked around at the students.

“But His Excellency can’t do it alone. Korea became prosperous not because of a single president, but because the entire country worked together.”

Maria tapped the blackboard.

“His Excellency has built the road for us. But you are the ones who have to walk it. Understood?”

Just then, the bell rang.

“That’s all for today. Next class, we’ll read His Excellency’s speech and write a response to it, so everyone make sure to read his inauguration speech before then.”

“Attention, salute!”

“Viva, Presidente!”

And so recess began, but the students’ faces were filled with determination.

“I’m going to work at the steel mill after I graduate.”

“The steel mill? I heard it’s rough there.”

“Teacher said the steel mill is where the backbone of this country is made. If I work there, I’ll be helping build the country.”

Lucia, the girl beside them, said,

“I’m going to become a doctor. His Excellency wants to build hospitals, but apparently there aren’t enough doctors.”

“Don’t you have to study abroad to become a doctor?”

“Then I’ll study abroad. His Excellency sends students to America every year, doesn’t he?”

There was one word that appeared in every conversation.

His Excellency.

Not I want to make money, but I want to work for His Excellency and the country.

Children who, just five years ago, would have answered that their dream was simply to eat their fill when asked what they wanted in life were now talking about their dreams.

Then something happened that sent the children’s patriotism through the roof.

A few days later.

A special address on State Broadcasting.

Every television in San Marcos was showing the same image.

The podium at the Presidential Palace.

Yu-jin stood before the podium, with the flag of San Marcos hanging on either side.

“My fellow citizens.”

Yu-jin began to speak.

“Today, I have one request to make of you.”

The students gathered in small groups around the television in the dormitory lounge fell silent.

People eating at restaurants in the market stopped mid-meal and looked up at the screen.

Workers leaving their factories turned their ears toward radios playing the broadcast.

“Over the past three months, 181 private businesses have opened in this country.”

Yu-jin continued.

“Workshops making furniture have opened. Factories producing fruit juice have opened. Sewing factories making clothes have opened. We now have companies making computers, travel agencies, and newspapers.”

Yu-jin paused briefly before continuing.

“But there is a problem.”

His voice dropped.

“We are desperately short of people to work.”

Diego stared at the television screen without moving.

“The factories need to run, but there is no one to operate them. Orders are piling up, but there is no one to fill them.”

Yu-jin lightly tapped the desk with his hand.

“Right now, this country is overflowing with places to work.”

His voice rose.

“Factories, offices, construction sites. Everywhere you go, people are looking for workers.”

Yu-jin stepped closer to the camera.

“Citizens of San Marcos.”

A merchant watching the television in the market stopped making tortillas.

“We must work.”

Rosa at the sewing factory rested her arms on the sewing machine and stared at the screen. Esteban at the furniture workshop stopped planing wood and turned his head.

“Your hands are what build this country. When you make goods in a factory, when you organize documents in an office, when you lay bricks at a construction site. With every task you perform, this country takes another step forward.”

Yu-jin spoke one final time.

“Six years ago, we had nothing. But today, we have roads, factories, schools, and businesses.”

Yu-jin looked straight into the camera.

“Your noble labor will open the future of this country.”

After the screen went dark, Diego sat lost in thought for a moment before rising from his seat.

“Hey, where are you going?”

“Esteban’s furniture workshop. I heard they’re hiring for the night shift.”

“...What are you going to do there?”

“His Excellency told us to work.”

“You’re going to attend school during the day and work at night? Won’t that be too hard?”

“I’ll make money too, so why not? It’s not like I’m going to university anyway, and studying isn’t really my thing. Might as well use this chance to learn a trade.”

Diego’s eyes were shining.

Earlier that day in history class, Teacher Maria had told them.

His Excellency had built the road for them.

But they were the ones who had to walk it.

And just now, His Excellency himself had said it.

Their labor would open the future of this country.

When Diego left the school, his friends began rising one by one.

“...I’m coming too.”

One by one, the students left the dormitory.

*

Naturally, the students weren’t the only ones moved by Yu-jin’s speech.

Idle workers all across San Marcos began to mobilize.

The first to move were the highway construction workers.

After the highway was completed, the workers had planned to return to their hometowns and go back to farming or working on fishing boats, but after hearing the speech, they changed their minds.

“Hey, why are you unpacking again?”

Ramon, a construction worker from the south, spoke to his coworkers.

“We were supposed to take the bus home tomorrow.”

“His Excellency told us to work. They’re looking for people at the industrial complex.”

“The industrial complex? What are we supposed to do there?”

“Build things, obviously. If we know how to build roads, we can build factories too.”

At Ramon’s words, his coworkers looked at one another.

He wasn’t wrong.

Over three years of building highways, they had learned everything from pouring concrete and tying rebar to operating heavy equipment and surveying.

With those skills, they could build factory buildings or offices.

“What’s the pay?”

“Dunno. But they’ll probably pay at least as much as before, right?”

“Then I’m going too.”

And so the construction workers canceled their bus tickets home and headed for the Libertad Industrial Complex, which meant that overnight, a line formed outside the construction division’s site office.

“Are all of you experienced construction workers?”

Tortilla Construction’s site manager asked with a startled expression.

“We worked on the highway for three years.”

“Three years...? Then you’re skilled workers.”

For Tortilla Construction, which had already been suffering from a labor shortage, it was like gold had fallen from the sky.

Additional startup office buildings, factory site preparation, road expansion.

These were experienced workers who could be put to work immediately on the industrial complex expansion.

And it wasn’t only construction workers.

People began arriving from rural villages in the south as well.

They were farmers who had found themselves with less work as agricultural mechanization advanced through machinery imported by Tortilla Trading.

Machines now handled the planting and harvesting that had once been done by hand, leaving fewer jobs to do.

There was nothing for them to do if they stayed in their hometowns.

But His Excellency had said Libertad was overflowing with jobs.

“Father, I’m going to Libertad to work.”

“What are you going to do there?”

“According to the Daily, a food processing factory is hiring. They need people to sort and package fruit.”

“Sounds similar to farm work.”

“It is. But they pay wages. You can manage the farm on your own now anyway, so wouldn’t things be easier for the family if at least one of us brought home a paycheck?”

“Don’t worry about the family. Since you’re going, come back with a wife. Weren’t you always complaining about the girls in the countryside?”

“Hehehe, yes, Father.”

Conversations like these took place in rural villages all across San Marcos.

From the south, the north, and the west, countless people left their hometowns and began moving toward the capital, Libertad, in one enormous tide.

*****

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