Tonight, we had a bbq and debriefing. It was great to see the gang again but I expected the Venezuelans to pop in on us at any moment. They didn’t but we did get a call from la Vega. Nice to know that they still remember us.

A serious political discussion

I am back in Toronto for less than a day. What a difference. The ride in from the airport was quite a contrast. Drivers obeying the law, keeping their distance and not honking horns. Air smelling pure as the driven rain. And it’s flat. Flat as a pancake.

No locked gates at home. No guy screaming into a huge P. A. system from the back of a truck selling eggs. Fresh eggs.
No mountains looming over all covered in housing.
This ain’t Caracas.
I have had a good sleep and now need to go back to sleep again.

I had a hot shower. Not as satisfying as I would have thought but at least I am clean.
I said hello to my newer camera. It did not respond. If I were Melanie, I would suspect that it is mad at me for abandoning it for a month. But I am not and I don’t.

I just read, at my mother’s house, an article on antisemitism in Venezuela (Link) and while it is regrettable some of it is true, a lot of it was rumor  and misleading. It is written from a middle class point of view  and its biggest fault is that it simplifies things by ignoring the struggles of the majority.

It is not just Jews who live behind bars in Caracas; everyone does. Even in the poorest communities in Venezuela, people have locked metal doors, bared windows and gated streets.

I understand the class nature of the rampant Venezuelan antisemitism but much of the article was just ridiculous and inaccurate.

I mean, who expects Chavez to convert to Islam when his people still worship African spirits as well as Christianity. Chavez was a populist before he was a revolutionary and he still is. The writer wants you to hate Chavez the way the antisemites hate Jews, with out reason. He is perpetuating ignorance and fogging understanding.

The writer wants you to hate Chavez the way the antisemites hate Jews, with out reason.

But there is antisemitism in Venezuela and Chavez is fanning the flames. This aspect of the Chavez “revolution” is as disturbing as his mindless support for Iran’s anti-people government. These are not things that need our forgiveness. They need our caution. We have to speak out against all revisionism, especially in Venezuela. They want our support and the price has to be their resistance to bigotry and political opportunism.

In this blog, I have held back on some of my criticisms of what I saw this July in Venezuela. I did this because I am not expert on the situation and I am getting a scattered view of this complicated country.
There are a lot of wonderful things happening there but there are a lot of real problems too.

A critical question is, how should people who believe in the importance of the Venezuelan anti-imperialist struggles react to these disturbing and dangerous facets of the Venezuelan movement? We need to support the former and somehow work to change the latter.

Nothing is as simple as the article writer states it ans as Joe E. Brown said in “Some Like It Hot,” “Nobody’s perfect.”

Clearly, I need more time to think about all this stuff. People say that the next 10 days or so will be important for than. We shall see.

Some are going up to la Vega for a going away party but I do not thing that I will go. I am tired not only from the day but the month. There has been enough activity in the last month to drain the hardiest. But also there is the totally different life down here and the contrast is also a factor.

Today things were more academic. Lawrence, Johanna, Christine and I talked to a city planner they have a lot to do. Many of the streets and services that are in the barrios are not even on their maps. Land ownership is questionable. And house evaluation is not complete.

Electricity, sewers and water are not planned. People have just hooked into services. And no one knows if the houses are built with sound foundations and structures.

A jewlery maker and salesman.

After that we went to the university campus. It is very beautiful. Three professoras talked to us for over two hours about how the university is linking to the community. They had a lot of detail, most of which I did not get because of the language.

I am back at the hostel now and am only sure that I fly just before 8:00AM.

Here is a shot the hill of Antimano where we were earlier this month, where the boys painted the mural from the bottom.

I am not sure what I am going to do with this blog after this. Bye.

Today was another quiet day for the most part. Most of the crew went to a beach. The buss drivers offered the bus and themselves to take us there free. Not only did we pay them well but they like us. So they packed the bus with their family and us gringos and off they went.

I stayed in the hostel because I would not have gone with out my camera and it cannot be around sand or sea. A few others stayed in town because they were getting acclimatized gastronomically.

Lawrence and I walked to the little outdoor diner where the family cooks something different every day.

Today they insisted on us having soup with the meal. It was beef and it was good.

Then we walked around the community looking at small murals.

Eventually we got a coffee and sat in the local square where Simon Bolivar watches patiently from his perch.

It was a small square but had three people employed to keep it clean.

Every morning there is a drinking party on the steps of the central statue

while children ride bikes and scooters in front of their parents.

Lovers cuddle with limbs intertwined on the benches. Ah, Venezuela.

Lawrence made a new good friend who claimed that in spite of being crazy he had respect for all.

Back to the hostel where Lawrence worked on a community photography project we talked about and I had a nap.

We then flushed out his writing and later talked with others about it. It turned into a productive day.

By the way, there is a banana tree in the rear court yard here.

When the bus returned our people and the driver’s family piled into the hostel. Eventually I got in the bus with everyone else and he drove use to la Vega. Picture one of the wider buses in the maze of streets of the barrio avoiding dogs and cars on the narrow street.

Once there, we went to Antoine’s house to meet with our local friends one more time. Sleoepy Victoria came out and sat on my lap for a long time and Maryella got into the act.

We then piled into a van taxi that looked like it should not be on the road and went to the subway. There was an open beer in his fair box.

Tomorrow we have various activities then it is back to la Vega until 5:00AM when the cabs will pick us up for the airport. That will be interesting.

On the way we saw a government food depot where people get subsidized food.

The headquarters is in a building above a Chinese restaurent in downtown Caracus.

They wanted a mural that would impress someone as soon as they walked in the door.

The actual process that they used was fascinating. Both boys are gifted in graphics in a way I would love to be. Lawrence, their father, said that they could draw in three dimensions before entering school.

They sat down with the women for a few minutes to get an idea of what they wanted and what was possible in the short time they have.

No, there will not be a ten foot Chavez on one wall. When they work together they seem to have a short hand language about concepts, shapes, colours and patterns.

One takes the lead and the other guides him with very practical comments. They even took a small suggestion from me.

The drawing it self took about an hour to put on the wall.

They will paint it Thursday.

And every once in a while music breaks out. Here there is a almost tuned piano where people plunk at with various levels of ability. Guitars come out on a whim, sometimes in tune. The green one shown here was in tune but it was missing its top E string.

The bus went around the town of Marin in the area of Yaracuy, picking up our people. Kelly, Wendy and Erica were housed in a monastery. They got out of there before they were converted.

The local radio station was next where most of us were interviewed. It was housed in a building that couldn’t have been bigger than a bedroom. They wanted to know about what we thought about the formation of the commune.

I was able to find an internet café, no coffee, where the connection was slow but usable. I updated a couple of days but could only use about half the picture that I wanted because of the speed.

We then drove for a couple of hours towards Caracas to Valencia but not before there was more dancing

and stopping at the bus driver’s sister’s home where they cooked up burgers with cold beer. Nice people.

They presented Pablo with a ball hat and me with a t-shirt with the Venezuelan colours.

Betzaita, Sophia and the driver’s sister posing here.

We then ended up with a problem because the sports facility that we were supposed to sleep in did not work out so we elected to come back to the hostel in Caracas.

Farshad’s braids could not hold his hair back anymore.

Yes, Johanna, there are more pictures of you on this blog.

There is internet at the hostel on and off. If I can, have a look at the older entries. I have more pictures to upload.

I am not sure where we are but we are on a farm. Roosters, goats and cows are making their appropriate sounds and it is humid.

There was a wash stand and shower in the barn area so most of us are decent.

But today we really feel the heat of Venezuela. I am washing up every few hours in order to deal with it.

This is a real operating farm. They have a lot of cattle, goats, pigs and chickens here a small white horse that our bus driver and Solomon road. Solomon needed a user manual. A real Caballero.

The elder of the community and some of his coop members told us their story.

This farm is run as a cooperative by several families who took over the vacant land in 1995. Many of them were small farmers in the hills or part of the same community. They grow food for the people in the area at reasonable prices. Sometimes they have to sell to intermediaries at low prices because the crops are ripe but they are working to control this themselves. The process of taking over land used to be called land invasions but now they use the term land … This land was being used for sugar cane because it could be turned into a quick profit but it has soil that is too good for that. The coop farmers and national agencies determined that the ones who claimed ownership of the land actually had title to less than 2% of it and used some as a weekend getaway. In spite of that they bribed police and national guards to harass the people here.  At one point there was a motorcycle gang occupying part of the land trying to provoke an incident until it came out that the former ‘owners’ had bribed them with beer and cash.

These people have had to struggle to keep the land in the past and will have to continue in the future. They have the support of the government for credit and possession of the land which cannot remain unused by law. These 21 people are growing sorghum and corn for the cattle.

Here are some pictures of them:

I have printed about twenty pictures of their kids and some adults.

Then another two hour drive in our little bus this time towards Caracas to a town square of Marin where we were greeted as dignitaries by about 20 people who represented the area’s commune.

A commune is a group of community councils who organize to take local decision making power one step further. It could, for example, buy the garbage trucks they need in stead of hiring a private service. The have worked on a tuition free college where they teach photography. I am impressed to see that photography is part of their revolution.

The children clowned around a bit when they got used to us.

After the meeting, they would not let us go to a hotel. I ended up in someone’s home with Lawrence in the only air conditioned room. They fed us a meal before we went to sleep. Again we met wonderful people.