More Spring Journaling

Tuesday, Week 4

This morning I read a few articles about factories in Venezuela that have been shut down by their owners, but have been reclaimed by the workers. Some of these factories still have a conventional management structure but they accept aid from the government. Some partly state owned, moving toward total worker ownership as they earn more. Some have developed cooperative management and are proactively building relationships with the community through giving support, or supply the government subsidized food program, the Mercals. There is a divide in the government and among workers over whether the country should be moving toward more and more state ownership, or in a new direction that includes cooperative management, but worker ownership.

Co-managed and Occupied Factories’ Workers Revolutionary Front (FRETICO) had a march scheduled for this morning, and although it had been moved to a new location, we eventually found it. It was a pretty small group, perhaps twenty or thirty people. We soon leaned that three busloads of workers from Sanetarios de Maracay a factory from Maracay (a city just outside Caracas), had been stopped by police on the way to the demonstration this morning. The police had beat ten people and shot one person. They could not proceed to Caracas.

It is unclear exactly why they were held up, but the guesses are that it has something to do with the governor of the state being conservative.

In addition to speaking to two workers from a valve factory from Los Teques, who are part of FRETICO, we spoke with a few Europeans who were writing a book about this whole process, the successes and difficulties within the different models. We also made a connection with a women who might be able to take us to visit a fabric factory that is being occupied by it’s workers, who were all apparently laid off. This factory is mostly women, so I am really going to try to check this out when I get back.


Arrival at CESOCOESOLA

Daniel and I arrived in Barquisimeto around 3pm. We called the CESOCESOLA office and were soon picked up by three guys who took us around the corner to one of the Ferias. It was a large spacious, with some partial walls for light and ventilation. We were given a complete tour of the different sections of the store, stopping to speak with people who were working. We saw and leaned that the Feria is divided into three sections. One for non perishable foods, that are carefully stacked on simple, big metal shelves and bins. There are two sections for produce, one with lower priced items, some of them less attractive crops that would normally sell for more. The more expensive section has some of the same items as the other, as many people shop in only one section. In both produce sections the food is weighed by weight all together in bags, and everything on one section has the same weight price that is specified for that day, approximately an average of everything being sold. They also told us that they regularly buy as much as they can from farmers who operate as cooperatives and or collectives and who they have established relationships with. About 3.5 to 4 tons of fresh produce go through the big Ferias each week, and we leaned later visited the other large Feria, which was even larger.
The ferias are open from 5:30am on Friday morning until late afternoon, and again on Saturday and Sunday for shorter days. The parking lot of the large Feria that I stayed at would be bustling before dawn, with people waiting outside before the doors opened in the mornings. Inside there would be long lines at the cash registers, which operate with only a calculator and scales, no computer operated electronic cash registers. They like their system, because it requires that there be trust in the cashiers. The cashiers in the non perishable foods section have a list of all of the prices, and they end up memorizing the most common items.
While some family members waited in line, others would wait with bags of already bought food, or buy other items in the independently operated meat and cheese area, natural foods and medicines area, herb stand, pet food area, non food items area, or café. It was a bustling scene, with nice music coming from the stage in the middle.
After being driven to the other Feria, which is in an industrial part of town, we were shown around and then saw where we would be staying, which is a house that they call the “school”, which functions as an office, meeting space, and has a few big rooms full of bunk beds, as well as a kitchen. Soon were loaded into the CESOCESOLA SUV, and were given a tour of the surrounding area, where we could buy food and use the internet (the mall) and were also given a tour of the funeral home. The funeral home is one of the oldest coops associated with CESOCESOLA.
CECOSESOLA is an organization of 39 coops, all operating independently, but organized together for large meetings every few months. They all operate similarly, with collective decision making and rotating committees and job positions, instead of hierarchy and stagnant job placement. All coops involved contribute from each pay check to provide their own health and funeral insurance for themselves and their families. It has a long history of development and struggle. At one point in the early years when they had a bus collective, many of the busses were destroyed by the government. The food Ferias began as trucks that would drive around selling produce in neighborhoods. The health clinics which are part of the TRIUMFO collective, pay their doctors by the hour, and the rest of the staff runs and operated the clinics, rotating to work in their small food feria and bulk appliance and furniture programs. All of the CESOCESOLA coops are contributing to build a hospital, which I visited and the construction is 60% complete.
I asked why they were spending money on their own hospital when the government is providing free health care now. They responded that they began this project before this government began the new health system, and the government system is still young and dysfunctional. They don’t want to have to wait for appointments for government care, and they also have a specific idea of what type of health care they want, which is includes acupuncture and a community environment of their own creation.
The venezuelaanalysis.com article that I read said that there is a variety of political opinion in CESOCESOLA, and that they keep their cards close to their vest. My experience with the people I talked to was that they value their autonomy and are far ahead of the Chavez programs in quality and function of their services and methods. In the conference I attended, I learned that their experience has shown them that real change has to happen within each individual, working with others and working on themselves. There was definite skepticism of whether government can even have much impact on creating significant social and economic change. Nevertheless, CESOCESOLA has helped the current government in constructing the cooperative laws for the country, and they have aided gov. programs that are trying to train people to create cooperatives, however, they clearly state that they are not political, they are working on creating self sufficiency and community.
Other important things I learned about CESOCESOLA in their conference, was that they do not even consider themselves anti capitalism, like the Zapatistas. They discuss Zapatismo in their meetings at times, but the concluding position I heard was that because capitalism works against the people, they don’t need to be against it, it is already against you. They don’t want to waist their energy being against something, they prefer to just create the community and reality they want.


Friday with CESOCESOA

Pasta Co-op
This morning we met up with two Feria guys, a young guy named Juan who lives in central Mexoco and works with the Zapatista Otro Campana, and who was invited to speak at the conference. We met up with another invited speaker, woman from Argentian who has been part of the unemployed factory workers campaign to re take over factories and create jobs for themselves. We all loaded into the SUV and drove to Sanare. Out first stop was the pasta cooperative 8 de Marzo. They are an older coop, with about 20 years experience, named after the date of international women’s day. It was a pretty small factory, with about eight women working, a few kids there helping sift flour, and a man working as well. They have a giant pasta making machine, that they pour the batter into. They worked together cutting the pasta as it came out of the machine and puttig it on drying racks. They make whole wheat pasta and also pastas with blended vegetables in the batter. They sell granola as well, a recipe they got from a conference. They use flakes of corn kernels instead of oats, because it is more economical, it is also less heavy. They sell their products in the Ferias and a few small businesses, but the majority of their products are sold in the city of Maracaibo, where there is more wealth and demand for health food.

Community school
We then walked down the hill a little to the community school, which had been formed and built by the community. It started as a catholic school as part of Fey y Allegria, but now gets government funding. I was impressed by the amount of art and craft projects first grade through 8th, and the quality of the work. We spoke a little with a teachers meeting, they had questions for us about the US, and the director spoke with us at length outside of the meeting. She spoke about the importance of having created their community resources independent from the government and the pride and satisfaction they have in their school because they have formed it to be what they wished for.

Montecarmelo and the Bread Coop
After lunch in Sanare we went to Montecarmelo. The Moncar preserve coop was closed, but we went up the hill to the Organic Farm. There we ate the delicious yogurt they produce, and looked at their worm composting system, herb garden and vegetable fields.
Then we drove down the other side of the steep hill on the dirt road and into another little town where the bread coop is located. The bread coop is also a well established business, named La Campesina. They bake giant batches of long sandwitch bread, both whole wheat and while, as well as a few sweets, that they sell at the Ferias and a few other places. They had a big mixer, a machine for kneeding, and a big old oven.

Saturday

Today we saw the area where the grain is ground into flour to be sold in the ferias as flour and a few different drink products.

We also visited a health clinic, which is part of the TRIUMFO organization. One of the clinic workers spoke to us about her experience, and how the clinic runs. All CESOCESOLA associates get a reduced rate for the already very affordable doctor visits, because they contribute a little percentage of each of their pay checks to health care.
They told us that in the clinics there is no higherarchy, everyone is on equal footing. Nobody serves others as their job, wheh somebody wants coffee they make it for themselves of for everyone.
They meet weekly as a whole office. There is no pre set agenda and no phacilitatores or board of directors. They try to address everyones concerns in the meetings, and they make decisions by consensus through discussion. If someone has a problem with a decision that is favored by the majority, they talk about it and maybe it is a personal problem. If one person has a lot of personal problems with decisions, they usually don’t stick with the coop or they will be let go.
They have a very strong emphasis on the process of working through personal problems. They choose themes to reflect on, and they may spend three weeks reflecting on it. They said that they have a different concept of time, they figure that if they work through the issues thoroughly, then in the future they will have fewer problems and more experience problem solving. They feel that the process will benefit everyone eventually, even if the problem is between two people. The health clinic rotates jobs to a certain degree. The doctors (and I think nurses as well) are paid by the hour, like independent contractors, but the other staff rotate between office positions such as front desk and accounting, as well as their small feria, and the appliance and furniture outlet that they have. They manage themselves in different committee’s like the supplies buying committee, and accounting and budgeting, and the committees meet weekly separate from the whole group.
Afterwards, we visited the construction site of the hospital, which was designed by one of the CESOCESOLA old timer’s sons.

A lot has been accomplished in the 39 years of CESOCESOLA. They have many different coops organized and collaborating with each other. They are independent of the government and their autonomy is important to them. They are an example of a well functioning organization that is providing employment in a radical form that is sustainable and the workers are happy with.


Mercals

As I road along with CESOCSOLA associates touring the different facilities, we past Mercals (gov. subsidized grocery stores) on two different days and the lines were stretched out the door and around the parking lot. I learned that the Mercals don’t always have the most in demand items such as powdered milk and chicken, and that at least in Sanare, each person in line can only have one of those items. However, to a lot of people who are really poor, waiting in line is worth it, because the price is half as much. The family that my friend Marlo is living with goes to the Mercals on Saturdays, and all three or four of the adult women wait in lone for sometimes four hours.


Mantecarmelo and the Coop of Moncar

From the town of Sanare, I took a jeep taxi up into the hills, on dirt and paved roads, to Montecarmelo. Too small to be considered a town, Montecarmelo is made up of a clustering of houses around a church, and lower and high schools. There are three tiny stores called Bodegas, where you can request what you want over the counter. It is a farming area, vegetable fields and animal pastures patch the surrounding hills, and occasionally people ride their horses through town. The street outside the bodegas are spotted with black, because many of the men spit tobacco as they hang out with their friends in front of the bodegas. Within a few days most people know my name, and would call out to me and say hi as I passed by.
At the far side of town, the road winds up a steep grade, to summit the hill and lead past an organic farm, and then down the other side where there is another tiny town, where the coop bakery is located. I liked to walk up the hill for the exercise and the view of the surrounding hills and the town of Sanare down below.
My first impression of the Moncar Coop, on my first day there, was that it is very relaxed and laid back. This changed a little as I saw that they worked very long days, and a six day week at times. When I arrived they were making candied peaches. I sketched them as they filled jars of one batch, and then helped peel the little peaches for the next batch. They sat together in the big kitchen, peeling the peaches with knives and chatting with each other.
On my first evening in Montecarmelo, I met Marlo, and after talking a while with some other people on the street, we went into the community meeting room and did an hour of exercise with the Aarrio Adrentro dance therapy program. There was a Cuban instructor and we jumped around non stop and I had a great time. A different excersise instructor comes to the Moncar ladies twice a week to do dance therapy with them.

These are some of my journal entries:
The Moncar women took Sunday off after many of them had worked a six day week. I am seeing that their days are very similar, but not all of them work the same amount of time, some have other activities. Two are attending mission sucre to get teaching credentials, one already teaches high school classes and is part of the nucleolus of endogenous development committee, two are involved in other coop businesses that are getting started.
When they are at Moncar, the tasks are similar, but with different fruit or vegetables for different recipes. They all work together and the fruit gets cut and prepared in different ways, the jars get boiled, filled, caped and cleaned. They use an incredible amount of sugar with the peaches.
It is fun for me to see the fruit and it’s incredible colors, because to me they are exotic. I want to use the colors of the fruit in my paintings.

Monday May 7th
This morning I arrived at Marlo’s house at six thirty in the morning. Marlo is a girl my age from Seattle who has been living in Montecarmelo for a year and a half. She invited me to come along to the aqueduct construction and soup party up in the mountains.
We loaded food, pot and pans into the jeeps, and then a big group of men, and a few other women, drove up dirt roads through the hills, past beautiful, small farms to the edge of the jungle forest. I learned that a group of about four men have been hauling bags of concrete, sand and gravel along pathto the water spring for about two months now. The materials are paid for by the government because it is a community council project. Everyone in the town has to contribute one days work, or they pay someone for a days work. It is a very important project, because the old auquaduct was only sand bags crating a dam around a pipe that drained a stream. The new construction should provide more water for the town, and hopefully cleaner. The town now gets water for a few hours in the morning and a few in the evening. When it is very rainy the water is muddy.
I hiked to the spring carrying a sive, the others hiked with heavy bags full of concrete and sand. Today they mixed the concrete, and made the floor of what will be a big tank, about eight to then feet square. As they worked they all sheared a few bottles of rum, and a bag of arepas, sardines and soda. A few of the guys and the women stayed back with the jeeps and cooked two giant pots of soup. I video taped and Marlo took pictures, because one of the older men insisted that every step be documented.
After hanging out up in the jungle for a few hours, Marlo and I went back down to the jeeps and the soup. It began to rain hard, so we ate in the jeeps. One of the women, who is pregnant, had her first contraction, so we got in one of the jeeps and went back to Montecarmelo. However, the road was muddy after the rain, and the truck did not have traction on the old tires, so we got out a few times on the way and walked as the jeep slid around up and down the steep grades. We eventually made it safely back, and Justaidy the pregnant woman made it to the hospital in plenty of time.
This afternoon I attended a meeting of the producers (farmers) in the area. They were telling how many kilos of what crops they would have ready for to sell in the feria this weekend. Two women were writing things down. There were about 18 men and one other women there, sitting in a circle. The woman was just as outspoken as the most outspoken men present.

Tuesday May 8th
Tuesdajys are consejo comunale meetings. They are scheduled to begin at 5pm,
but don’t start on time. They keep going without stopping until almost 9pm at times.

This consejo started in August of 2006.

The auquaduct construction was the first priority project, and the construction began two months ago, in March. Most of the construction work is carrying the supplies to the site.

The consejo is also working on the local housing developments. In the past the new housing programs have been run by the government completely, and the distribution has not been fair. Now the consejo decides who in the community has the most need, and ideally this will be a more fair process.

The Banco Comunado
Is a cooperative within the community council, probably like a committee. It is very new, and its purpose is to distribute loans for specific needs of individuals in the community such as agriculture expenses. The people asked why the committee is taking so long to give out the money, and they explained that they want to be careful it deciding how much to give out, because they don’t want to give more than a person can pay back. Also, because agriculture is inconsistent with earnings, they want to make sure the people will have monthly payments that are manageable.


Today I spoke with Irma, one of the Moncar laidies, about the projects in the consejo comunale and the local cooperatives. She was positive about the consejo process, but doesn’t like to attend all of the meetings herself. She can get filled in on everything from other people afterwards. She told me about the banco comunado, and the amount of money they are giving out, which is one 12 million Bolivar loan and two 20 million bs. Loans. I was not sure if people besides farmers could get the loans, but it sounds like there are places where people can get loans for building additions on their houses, so it is a good possibility.
I asked her about the other coops close by and in the state of Lara. I learned that Lara has the most coops in any one place, and many of them have long histories. The women of Moncar have been involved in helping other women form coops. Gaudy was a teacher/ facilitator in a vuelvan Caras program, and a few others helped out as well. She told me about the other young coop that Cruz is a part of, called Las Cojona, which is a tourism coop that is trying to find a place to run a posada, and they are waiting for funding. America works with a coop that makes natural fruit juice consentrate, called Asembando (I think), they are waiting for funding as well, or possibly she meant that they haven’t started making profits.
Irma explained that when Moncar began, they were organizing themselves, but did not have money and so had to look for it. Now she says there are opportunities for money, so what is happening is people are attracted to the money first, and then they organize. She was critical of this because working as a coop is very hard work and in order for it to last, the people have to put the relationships before the money. For her the process of working together, building and enjoying community, is more important than the money that they earn. Similar to what the CESOCESOLA people said.
My reflection:
It is hard to know what the percentage of the new government trained coops have already failed. I learned from a Professor from a University in France, who is who was in Caracas doing research for a book on coops and co managed factories, that many people are taking the money but not actually operating their businesses as coops. To me, as long as a large percentage of the loans are paid back, (which is the case at least with Ban Mujer), and people are creating businesses that are helping the economy grow, than there is no real problem. I think that there are many, many issues that would make a coop difficult to maintain, especially if the groups are formed from people who don’t know each other very well, and have little experience with group organizing and communication. What is essential I believe, is that people have the opportunity to start businesses, because the ability to work cooperatively is something that will take time.

My artistic processes
I hav myself in a rut, trying to depict objects and people too exactly. With the cirlcle painting of Moncar, I felt like I could not branch out into a more fluid style, because the people and objects were so small. I hope that painting another canvass similar to this one, will allow me to move forward and experiment with style. I am stuck because I have a vague idea of where I want to go with the style and tourniquet, but not enough bravery and attention while I am painting. With this painting I wanted to show cooperative process, and show the area and food that the women use and make.

My next painting, which consists of six sailboats, moving forward together in a circle, is an attempt to incorporate the rich colors of the fruit the Moncar women work with, into a visual concept of cooperative business. My vision for the painting had been much more fluid and with bigger, less blended brush strokes. Right now it could be close to a finishing point, but I really want to be satisfied with it, so I think I will go over it again, but stick with the same colors.

Montecarmelo- Monday may 14th

This morning the Moncar ladies showed up later than usual, after taking a whole two days off for the weekend. Most of them didn’t many of them had other tings to do today as well, so there were only a few women there. They made dulce de leche, which is a popular household creol sweet. It looks like brains in the jar, but it is something to do with butterscotch milk curds.
I went into town to use the phone, internet and buy groceries. The jeep taxis go into Sanare fairly regularly, but you never know how long you will have to wait. After a while in town, I met up with Marlo, who had to buy food as well. It began to rain hard as we headed back to find a taxi up to Montecarmelo. We ran into a few people from Montecarmelo in the same old SUV I came down from the mountains in with the women about to go into labor. They told us they were headed back pretty soon. A little over 3 hours later, after picking somebody up at their parents house, driving up the opposite hill to speak on a community radio show, and then picking up some tools at another house, we finally retuned to Montecarmelo. It was a good time had by all. The they guys who had been working on the auquaduct and cutting weeds along the road, spoke about what they were doing. The two that spoke wanted to assure everyone the listeners that they were not just drinking and using the communities money, they were really working too. One of them were lamenting about the fruit trees had been cut down by high school kids as they were cutting the grass.

Tuesday May 15th.
Consejo Comunale Reunion
Presentation by Mission Campo Adentro- Desarollo Edgogeno By the President of the Necleous of Endogenous Development in Sanare. The Presentation was to show what is possible for Montecarmelo. In the Sanare Nucleous, they are planning on addressing various problems, such as indiscriminate burning for farm land with reforestation and conservation planning as they develop a coffee coop for the community. He spoke about health and education problems, and the plan to gather statistics. The Sanare plan has new housing, environmentally friendly waist systems, planned neighborhoods with sports fields, Mercals, Hospital, bus terminal etc.
After the presentation a letter was read from a teacher who has too many students, with signatures from other teachers. The community sees it as a good problem, because there are a few people in the community about to graduate from the Mission Sucre education program.
They also discussed the community bank loans, which I talked about before.

Later in the week I spoke with Goudy, a leader in the community and in the coop of Moncar, about the Nucleous Desorollo Endogeno of Montecarmelo.
Goudy explained that it is a group made up of representatives from the established organizations in the community called associacion civiles, such as the coops and the producers (farmers) collective. They were not elected. They are working to make plans around new community developments, agricultural development, and tourism. Their plans for tourism are around gastronomy- providing various locally produced foods, a posada with local foods, and walking