Taking back dignity

Report by Tamara Pearson http://gringadiary.blogspot.com/


Seen: On the train, two women with two tiny kids- a boy and a girl, and the girl was playing with a doll that was white with the blondest blond hair. There are a few white people here, but most people are all beautiful shades of brown. Yet a lot of the advertising and products originate from overseas or buy into the whole blond (north American) is beautiful cultural imperialism garbage.

Brigade moments: Coral translating ‘hugs’ as ‘cuddles’ – which is so much more sexual and affectionate! Jammo, who owns 80 musical instruments, doing charades of them and we had to guess…whilst a bit drunk... Me at the Bolivar Museum- I thought a glass showcase with Bolivar’s boots and writing table and stuff in it, had a top- and put my book on it, of course there was no glass there and it dropped into the display. So the Venezuelan Lonely planet was added to the display cos the glass walls were too high for me to reach over and get it. Bolivar might have used it in his time if it had existed J. Well, embarrassed, I asked a museum worker to help me, who had to pull the case half apart…
…Me again going psycho on the bus to Ciudad Bolivar. Don’t know what happened there, but I seemed to need to throw things at people, then on Sinndy’s advice, started a rumour that there were rats on the bus with the intention of tickling people’s feet while they were asleep and freaking them out, but never got around to it.
..Coral talking English to the Venezuelans then Spanish to us. People have no idea how HARD translating is. It’s one thing to listen to what people are saying in Spanish and understand, its another thing to remember what they said, say it in English, and listen to what they are saying in Spanish as they interrupt you because they are so keen to say what they have to say..
…certain unmentionable romances that did and didn’t happen..
...some brigadistas finally letting go and standing under the sprinklers to conquer the heat
…waiting for our friendly Venezuelan hosts to pick us up…they said they’d be there at 1, so we waited in the stuffy hallway of the hotel at five to 1, like good little gringos… and they turned up at 215. By then people were sleeping in the hallway, sitting down, trying different walls to see which one was cooler, playing silly word games. Turns out the bus driver decided he’d have lunch, while most of us went without so we could be there on time
…big lizards, Margaret happier cuddling a kitten than she was at Mayday (just kidding..although…), and rescuing tiny abandoned kittens…big men trying to feed them with caps of water, and ‘dipping’ their heads in the water to make them drink (ok maybe I had a part in that too).
… countless shared pizzas in an effort to deal with the really expensive prices…and many more, some of which I’ll mention specifically below…

May Day… [photos: people in red] speaking of Jammo- he was on the moon and dancing around at the May Day protest. It was pretty awesome. From about 9 till about 12 or 1 people met at Las Banderas train station and marched down to the centre. There was like a continuous stream of red on the road. I got my wallet stolen on the train, and it was hot and humid and a long march, but that didn’t dampen anyone’s spirits.
At the stage end there were speeches and music and some dancing, a few drunks, a few friendly people. We were pretty popular-interviewed for a few TV channels along the march and Coral and John even got up and spoke. The footage was played through the next day- I think we were probably the only country specific contingent there.
People were touched by the solidarity I think- both the people we met and spoke with- and just random people we met. One woman on a train had a pamphlet of one of Fidel’s speeches, and she wrote ‘revolutionary greetings to Australia’ on it, and gave it to me, saying she’d seen us on TV.

Radio Ali Primera in El Valle, Caracas: we went and checked out and chatted with people from this community radio station which was made for people who don’t have degrees (a requirement to work in radio) or the resources to have a voice. They have all sorts of programs, including one by a 12 year old who’s been involved since the beginning, various countering mass media misinformation and deep news analysis, culture- poets from the community reading their poems for example, women’s shows, etc. People from the community run the shows and the radio workers are directly involved in the community- and this relationship meant that, for example in 2004 when the radio was threatened with being attacked by the opposition, they made a broadcast about it, and within minutes hundreds of members of the community were outside the radio station, and the opposition ran away :)

Ciudad Bolivar/Puerto Ordaz – we had a chat with union leaders from ALCASA- a nationalised aluminium plant, at their centre of formation- which supports the formation of the workers of ALCASA and the surrounding community- which means fostering values of cooperation, solidarity, honesty, discovery, and learning about different economic systems, the new forms of social participation etc
We also visited an internet centre built by the government, now used by indigenous and non indigenous students. It also has phones. Before people only had mobiles but no fixed lines.. the woman working there said it had opened up their life to the world, as they are able to read about the world on the internet. Made me think about how easy it is to be completely isolated when you are poor…

Las Amazonas- I think this would unanimously be voted the most inspiring experience of the brigade. Driving into this suburb we could see people with flags occupying unused land on the edge of it. (Something economically and legally encouraged by the government). We could also see the shacks of found corrugated iron etc that people had built only a few days and weeks ago. This would be a start.
3 and a half years ago the people of Las Amazonas did the same, and 80% of them now have good, complete concrete houses- with 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, floor, toilet etc. All of them financed by the government, and the same model, but painted a rainbow of colours, making the village a delight to see (I would have taken more photos but it was getting dark). However, they are still waiting for asphalt to put on the roads (which are dirt at the moment).
They were so proud. Most of these people were homeless before. Now they are organised in this new community, sorting out their own business- streets, lighting, sewage etc. We met with the spokespeople of the community council and after a welcoming rain dance [see photo] and various speeches demonstrating how proud they were of their revolution, they took us on a walk around the town. We saw the ‘nutrition house’ which receives for example, 90 kilos of chicken a week, and feeds about 150 children a day, we saw a market with regulated prices, and our hosts knocked on one of their neighbours door, “there are some visitors!”, and this poor woman who’d obviously just been asleep came to her door to see 14 camera wielding Aussies and a bunch of Venezuelans we’d picked up a long the way. They just wanted us to see the inside of her house, to see how good it was. Indeed it was nice, and the woman welcomed us in. What was clearest was the dignity these people now have- both from watching them, and from their own words.

Sidor – [photo: workers with AMWU- Aussie Metal Workers Union- flag] and finally we got to visit the recently nationalised (largest) steel factory of Venezuela. Our bus pulled into the area where all the buses drop off workers at the shift changes. We got out, met a few union leaders but were quickly surrounded by heaps of other workers. Poor Coral was stuck in the middle of all these tall men in blue uniforms who all interrupted eachother as they told us the history of the plant, their struggle, how they were attacked by police, their 3 strikes… and “Chavez has liberated us from slavery”. They insisted that we “Come back in a year to see how the changes have taken affect”. Then there was exchanging of union flags and tshirts and hugs of solidarity all round.
(For more information about this struggle see http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/)

That was roughly the end of the brigade..I got on my bus back to Merida and was genuinely sad to say goodbye- all the brigadistas had been very nice, and interesting and different. It’s meant to be 22 hours from Puerto Ordaz to Merida… after about 12 hours, at 10 in the morning, they suddenly decided to take us off one (comfortable) bus and put us on another one- no air conditioning, toilet, space for feet or bags etc (I was cooking because I had thermal underwear on because of the really cold bus I’d just been on). Which after another 12 hours then terminated at El Vigia, so me and a few others had to pay for a taxi to finish the trip- 1 hour- to Merida. Where it was raining, and I had to get another bus to my place, then walk. So the