February 12th 2010 – Weary Travelers
Saturday, February 13, 2010 at 08:52AM It isn’t even 7 p.m. and I am weary to the bone. We left the house this morning at about 8:15. Chon wanted to visit a couple of places to the south and west of us. There is a Cooperative in La Noria that has been working successfully for about 30 years. The director is a friend of hers. She thought it would be good to invite several people from the cantons to hear what they had to say. So Juan, Julio, Miriam and (another) Julio joined Balmore, Cecilia, Alisha, Chon and me on this journey.
We took the road through Alegria and Santiago de Maria to get to the CA2 highway. That took about an hour. From there it was only 16 miles west and a little more south to the building which houses the administrative offices of the co-op. That took maybe a half hour. We did have to stop and ask several people where to go. Thankfully Chon is quick to say: let’s ask. Once at the Co-op, we met Miguel and Oskar. They explained the history and process of their co-op. They started out small, taking out loans to get supplies and a little land. Now they are self sufficient and very successful. They operate with any credit. They own acres and acres of land and produce sugar cane, corn, watermelon and a few other things for selling. In addition, every family involved has a small plot of land that belongs to the co-op but is for the private use for each families own consumption needs for tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers or whatever.
This was a wonderful visit. The spirit of the co-op is community and unity. There is no “me” in a co-op. People work united and for a common good. Yes, individual people are earning a wage for their work, but the concept of reinvesting – not only in replenishing seed and fertilizer (organic) and the needs of the co-op to operate, but also in education. A proud point for this community is that the co-op is paying for some of the teachers in their school because the government will not because of ‘lack of funds’ – does this sound familiar? They are very proud of the fact that they now have a school that serves the students through ninth grade. They also reinvest in the well-being of their workers. If someone is sick, there is a fund to assist with medical visits and medicines. They are also educating their youth beyond high school – some even studying in Cuba, and Oskar studied in the States (in Cedar Rapids, Iowa as a matter of fact). These students are expected to come back to work in the co-op. Oskar (who studied in Iowa) is the current Co-op president - the youngest one in its history.
What a fabulous example of people working together. The co-op provides jobs, education for their youth, care for the health of their employees and economic security. They are also firm advocates for loving and respecting the land by using environmentally friendly farming techniques in the use of non-chemical fertilizers and crop rotation.
After this visit, which lasted a little over 3 hours, we found a little restaurant (relative term) for a quick bite before we got ‘lost’ going to our next visit in Nueva Esperanza. Chon thought she knew the way. And she knew most of it, except we missed the turnoff. We only went about 8 kilometers out of our way (about 15 minutes one way). Once we back tracked to the proper turnoff, it was less than a mile to the community.
There is another co-op there. Among other things, they have cows and a cheese production facility (one room). The person we wanted to talk to was not there – Chon had no way of contacting him, so we basically drove there with the hopes of running into him. We visited a while with the man’s wife, ‘enjoyed’ the extreme heat, and some of us enjoyed a bit of very tasty, hot coffee. We could see the results of the cheese co-op – and several of our group actually bought a bunch of it. But they only make the cheese in the mornings.
We decided to go home the more direct route. There is a road (relative term) that goes from the CA2 through La Quesera and up the mountain to Berlin. The time was the same due to the quality of road but fewer miles. The 26 miles from Nueva Esperanza back to Berlin only took about an hour and a half. I was hauling pretty fast up that mountain and probably cut off 15 minutes of driving. By this point, I was very hot and tired. We all were – I had 5 people standing in the back for all this driving today and 3 in the hot cab of the truck. What slowed me down often was the need to allow the massive herds of cattle to pass us on the roads. We probably had to slow down for a dozen herds of 30 or more each.
I started this blog last night but didn’t get very far. I think I was asleep by 8:10.
Reader Comments (1)
Kathy forgot to mention here that she drove us down a "street" that was actually a place for trains and had railroad tracks. Granted, it was at the misdirection of others shouting from the back of the pickup.