staying in the barrio

ola from, la vega, caracas
i finally got time to sit down at a computer for longer than 10 minutes. i am staying in la vega , a caracas barrio with a very poor but amazingly kind and hospitable family. it would take months to describe my experiences of the one week i have been here.
my spanish is bad but getting better sort of.
la vega is the poorest and most organized barrio in cararcas as far as community involvement goes. it has the most communal councils and the people are the most active.
poverty is deep and improvements small. i have met many community organizers but very few organized workers. did meet with several SIDOR steel workers
occupations of huge office buildings and banks that are empty have in the last 8-10 years been successful in housing huge numbers of precariously housed workers and poor people. toured several of them - more on that later.
it seems that as far as the living standards for low paid workers and poor the improvements in their living standards are slow and in our eyes small and are dependent on the activity and organizational strength of the communal councils.
the situation among organized workers seems complex and i have yet to talk to a workers group other than the SIDOR WORKERS. HARD TO GET AWAY FROM THE CHAVISTA ÓFFICIAL LINE SOMETIMES.
we may go out to a worker controlled factory we have asked for that. i do not have the stats and figures on worker controlled factories AND factories that are co mananaged.
some inprovement in some schools, education and culture are mixed . 3 neals a day served in many schools - more poor kids getting a chanch at completing high school and more off to the overall very confused and mixed and all sorts of social movements and left organizations abound and the theme seems to be ideas from all over the left from mao to trotsky etc etc.
very difficult to sort it all out . certainly not a socialist revolution yet. in my opinion chavez has to get a move on - start moving faster to nationalize the land and the banks etc.
many jobs are casual and part time. the garbage everywhere . infrequent pick up. cannot drink the water here at all.
sorry not much analysis here but it is overwhelming just keeping track of all the infoand grasp what i am seeing and hearing.
however i will say that if everytime i heard the word revolucion i had a drink i would be drunk 10 minutes after getting up. imagine in america or canada local community centres with books by trotsky and lenin and rosa and chomsky and poets and artists that has educational sessions combined with music and poetry.
still sorting out the bolivarian nationalism as people understand it and links with the struggle for <´socialism. pardon the spelling-no time to check it out.
one of the women in tha family has just arrived to teach me some spanish so must go now.
caio