Construyendo la Confianza (new pictures of the granja)

The night before our first reunion de gestión at Cecosesola, Alejandra and I are nervous.

In many ways, los reuniones de gestión resemble collective meetings at OFC: they are gatherings of the whole collective that happen in three different groups, during which collective members make decisions about everything from how to speed up the lines at the registers to whether or not to start a new education program to better fulfill their mission. In other ways, the reuniones are very different. Here at Cecosesola there is no agenda, for example, and no designated facilitator. Meetings last as long as they need to: sometimes 2 hours, sometimes 7, and the ferias are closed while people meet. In addition, workers from Cecosesola's affiliated co-ops are invited to attend meetings, and can bring up any concerns they may have from the point of view of production, etc. Additional reuniones de gestión are held weekly for new collective members, where they learn about the history and practices of Cecosesola as an organization and are invited to do their own research about the history of the cooperative movement, and present what they've learned. Another way Cecosesola's reuniones are distinct from OFC's is simple: size. Dividing Cecosesola's approximately 580 workers into three groups still equals a heck of a lot of people. This is the primary thing wreaking havoc with mine and Ale's nerves.

We practice our short speech, Ale from notes, me from the miniature essay I've written with the help of the monstrous verb book and dictionary I thank my lucky stars I lugged here every day. It's not incredibly late, but we are exhausted from two days straight of absorbing new information. We mumble through what we've planned and head off to bed.

In the morning, people begin to arrive at the escuela, the site of the meeting and of the dormitorio where we've been staying, a little after 7. A particularity of this co-op in comparison with every other I've experienced is that people tend to arrive not only on time but early. By the time Ale and I head outside a few minutes before 8:00 (late, or so it it seems) there more than 150 people already gathered in a circle several rows deep on the shaded patio outside the escuela. The meeting begins with news from one of the producer co-ops and moves to a discussion about the impact on the stores when many workers leave together for breakfast. Decision-making is discussed, and the effect boards of directors have on the collective process. Strong coffee is passed around along with sugar buns and a hard pastry that looks like a horseshoe. At times the low murmur of a hundred people listening and reacting to each other swells to a rumble, and the group is called back to attention by means of hand claps and piercing whistles. By the time Ale and I and several students from Evergreen, most of whom are working in Cecosesola affiliates, are set to introduce ourselves, some of my nerves have settled because I'm so interested in what's being said.

Our presentation goes smoothly. The compañer@s welcome us warmly and ask thoughtful questions about our involvement in the community and the relationship of OFC's low-income membership to the economic crisis in the U.S. We talk together about how to build confianza, a term that denotes a combination of trust and mutual support that is a central value among compañer@s at Cecosesola. And this is what sticks with me for the rest of the day. I think about the ways I see confianza at OFC—like the fact that I know that if worst came to worst my co-workers and I would do anything for each other—and I think of the ways I think our confianza needs to grow.

One of the main themes Ale and I are here to investigate through our exchange with Cecosesola is how consensus-based decision-making works on such a large scale. At times we feel so stretched to come to consensus at OFC, and we often think it's because of our size. And indeed, how could it not be difficult for 76 people to agree on the best way forward in a given situation, when it can be exhausting just figure out with a group of friends where to have lunch?

What is obvious to us almost as soon as we arrive, and certainly by the end of this first meeting, is that confianza is a huge part of what makes consensus decision-making possible at Cecosesola. With 580 people, it's crucial that each compañer@ be able to trust the other, that each have a deep respect for the others' opinion, and that each have as a complete a picture as possible of what it means to think in terms of the good of the whole.

Once I'm thinking about confianza, I see examples of it everywhere. Here are a few.

1. The compañer@s at Cecosesola share food daily. Each feria has an attached comedor, or cafeteria, and a rotating equipo that cooks lunch on weekdays, as well as breakfast, lunch and sometimes dinner while the ferias are open at the end of the week. A midday snack of fororo or chicha makes its way around the different worksites in the afternoon. Eating together may not seem directly related to building trust, but as the coffee was passed around this morning during our meeting, it occurred to me what a big deal it is that the members of this collective have made it a priority to meet one of each others' most basic human needs by providing delicious, home-cooked quality food, and by pausing together to share it. In so doing, it seems to me, they are saying to each other “your nourishment and well-being are important to me.” And they are taking time together that is not specifically focused on work.

2. During the meeting, Gustavo, one of Cecosesola's long-time members, shares a engaging ten-minute documentary, Culto de Cerro, which analyzes the right to private property and its historical effect on the environment, women's rights, and society as a whole. Afterwards, there is a lively reflection which incorporates the video's societal critique with various collective members' work and life experience. This seems to me a crucial point—that as a collective, workers at Cecosesola regularly take time to discuss issues not directly related to their daily work, even, and perhaps especially, when these issues are complex and likely to illicit strong opinions. An incredible amount of trust is built when people are vulnerable to reveal convictions that are of great importance to them, and when each person has a chance to be heard. Most importantly, workers at Cecosesola engage each other in such discussions when no immediate decisions need to be made. Over time, I think these regular conversations have helped Cecosesola's workers get to know each other in a truly multi-faceted way. They have helped pave the road for difficult discussions that eventually lead to decision-making, and they have helped the group as a whole evolve common values so that these decisions have a broad base of shared interest and language to draw upon.

3. And then, there's the granja. In the afternoon, after lunch, Ale and I ride with Jesus to Cecosesola's farm 45 minutes out of Barquisimeto. We enjoy every minute of our leisurely tour from the baby goats just born that morning, to the wild chickens, the 4 lagunas where tilapia and cachama are raised for sale in the ferias, the beautiful blond-coated free-ranging cows, and the compost system where cow, goat, and sheep manure are mixed with coffee husks and produce waste in the ferias to create rich growing mixture also to be sold. It is all so relaxing and beautiful, Alejandra asks Jesus if this is his favorite job in the co-op rotation. He says it is.

Then he takes us up a steep hill to a different section of Cecosesola's land. The farm dog runs in front of the truck in the late afternoon heat. Above the farm and the lagunas Cecosesola's workers have built un parque de recreo. Here there are swingsets and playground equipment. Spaces for bolla criolla, ping pong, billards, and dominos. There's a salt water pool to cool off in, and in the center of the space a huge round building of indigenous design with a palm roof for reuniones. Set up so high, the area has a breathtaking view of the farmland that leads up to Barquisimeto and the mountains beyond. Workers at Cecosesola come here on their days off to relax with their families, and several times a year fiestas are held for the whole collective to attend.

And I realize this is another way to build confianza, a way for workers to enjoy time together without the pressure of work and deadlines, to see each other as whole people, to know each others' given and chosen families, and to deepen their respect and care for each other, both of which are likely to prove crucial later when difficult decisions need to be made.

Each of the above examples could easily be seen as a waste of time and resources for an organization trying to survive on a budget, or to a worker who simply wants to put in their time and go home. And while we at OFC take seriously—as we should—the fiscal responsibility we have with the money members of our community entrust to us by way of their purchases, I would like to argue that our money and time might be well-spent investing in ways to build greater confianza among workers. That a stronger measure of confianza in OFC's worker collective might give us a stronger basis upon which to make informed, supportive, grounded and efficient decisions together, no matter how big we grow, and even when the going gets tough.

                                      (photo credit: Alejandra Abreu)