This morning, we make it in time. When the feria opens at 5:45, we are inside, standing in front of the frozen juice pulp cooperative's stand, watching as the warehouse doors open and people come rushing in. They are, indeed, running, a river of people coming toward us which then veers sharply left and right into the viveres and mini-feria sections. Once inside, there is a great yanking of carts and snatching of baskets, and people careening down the aisles. By 6 o'clock, when we head over to the comedor with Conchi to check for some coffee, the checkout lines are already 15 people deep. By the time we return, they are nearly twice as long, and this is with something like 30 cash registers in action.
I know I've talked a lot about the ideas we've encountered so far at Cecosesola. And there is much more to tell...like about the creativity that brought them to show their strength in numbers by passing a carrot through a human chain from one of their ferias all the way to the city transportation office during a showdown over the city's repossession of their buses when they were in the public transit business in the 90s. (Whew, there: I got that in). But today, after my first long day of work in the feria--I returned to the escuela around 3:30--I feel more inclined to share a bit of technical grocer-type information. My apologies ahead of time to those I might bore.
Alejandra, Jacob and I started the day la feria grande, in the section named el monte, which resembles OFC's wet rack in terms of what is sold: 5 types of lettuce (iceberg, criollo, romano, genovesa, y escarola) green onions (cebollin), leeks (ajo porro) spinach (espinaca), italian parsley (perejil), minature celery (apio de españa), chard (acelga) and of course, cilantro. El monte is not refrigerated, much like the rest of the feria, with the exception of a few cases for prepared meat and cheese, and a carniceria and charcuteria in the larger warehouse. The greens are not bound, but rather stacked in displays that are a long line of steel mesh tables. Shoppers search for their favorite head or bunch and snap off any leaves or roots they don't want to pay for (all produce in the feria grande costs the same amount and is weighed by the pound).
At any one time there can be 5-20 people shopping a particular display, which results in piles of broken and rejected greens scattered throughout. A worker's job is to sort through and remove the vegetable shards, which are then weighed by type and counted against what was ordered and received. This step is especially useful because workers at Cecosesola do inventory every week, so they are able to keep a very exacting eye on their sales and shrink, and track them on a weekly basis. If waste is particularly high one week, they know to check in with the farmer or the workers to find out why the vegetables weren't holding up the way they should. Once the waste is sorted into reused onion sacks, it is then brought to the granja, where it is mixed with the manure and coffee husks that make up Cecosesola's signature compost blend.
Working el monte is fast-paced and people-centered. The cilantro, and sometimes other fragile leafy greens like the perejil and apio de españa are given out by hand because they don't hold up well being left on a counter to be picked apart. As I am handing out cilantro, I feel like my head is on a swivel because of the incredible number of people crowding in front of the displays. There are shouts of ¡Mami! ¡Muchacha! ¡Senora! Dame un poquito de cilantro. ¿Hay mas del criollo? ¿Ajo porro mas fina? And so on. I learn the names of the vegetables I didn't know ahead of time, and fast. Beside me, Conchi's brusque and personable voice is saying ¡La mitad o todo! over and over again, everytime she catches someone trying to break a single stock of celery.
After breakfast we head over to viveres, where they are down several workers and where it is, officially, madness. Many of the huge, Cosco-style bins Cecosesola uses for their grocery products are nearly empty, their bottoms coated in milk powder, rice, or cereal on account of broken bags. The lines from the cash registers are two aisles deep, and it is hard for Ale and I to find space to stand as we begin to stock our first bin. Our hands and clothes are quickly covered with box dust. Soon, I am climbing on top of displays (Virginia, eat your heart out :) to hand down boxes of products that are nearly out below. In order to make it through the next few hours we a bin full of more Cronch Flakes than the the amount of cereal the Westside is likely to sell in a week.
We move from one decimated display to the next, and try to help people as they ask after their favorite brands, or about the limits placed on certain hard-to-come-by items. At one point, I'm asked which of two powdered milks is the most delicious, a question that, as with many others, I have no idea how to answer. As we continue through the aisles, however, I begin to get a sense of the names of products and where they are located. I learn the Venezuelan pronunciation of Cheez Whiz. I stock a large coffee in a small coffee's space and have to switch them all over. Poco a poco I begin to get some kind of sense of what I'm doing, and by the end of the day I'm able to answer more questions than not.
After the feria closes Conchi and Jeni come to hang out. We talk for a while on the patio outside the escuela, and then a farmer shows up with a surplus of pineapple, which we eat and eat. Tomorrow we'll take the day off, sleep in, clean the escuela, and in the afternoon head to the houses of our host families. Jacob with Conchi, who is a volunteer from Spain and who lives in an apartment not far from the feria del centro, Ale with Snaeda and her large family (her eldest son also works in the feria) and I with Ricardo and his partner, who is 8 months pregnant, and their and young child. There will be much to say about these dear people in the coming weeks, and about the fight to get visas for those who are set to come to Olympia to complete our exchange in May. But for now I will say goodnight, and let you know that I'm not sure what internet will be like after I leave the escuela, so stay tuned, and I'll update when I can.
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