Going places

                                                  
Hello again friends!

At the beginning of our second week at Cecosesola, things are starting to find a rhythm. Not every moment is new anymore, though of course I am still learning a great deal. I think I am finally starting to get accustomed to the schedule, which very closely follows daylight hours. So this morning, for example, I actually found myself rising early enough (read: 5:45! people who know me well will get what a big deal this is) to go for a jog alongside the Bolivarian university near Ricardo and Michel´s house, where I´ll be staying for the coming week. Last night I played several rousing games of cards, including a princess themed memory game with Wlanchel, Richardo & Michel´s daughter. Michel and Ricardo´s house is small and lovely, with cement floors, brightly colored walls, and a kitchen under construction. I am staying in the newly built room that will be Wlanchel´s when her younger sister is born. I had heard, before going to stay with them, that Michel was eight months pregnant, but this morning, Ricardo told me that they think she´s in the last week of her pregnancy! What amazing generosity to invite a visitor into your home at such a time!

Speaking of generosity, we have received so much of it since arriving here at Cecosesola, from the farmer who brought us an armful of piñas after the feria closed on Sunday, to the oatmeal hamburgers Ricardo and I had for breakfast this morning, to the incredible amount of time several compañeros have spent showing us around, teaching us how to work in the ferias, inviting us into their families, etc. What a sad contrast it was yesterday as we sat down with Ricardo and Sneida to talk the problems they and their compañeros, Javier and Jesus, are having as they try to obtain visas for their upcoming exchange with OFC. Sneida has already been to the U.S. Embassy in Caracas once, and was immediately turned down for a visa...that is, immediately after waiting around the embassy for nearly ten hours. The reasons: she hadn´t demostrated sufficient ties to her country, and her financial resources didn´t pan out on paper. In other words, in the U.S. government´s way of thinking, she might arrive in Olympia and try to stay in the country instead of returning to Venezuela.

And here´s where it gets infuriating. In order to prove to the embassy that Sneida and her compañeros have ¨sufficient ties¨ to their country, they need testimonials from Cecosesola to prove that they are dedicated workers who make a decent salary and that their jobs will be waiting for them when they return. They need a history of previous exchanges Cecosesola has undertaken and proof that those who were sent abroad did return. They need to open and provide information about bank accounts. They need to present titles to their houses, if they have them (as Venezuela works its way through land reform, residents of the barrios often don´t have house titles to despite often having built them from the ground up). They have to provide detailed information about their familial relationships: whether they have children to raise, good relationships with their spouses, etc. They need need to submit detailed itineraries with exact dates for entering and leaving the country, and they are NOT allowed to purchase plane tickets before their interviews. They need detailed letters of invittation from the Olympia Food Coop and other community organizations. They need the names, addresses, and phone numbers of the people they will be staying with, and they need a guarantee from an organization that any unexpected expenses related to their stay will be covered.

And after all of this, the staff at the embassy may or may read only a minimum amount of the information gathered. They may decide to reject any of these companeños based on a divorce in progress, or whether or not they´ve ever traveled outside the country before. And it costs more than $140 U.S., a serious amount of money, to apply for a visa each time, no matter whether or not you get turned down.

In the next week, we will be working to collect letters and signatures, and to do everything we can to make sure these visas get through. We will be looking forward to providing as much hospitality as we can when these friends finally arrive in Olympia. But right now, it´s hard. Here we are:  incredibly fortunate to be spending our time with these brilliant, competent, generous people for whom solidarity is such a central value, having to confront the fact, together, that our government sees them as reason for suspicion, and often worse.