Owen Richards
We're crammed into a small kitchen, maybe three by four metres, with blue concrete walls. Lining the walls are shelves stocked with kitchen basics — string bags of potatoes, garlic cloves, carrots, pumpkins and melons. There's a bucket of chopped onions. A giant stainless steel pot waits empty on the gas stove. Four women and a man, in matching red aprons, hand-roll fish cakes and banana balls. A tiny wall fan hums in the background.
It could be a kitchen anywhere, but it's quite different. The members of the Caracas section of the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Brigade are here in Guaicaipuro Casa de Alimentaciones on July 29, witnessing firsthand one of the social achievements of the Bolivarian revolution. It is here in this modest house that 150 people come daily to receive two free meals.
There are some 4000 of these kitchens now across Venezuela. They are only possible because of the revolutionary will of the Venezuelan people and the assistance provided by the government of President Hugo Chavez.
Established to guarantee access to nutritious food — particularly for pregnant women, children, the over-60s and the extreme poor — the casas are nonetheless open to all.
They will not accept any money for the food, not even a donation. In fact, they have been instructed by the government to feed everyone who visits, even if they be from rich First World countries. And that is how we came to be eating delicious fishcakes, banana balls and rice complimented by endless arepas and fruit juices. The point of feeding tourists and fact-finders, they tell us, is to show the world that their food is both tasty and nutritious.
While the casas are a grassroots phenomenon driven by the compassion and solidarity of their volunteer work force, they are assisted in every possible way by the Venezuelan government. According to one of the cooks, the government provided all of the kitchen equipment, including the fridge and the oven. The government also assists on an ongoing basis by donating 60,000 bolivars a month to help pay the bills. Recently Chavez granted the workers a small bonus in income support.
The five cooks are not professional chefs, but have received training in hygiene and food preparation. The kitchen uses ingredients grown in the environmentally friendly urban gardens.
The Guaicaipuro Casa is connected with other social programs in the neighbourhood. It promotes itself through the local independent media centre and has close relations with the Barrio Adentro medical clinic we visited earlier. Consultation is made between the kitchen and the clinic to ensure that meals are well planned to meet dietary requirements and ensure a high nutritional content.
The cooks have a close personal relationship with those who visit and keep information on their particular social and/or health problems and recommend them to the appropriate services, such as Barrio Adentro, employment programs, drug rehabilitation schemes, etc. The Cuban doctors at Barrio Adentro also make monthly health checks on everyone.
There's a queue forming outside — hungry members of the Committee for Urban Gardens. Before we leave, we give the workers a copy of Green Left Weekly and explain that we have been telling their story in the paper.
"There are two things we want the world to know", one worker says. "This kitchen is not about charity. Nutritious food is a basic human right. Also, please emphasise that the people of this community are totally with Chavez. If anyone tries anything, they will face us. This is not only a Venezuelan revolution — it's Bolivarian, Christian, socialist. It's a revolution for the world and we will defend it."
From Green Left Weekly, August 24, 2005.
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