tamara's blog

Well, as one friend pointed out, these elections took place following difficult economic conditions, in which governments on a global level have been very unpopular. Nevertheless, my feeling is that these results are a reflection more of political than economic discontent.

» read more

Some people try to classify this process here. It’s a useful exercise in terms of analysing what is going on, where it is going and which forces, classes and social groups really have the power and for whom this revolution is serving. Yet statements like ‘it’s a working class revolution’ or the Chavez government is totally ‘bourgeois’ or  ‘the PSUV is good’  or ‘bad’ do not work, because what is going on here is far more complex. It’s an un-won battle between a range of forces, many of which are confused and obscured by red t-shirts or sloganeering for one side or the other.

» read more

We were pretty annoyed when we found out someone had occupied the land that we’ve been struggling for for over year.

It’s a piece of land that is within the area covered by our communal council and technically belongs to the mayoralty, but hasn’t been used for ages because it’s quite a long but skinny piece of land.

» read more

It was Friday night, young guys and students were drinking beer outside the barrio entrance, next to the main road. We met one member of the Milagrosa barrio, and walked past the drinkers, up a steep path until we reached a blue house

» read more

I was really moved by the Venezuelan reaction to the coup in Honduras. On two levels… One was the way everyone (well obviously not everyone, there are always those who go about their shopping and drinking and soapie watching as if the world is not a bigger place..) but a lot of people were somewhat glued to their televisions, watching the events progress, and here in Merida a crowd gathered from 12pm in the plaza to protest.

» read more

I went with M to the university dining area for dinner, where he used his student card and his mum's student card to get us both the free meal. Dinner that night was two bread rolls, a kind of porridge type soup (atol its called), an apple, jelly, cooked sweet plantain, cheese, and lettuce type salad. All uni students can eat lunch and dinner for free during week days at these dinning rooms.

» read more

Thanks to J for suggesting we go to IMMFA (Merida Institute for Women and the Family) to see what the folks there are up to. Apparently they were pretty cool when they were first set up then there was a new ‘team' and they started to just focus on domestic violence, and now there's a new team again and some of the original team and they are getting more into the structural side of things, the active side of things.

» read more

Last Saturday I went to a meeting of the "Ideological formation and attention for women centre", which as far as I can tell is the only decent feminist organisation fighting for women here- the rest are all wishy washy organisations that do what ever Chavez says (or see supporting Chavez in elections as feminist activity), and mostly see feminist stuff as fighting against violence and poverty (which it is) but not challenging women's role in society (mother, active in the background only, cooking, caring, object of beauty) and generally against abortion.

» read more

Christmas (the religious holiday or the end of year break, either way) is here- there are loud bangs all day and all night (as I was walking to the phone, about 4 electric workers gleefully lit a cracker in the street, setting off all the car alarms nearby..."another one, another one!"), Christmas trees are going up on campus, in offices (including public ones- no laws against that here I guess), there's one in the hallway of my house (a first for me), and people are having end of work and study dinners etc.

» read more

Librarians have a key role to play in their communities. This is one of the main ideas I got out of the closing forum of the book festival, and something I have to admit I haven’t thought about much, despite my passion for literature.

» read more