CHEAP FOOD AND MEDICAL EQUIPMENT
Tuesday, 17 April 2007

Pickup trucks have been going around for several days announcing that there will be a mercado on Plaza Bolívar today, i.e. at the plaza between us and the parish church. Last night somebody was setting up marquises as shade and a erecting a sound system as well. While the padre is still in the middle of morning mass around 0830 the sound system ius turned on full blast to entertain the line-up of people around the plaza for cheap staple food. People, mostly but not exclusively women and children, are already lined up around the square. The priest gets through the rest of the mass as quickly as he can.

This is part of Chávez’s Misione to the hungry. Organisers in red Chavista t-shirts or from Municipalio Diáz (our local municipality’s name) sell rice, oil, corn floor, sugar, canned goods, and even chicken at vastly reduced prices. There doesn’t seem to be any ID necessary and no one seems to be assuring that no hoarding is going on. First come, first served. It is probably better just to get the foodstuffs distributed and not to worry too much about controls. On the other hand, I do not see people like Chilo or Gustavo in line: there is nobody in line who is as down and out as those guys: they are often reduced to begging for change or food. Maybe they can’t even get themselves organised or maybe they don’t want to be seen as a man in line with women for food. But I do see several 6 or 7-member families (women and children only) leaving the plaza, each with a standard plastic shopping bag with food in it. More staff is unloading wheel chairs, walking frames and similar items to be handed out later.