Andrés for President

My motley crew of running mates assembled at our gate just as the peaks of the Fumarola took on a soft pink glow. That last hour of daylight in these foothills of the Venezuelan Andes is the most magical of all.

As soon as I stepped outside, Andrés took my hand, with purpose. Knowing that I was new to running, he figured I would be safer jogging down the steep mountain road in the sure grip of his five-year-old hand.

I asked him the whereabouts of his older siblings - the twins, and the Pelona. His mom forbid them to run today, he said. Running made them even more hungry, and they were hungry enough. I’m not sure how Andrés was granted an exception, probably via those gentle doe eyes.

The runners, ages 5-13, were all members of our farming kids collective, Club Conuco Colibri. We had set Tuesdays and Fridays as days to run together, just for fun. Soon, we were off….. Whizzing past caraota and potato fields, past skinny cows and grazing horses, past sheep and shephards, past the eucalyptus trees casting shadows onto the irrigation lake.

The cool air mountain filled my lungs, the majestic Fumarola lifted my spirits and the warm hand of Andrés lifted my heart, I was flying, my worries about this imploding country flung aside, my anguish for these beloved little running mates tossed to the wind. As the gentle slope coaxed me easily downhill, I felt déja vu for the easy slide into good living Venezuela had experienced only a few years back. Healthcare, education, housing, food, the good life - it seemed there for everyone.

As we ran on and on Andrés held tight to my hand. I was not used to jogging while hand-holding (or jogging at all for that matter), but it was kind of nice. He had no problem keeping my pace.

Several kilometers later we reached our goal - the cotoperí tree right beside the churning river. We tumbled into a pile and Andrés plopped in my lap. We allowed ourselves to rest and to laugh and just be together. No need to think about the approaching night, or the long uphill walk home, or the hunger stirring in our bellies.

But as the mountain turned from pink to crimson, we rose quietly to begin the long return hike. How different the journey home: Arduous, steep, dark, dangerous, and with hunger in our bellies. Like that journey we are on now as a nation – or at least those of us remaining.

As crimson turned to black I realized that I was following these children, so sure-footed on this mountain. They looped their arms into mine, grounding me, guiding me, protecting me from unknown precipices, lurking snakes, ghosts of which they spoke quietly. As the stars began to fill the night sky, Andrés deposited me at my gate, tired but safe. Hasta mañana Lisa he said with a huge hug, then raced up the hill to his home, and probably an empty table.

Andrés is the youngest of our kids farming collective, which is best described as something of a ragtag 4H group, or perhaps a community CSA where kids are the farmers and the shareholders. It all started a few years ago - rather spontaneously, when my neighbor Fabi – then age 10 - showed up one day to help me plant (yet another) mango tree and asked when I would start planting something that turned into food more quickly. Until then, I had only planted fruit trees – hundreds of them, but admittedly, it took several years from digging a hole to getting something into your mouth.

This was just the beginning of the food crisis (little did we imagine…..) but Fabi already had a vision, as she eyed the only flat spot on my land, recently bulldozed for a future gazebo. She showed up at 6 am the next morning with her cousin Jonjon, a sack of goat manure, some bamboo poles and a plan. They set to work with hoes and shovels and by early afternoon we had some decent raised beds.

By the next weekend Fabi returned with 5 of her siblings, the next Sunday she showed up with 10 of her cousins, and before we knew it, we were gardening every Sunday morning with some 40 young neighbors. Soon, we were swimming in lettuce and chard, tomatoes and green beans, zucchini and kale.

Before long, salad veggies made room for higher calorie-protein crops craved by the hungry kids: yucca and plantains, squash and corn, a rainbow array of soup beans, growing on vines, bushes, covering trees and coffee plants. We even grew our spices, our medicine, our drinks and our bowls (via a totuma or gourd tree). And of course our sweets: mangoes, bananas, mamones, guamas, guabas, guanabanas, and much much more.

Andrés – my running mate - was all of three when he joined his three siblings - Morocho, Morocha and Pelona - those first Sunday mornings. I worried that he would just be in the way at such a young age, but far from it,. Each Sunday Andrés found a task to take on and set forth with unflagging determination and order. Often, his focus was the compost pile. Like a one-man army of ants, he spent hours carting buckets and buckets of materials to help it grow: leaves, sticks, weeds, peels, sheep poop, hay. He seemed to innately understand that this – a pile of discarded rotting objects, would become the key to our food, our lives.

Before long, teachers and community leaders were asking the kids to give workshops to share their pretty successful and unique techniques. Inevitably, Andrés offered to take over when the explanation of our compost system came its turn.

In our farming collective our leaders are quite simply those who work the hardest. The kids themselves decide who should be a “guia” , which basically means you have to do a whole lot more work than everyone else.

In our country of Venezuela, our leaders have been chosen by elections. All of a sudden, eight months ahead of schedule, a snap presidential election has been called, by the president. Causing everyone who is not the president to shuffle a bit. It’s a bit hard to get a presidential campaign together in a few weeks.

(Personally, I would be all for just calling forth those who just work the hardest like our guias of Conuco Colibri, but of course, that never works in politics.)

And so, that leaves one big problem. No one wants to run against the president. Some say because no one can beat him. Others say because the rules of the race are set by him and for him. But, no matter what, it’s become an embarrasing problem to find at least one running mates to make it look like a real election. An obscure evangelical pastor just stepped forward, but he so unknown and so scandal-clad that it´s a stretch to get him on the ballot.

So, here is my solution: Andres for President. Sure, he is only five years old. But he has a better handle on the solutions to Venezuela’s main problem than does the current president and the political opposition combined, hands down. He knows how to grow food. (Seems like no one else does in the country). He know how to work hard. (Granted, that is a bit hard these days since it costs more to go to work in a day than what you actually earn at work in a day.) He can turn a garbage dump into gold. (Handy, since our oil industry is all but kaputs). He gives a helping hand to those in need. (Seems better than giving a hand only to those who gives you the votes first).

And, listen, he has the cutest little doe eyes that would look fabulous on bilboards. He’s got my vote. Andrés for President.