La Caravana Escuela
What drives us
La Caravana Escuela
What drives us
Living in Mérida, the state with the highest mountains in Venezuela, at the beginning of the longest mountain range on the planet, makes us part of a geography of altitude. We are a people with our own customs and a particular understanding of Nature. Here, in the Venezuelan Andes, the land is worked in the traditional way. Given how steep the arable slopes are, mechanization is not possible, and the sowing and harvesting of vegetables and wheat is done by hand and with the help of working animals: oxen, mules and horses.
Apart from providing us with food and fresh water, the Andes are everything for the Andeans. Given the uncomfortable distance that separates us from the beaches of our beautiful Caribbean Sea, climbing and exploring these mountains are our usual way of spending time. Going into the high mountains on long walks and camping in search of tranquility are our ideal vacations. Here and there, coming or going, the contact with farmers, their animals and working tools are familiar to us. What’s also familiar are the difficulties they face in their working lives, sometimes in challenging conditions of cold, ice and rain, to generate sustenance with the planting and harvesting on which we all depend.
Mountain life is hard and simple: fire, land, water and work with hand tools, a way of life that dates back thousands of years and has hardly changed in these highlands. A little over a century ago, modernity brought us gasoline and electricity, which progressively displaced hand tools and traditional ways. Soon cargo trucks replaced mules and horses, and then planting wheat was forgotten because wheat flour was now imported. But at a certain point in our recent history everything changed, and these elements became alarmingly scarce, and suddenly normality turned into tragedy, leaving farmers and crops at the mercy of distance. Mules and horses were again used to take crops out of the mountains but, due to the lack of horseshoes, the hooves of the animals were worn out with the asphalt. Many horses and mules could not eat and died. Meanwhile, hundreds of hectares planted with wheat rotted due to lack of sickles to harvest them before the rainy season.
The Iron Forge
Iron has been forged for more than 5,000 years. The 'stones of heaven' were forged from meteoric iron with which primitive weapons were made. People then learned to forge the iron ore emerging from the earth with blows of hammer, heated with fire to obtain a metal harder than copper and bronze. The craft of forging evolved and, thanks to iron, empires and civilizations were forged: spears, swords and shields were made for war; pans, knives and pots for the kitchen; shovels, picks and hoes for planting; pistons, wheels and rails for trains; and, finally, bridges, buildings, skyscrapers and megastructures.
Paradoxically, even though the whole of modern civilization is literally modeled on iron (Fe), from the office of the skyscraper it is easy for people in the great metropolises to feel distant from that ancient blacksmith who forged iron by dint of hammer and sweat. This scenario seems bygone, like a sepia-tinted film. But for today’s farmers working in the Venezuelan Andes with skillful hands hardened with work, the trade of blacksmithing is both opportune and viable. Farmers have begun to make the difference between scarcity and abundance when they pick up a piece of rusty iron and by fire and muscular strength transform it into a useful and valuable tool for sowing and harvesting food for the family as well as the people in faraway cities.
Over time, the word forge has taken on a broader meaning than its primitive relationship with iron: character and hero are forged, as well as freedom and human spirit. As above, so below, and the farmers who forge their tools, also forge their character, their future and the future of us all.
¿Crisis or opportunity?
Knowing that the realities of the countryside are so similar to that of the blacksmith, we ask ourselves: how is it that there is practically no tradition of forging in the Venezuelan Andes, with huge coal mines so close by? Such ancient and useful knowledge can make all the difference in mountain communities. With the worsening economic situation in the country, something had to be done to help Andean farmers, and urgently. A way was needed to bring forging to the villages in an orderly and pedagogical way but, at the same time, it had to be practical.
At the beginning of 2019, pushed by the crisis, La Caravana Escuela arrived in the village of Gavidia, 3,350 meters (10,990 feet) above sea level, with three tons of tools and coal, four dormitory tents, a kitchen tent and a workshop tent. It had an ancient and necessary mission: to teach people how to forge from disused steel that they collected. With forges heated with mineral coal by pedal force, knowledge was shared so the farmers could manufacture their own implements and agricultural tools. In the heart of the village, after a week of intensive classes, and 200 hours of burning forges, and hundreds of new tools, the forge of iron is in Gavidia to stay. Further, once the course was finished, a well-equipped and fully functioning Rural Forging Workshop was installed in the community. The Workshop would be supplied with the forge, anvils, hammers, multiple hand tools and a continuous supply of mineral coal. This became the way to prevent a horse from dying due to lack of shoes or a crop from being lost because there were no sickles.