How time flies.

Hola Comp@s,

A whirlwind tour if ever there was one, I've spent the last few days muddling through various communication attempts, attending many inspiring and some not-so-inspiring panels, attempting to find workshops, and generally hanging about in the Parque Central area of Caracas.

Highlights included:
* Varios amazing conversations with my co-delegates the reductions of which are forthcoming

* Proposing the Stop Killer Coke campaign to the Assembly of Social Movements of the World Social Forum (hereinafter 'foro') in a huge, packed auditorium

* Hearing Hugo Chavez (in person) bust out in 'Sombrero Azul', a classic resistance song of El Salvador, as a tribute to the recently passed leader within the FMLN, Shafik Handal

* A brief morning hike through the mountains surrounding Caracas

* There were several labor forums, and a workshop on the recovered factories movement. One of my fellow co-delegates had an enormous memory and history of various socialist-communist tendencies within the US and their geneology, so I spent an evening wiht rapt attention plying him for information about the whole universe of Trots (which I really didn´t understand all that well, I have to admit)

* Every morning that I walked by the rooms workers were cleaning in the hotel where we stayed, the TV was tuned to Canal Ocho (the government station)

* Today I saw one of the cleanest, best-ventilated garment and shoe factories I'd ever seen (and the first I'd seen in person, I've seen many videos and photos) as a government cooperative project

* A guy from Bogota and an elderly Brazilian hippie helped me to find the place where free buses took people to the airport.

hola de venezuela

allo compañeros,

I"m here! There"s not much to report, but the delegation I"m with will be checking in today. There was a looong bus ride with a beautiful view, crazy fellow Foro-goers, and many people wanting to smoke who"d been on planes for 15-hour stretches. Check bck for updates!

Yours,
Sr. Max