VENEZUELA: A Tractor for Sanare

Old men puffed frostily, and baby-laden women walked beside them with chattering teeth. It was not yet dawn, and chilly, but on the mountain paths leading to Sanare. 4,400 ft. up in the western Venezuelan Andes, and on the rutty road leading to Sanare from the “outside.” everyone was elated. Hardly a young man among the 5.000 travelers was not carrying a guitar, a violin or a pair of maracas (seed-filled gourds). Making up words as they went along, they sang:

We’re going to see the tractor, The marvelous tractor of Sanare!

Reaching Sanare, the throng poured into the sports stadium. There stood a wonderful brute of a tractor, aflutter with flags and painted a fire-engine red. The timid countrymen hung back, black eyes shining—although as members of the Friends of Sanare Society, they were all part-owners of the tractor.

Sanare is an area rich in coffee, fruit and flowers, but its 15,000 farmers are poor because, for lack of roads, the produce must be hauled out inefficiently over mule paths. To remedy this situation, the society last March resolved to buy a roadbuilding tractor. “Even the poorest farmhands gave a bolivar (30^), and one rich man sent 10,000,” said Pablo Jose Tamayo, president of the society. “But he who gave 10,000 is neither more nor less the owner than the man who gave only one.” Last August, having raised 95,000 bolivars, the Friends ordered an International Harvester TD-24 with bulldozer.

The fiesta marking its arrival began with an open-air Mass and a blessing of the machine. Then the Friends of Sanare feasted on rum and roast veal, and danced their traditional step, the tamunangue. Next day, in Sanare’s old colonial plaza, they gathered and Mayor Rodriguez Diaz climbed upon the tractor.

“I speak at this emotional moment,” he said, “not as your mayor, but as a simple son of Sanare. And this is all I want to ‘say. They tell us that this machine has 148 horsepower, and that may be so. But of one thing I am sure: the people of Sanare have a heart of 148 horsepower!”

“Ole! Ole!” cried the crowd.

The following day the tractor was put to work, and last week it completed its first task, scooping out a small reservoir. Then it turned to roadmaking. Plodding away from the fiesta, a Friend of Sanare had said, “Next year, when we celebrate the machine’s birthday, possibly we shall not have to walk.” An old woman added. “If God wills it, and the Virgin.” And then someone struck a chord on a guitar, and they walked off singing:

Sanare has a machine, A beautiful machine, That knows how to make roads.