Blog

Postscript To If It Belongs To All….

Richard Barnes

If It Belongs To All….

In my research for the second to last post, I saw some comments online which, unfortunately, I failed to source. Nevertheless, I believe the reader will appreciate them and if anyone knows the source, please advise and I’ll give due credit. 

They are not my words, but they encapsule my memories as well as my gratitude. I’ve linked to prior posts which expand on the subject or comment, as necessary. I’ve made no changes or edits to the comments, other than grammatical corrections for ease of reading.

Comments Online

El Pao has a very cool tropical jungle climate with rainy periods from April to November each year. Minimum temperatures reach 19º C [66° F] and maximum temperatures reach 31º C [88° F], with an average of 24º C [75° F].

The Betlehem Steel corporation carried out explorations on the El Florero hills, discovering large iron deposits in this area. Eduardo Boccardo transferred the mining rights to Bethlehem Steel, which began to develop the project for exploitation, creating the subsidiary company Iron Mines Of Venezuela. In 1940, the project to build a road and a railway to the port of Palúa on the right bank of the Orinoco River began, but these were delayed by the events of the Second World War, and exploitation actually began in 1950.

The El Pao camp, as it was known, was divided into three urban groups: “Rankin High” where most of the teachers and nurses lived [my Madrina lived there with her mother], and the Catholic Church was also located there; “San José Obrero” where the workers lived [known to us as “el Otro Campo“], there was a primary school, a commissary, a hospital, an evangelical church, police, a national guard, a hotel, and a workers’ social club; and “El Florero” where the administrative staff, doctors and engineers lived, mostly North Americans in the 50s, 60s and 70s. They had an American primary school and a social club (with a swimming pool, tennis court and bowling alley).

El Pao, a magical place in permanent contact with nature, where every day at 3 in the afternoon we were shaken by the explosives that exploded in search of iron, and the train with its slow and heavy step was the sound of progress, work, and hope. 

Thus, a modest but comfortable [mining and] urban center was built, where the first inhabitants, apart from the peasants from the region, were the immigrant employees who were in charge of carrying out the work of the mine, one of the most significant in all of Venezuela, from which, until 1996, at least 111 million tons of mineral were extracted.

In 1974, the management of the mine passed into the hands of the Venezuelan state, and in 1975 the company, Ferro-minera Orinoco, belonging to the Venezuelan Corporation of Guayana, joined the exploitation works.

Reply from a reader of the above comments:

Greetings from Caracas. Reading this whole story takes me back many years because I was born and raised in El Pao, exactly on Bolivar Street. 

My mother worked at the hospital when the [Americans] left. She had 30 years of service. 

Those were unforgettable times. If God asked me what I would like to repeat in my life, I would tell him to return to El Pao as I lived it, its streets, its green grass, the streets full of mangoes, me going to the commissary, the school — by the way, the best in the state of Bolivar — the best hospital, ufff, everything first class, the pool…. 

Well, friend, I congratulate you for all that I have read, without being able to contain my eyes from clouding with tears when I read or see something from my dear and beloved El Pao, remembered forever. 

I am a Paoense in soul and heart. Greetings.

Paoense. I don’t remember having heard or read that word before. But I fully relate.

View from the administrative camp towards the warehouse and mine, circa 1965

Vivian

Richard Barnes

During the early part of the 20th Century, our grandparents succeeded in keeping our family “close”, despite the greater part of the family being in Massachussets and another part being 1,600 miles away in Cuba. Many years later, I remember having our parents’ cousins visiting us in Miami or we visiting them in Stockbridge, and, later in life, visits in Georgia. At the time I did not think anything of it — taking it for granted.

Our generation — our parents’ children — also stayed close to one another. Annual visits to Miami were taken for granted — at least by me. And as the years went by we stayed close for the most part. I cannot speak for others but as for me my cousins were my brothers and sisters. Year after year we visited, lived in one another’s houses, fought, or simply rejoiced in happy company. 

When death visited us, we took it hard. But not one of us was surprised by that reaction. We grew up in a time when saying “I love you” to siblings or cousins wasn’t “a thing”. But we knew we loved one another; later in life, we actually did begin saying so.

My last conversation with cousin Vivian was one such time. On the phone, 1,500 miles away, I told her that I loved her and she, with what very little strength she had left, said the same.

Vivian’s speech was low key and soothing. She came across as perennially unperturbed, because she always knew and trusted in the Lord that all would turn out well, no matter what the crisis.

In supreme pain, during my mother’s final illness, Vivian visited her if not daily, certainly multiple times a week. Her focus was on Mami, not her own debilitating and painful cancer.

She finally succumbed to that cancer on February 22, 2025, age 69; just one day shy of her and her husband, Rick’s, 50th wedding anniversary. Although we knew the day was close, death is still a slap in the face. 

And will continue to be so until that Day of the “manifestation of the sons of God”, as St. Paul puts it, referring to the Day of Resurrection; a Day Vivian believed in with all her heart, having known her Lord and trusting in Him, to the very end.

Vivian had two siblings: Cousin Louis (Papito) who passed away in December, 2022, and Cousin Janis. Janis and her loving husband Pete are both battling cancer and I earnestly pray and hope their treatments are fully successful. 

In December, 1972, the family met in Miami, Florida, to participate in and celebrate the wedding of Cousin Sarita, Uncle Max and Tía Carmencita’s eldest daughter. We took a photo on that occasion and 34 years later, at a family reunion, we saw that most of us were still here. That is no longer the case, unfortunately.

At Vivian’s burial, and the meal afterwards, two members of the “next” generation spoke about arranging periodic family reunions. I told them I was all for it, but they would have to take the lead on that. My generation — this is my personal opinion — did not do as good a job as our grandparents and parents in keeping the family close. I know I did not and I regret it. Maybe these two young ladies will pick up the slack that we’ve left them.

I hope they do.

Rest in peace, dear Cousin Vivian.

Photo taken the day before Papito’s memorial service, February, 2023.  From left to right: Janis, Pete, Vivian, and myself.

September, 2023, shortly before my mother’s passing. Vivan is to the right: standing, solid peach blouse

December, 1972. Thirteen (13) are now gone. But we trust to see them again.

If It Belongs To All ….

Richard Barnes

After college graduation in 1975, my visits to El Pao were rather irregular yet not infrequent, with visits in 1978 and several times in the ensuing decades when I was able to swing by during business trips. My last visit was in 2005, which, although memorable, had its harrowing moments whose details will have to await retelling.

During my 1978 trip, for which I will be forever grateful, an old family friend and her older children engaged me in lively conversation over coffee and pastries in her home when, pausing and looking at me, which caused me to remain silent, she said, “Nosotros jamás pensamos que el campamento se pondría peor [We never thought the camp would get worse]”.

That was the elephant in the room: surely I had noticed the unkempt open spaces, which as late as 1975 looked like golf course greens but now were overgrown; or the swimming pool which looked like it needed cleaning and maintenance; or the bowling lanes which had clearly seen better days; or the houses, including my family’s, in which we had lived until a few short years prior but which now were almost jungle invaded and “occupied” by surly squatters.

I had noticed, of course; however, I also knew that there was no need to needlessly offend. Prior to and during the “nacionalización” María had been a loud voice extolling the virtues of “public” ownership versus the evils of “Gringo” ownership.

But now she was sincerely looking for a response from someone whom she knew had not been a fan of the jingoistic justifications for theft. Of course, those appeals had been disguised by distortions asserting that the Bethlehem Steel and all such steel and petroleum companies had “stolen” the minerals of Venezuela, had exploited the people of Venezuela, had imposed inhumane conditions on the working class of Venezuela, ad nauseam. 

Carefully, for she sincerely wanted to hear my opinion, I replied, “Bueno, María [not her name], a way to help us understand what we are seeing is to ask a simple question: if something belongs to ‘everyone’, then who, really, is the owner? In other words, who will take the risk to care for the object that is ‘owned’ by all?”

She just nodded, signifying that she understood.

Our conversation rushed back to my mind when, in the late 80s, I visited the even more deteriorated camp. On that visit, I took a photo of the last classroom I attended before leaving for the States (photo below). The ranch style schoolhouse still stood and gave promise of a still bright future if only someone actually owned it. But no one did. María, and many more, had abandoned the camp by then and more recent photos show the pool to be an empty, cracking husk.

A few years after Venezuelan nationalization, Communist Zimbabwe (Rhodesia ceased to exist in 1979) had the presence of mind to keep their elephant preserves in private hands and thereby saved them from ruination for decades. Interestingly, they did not allow their ideological blinders to blind them to the benefit of having their treasured preserves cared for by the actual owners. And they were rewarded with excellent results. Unfortunately, Venezuela opted for the conventional Socialist route with the typical depressing results now well known throughout the world.

María is long gone now but our discussion remains vivid in my mind. 

I had forgotten about that photo until a few days ago when my brother-in-law pulled some envelopes stashed in some corner and old papers and photos, including that of the abandoned classroom, tumbled to the tile below.

And I was reminded that the Bethlehem Steel had built river port facilities about 180 miles from the mouth of the Orinoco River plus about 35 miles of railroad tracks and road inland from there to the site of the ore deposits. Three self-sustaining camps were built: one, Palúa, on the river, the other, El Pao, at the mining site, and a third, Puerto de Hierro, on the Atlantic coast to provide a deep water port for shipment up north. By March, 1951, close to 3,000,000 tons of ore were being mined annually, with most shipped to Sparrows Point, Maryland for processing, with a considerable amount of tonnage stockpiled in Palúa.

In summary, the Bethlehem Steel operations in Venezuela were somewhat complex from a transportation standpoint. Ore was mined and transported from El Pao by rail to Palúa on the Orinoco; then 180 miles down the mighty river by four or five 6,000-ton river steamers, built by a company subsidiary, to Puerto de Hierro on the Atlantic Ocean, from where the ore was transferred to much larger company ships for the 2,000-mile journey to Maryland.

By 1964 US Steel had dredged a 32-foot deep canal down the Orinoco for which other companies, including Bethlehem Steel, paid usage tolls. This allowed deep water shipments directly from Palúa, so Bethlehem shut down the Puerto de Hierro operations and ceded the ports and the camp to the Venezuelan government. All families were transferred to the other two camps.

As the reader can imagine, the capital investment implied in the above cursory descriptions is gargantuan. And that is only one company. In the first half of the 20th Century Venezuela received such investments from many such enterprises in the oil and ore industries.

At the close of 1974, the Venezuelan government nationalized all foreign owned ore properties, agreeing to pay book value, not market value.

And a mere four years later, my friend, María, asked why the camp had deteriorated….

My old classroom. Photo taken circa 1987

Photos of recently-built El Pao mining camp, circa 1953

Doña Tura

Richard Barnes

Doña Tura’s Spanish vocabulary and grammar tutelage over me was not very long, if memory serves: one school year, maybe two, max.

However, her impact was lifelong. 

She lived in the “otro campo” — the labor camp. Her house served as a school for younger children. She had one or two assistants, probably relatives, who helped keep tabs on the young and restless, or, in my case, hyperactive scholars. We may have been restless, however, we also knew that to irritate or otherwise provoke Doña Tura with our inability to sit still for at least a while, would likely result in a stern warning, loud enough to turn us into innocent pussycats.

In one of the classes, I sat next to white curtains which separated two rooms, similar to the flimsy drapes which separate business from economy class in some airplanes. In my infantile and energetic curiosity, I wondered if I could twist those curtains together and began doing so. The more I turned the cloth, the tighter it got and began to take the form of a nice torsion or spiral. Pretty neat, I thought.

Next thing, I heard a deafening voice, seemingly right in my ear, demanding I cease and desist — “¡Deja esa cortina!” I released the object of my curiosity and swung around so fast that the room spun, as the curtains unraveled back to the state intended by Doña Tura.

My age at the time of attendance at her school, was likely 6 or 7. She drilled us with vocabulary and grammar and penmanship. I was too young to question why my parents would take me there when I was already attending school at the Campamento Americano, and while my mother also drilled me at home.

Of course, years later, my parents’ actions became clear to me. The only other Spanish grammar and vocabulary instruction I ever received was by a teacher who came to our camp when I was eleven. He succeeded in tutoring us in the accent and other, more advanced grammar rules. Both his and Doña Tura’s training were instilled in me for life. 

However, had I not had the privilege of Doña Tura’s early guidance, I doubt that the teacher who came later would have made any progress whatsoever with me.

In Gentle Regrets, Roger Scruton wrote, “The purpose of the school was not to flatter the pupils but to rescue the curriculum, by pouring it into heads that might pass it on.” Even as children, we understood that, if only intuitively. We understood there is a real distinction between knowledge and opinion; Doña Tura taught us accordingly. We knew she was doing more than merely “drilling”; she was imparting knowledge unto us, knowledge we would use the rest of our lives.

So, for instance, when she drilled the Spanish alphabet into us … “Aa, Bb, Cc, CHch … Nn, Ññ … ” she did so knowing she was teaching us the basic facts of the beautiful Spanish language. And she hoped — she had faith — that we would use that knowledge and, over a lifetime, gain wisdom.

We may have failed her in that “wisdom” part; if so, that was not her fault, but ours.

I believe the last time I saw Doña Tura was during my three week visit in 1978 — however, it might have been during an earlier visit; I am not entirely sure. What I am sure about is that she still lived in the Otro Campo but in a different section. Of course, she had aged, but was still very energetic. Her hospitality was impeccable and as we sat across from each other, during a quiet moment, I thanked her for having been my teacher. I’m not sure she remembered — she seemed to hesitate, but then replied simply, “Oh, de nada.” 

That is a common reply to a “Thank you” — “For nothing”.

Only it was certainly not for nothing. And now, many years after her departure from this earth, I again say, “Gracias, Doña Tura”. 

Aerial view of the “Otro Campo” (the labor camp) where Doña Tura lived and where she taught me. Unfortunately, I could not find any photos of her.

George Washington Christmastide

Richard Barnes

When one thinks of Christmas and the history of our country, George Washington’s crossing the Delaware on Christmas night, 1776, most likely comes to mind, and rightly so. This aggressive and highly risky military maneuver during which two Patriots froze to death and a few more were killed, nevertheless culminated in a great victory over the stunned and completely surprised Hessian mercenary forces in Trenton New Jersey. They could not believe anyone could or would march during a blinding snow storm and freezing temperatures.

However, the following Christmastide, in 1777, also marks an iconic moment (actually, moments) in our history. It was during this winter that Washington made camp in Valley Forge, after an ignominious defeat by the British. His troops needed a place to recuperate. However, the place was now barren, having been razed by the British. The men built their own cabins in freezing conditions. About twelve thousand people came to Valley Forge, and about one thousand died from cold and hunger. This was another “starving time” in American history, akin to the Pilgrims’ first winter the previous century, where half their company died.

As numerous accounts — soldiers’ journals; letters to wives; later recollections — attest, during this dark time General Washington would go to a “dark, natural bower of ancient oaks”, and kneel and pray. Washington was a private man, however, he was seen in prayer on numerous occasions during that terrible Christmas season and winter. 

As you study or read about those years, you are either confronted by incredible “coincidences” which worked to deliver Washington’s forces from certain encirclement or annihilation, including impenetrable fogs which enabled him to hastily deliver 8,000 men from Brooklyn across the enshrouded East River. When the fog lifted, the British were astonished to see the entire Continental army had vanished. 

Incredible coincidences, or perhaps we should use the terminology used by the soldiers and other contemporaries, including Washington: “Providential occurrences”.

I write the above this Christmastide simply to encourage us to not neglect our duty and our privilege to pray this wonderful season. 

May you enjoy a wonderful Christmas season and may you and yours prosper in 2025.