| I've Got Something Shining Somewhere |
[May. 28th, 2007|10:59 pm] |
It's cold here. Cold as hell. But not as cold as it's going to get next month, or the month after that, which makes getting up in the morning ever the more difficult. It doesn't help that in my bed there are thick blankets and a warm Lauren and as soon as I stick a leg out I feel like I'm about to freeze to death.
There were a lot of fights with the landlords a couple weeks back. I'm sorry I haven't been keeping this up to tell everyone about our progress as an independent community. It's just as much work as it sounds like it is, and then some. But anyways - the landlords. The problem we're running into is that everyone on the block it seems has a different landlord. We don't have a lot of clout with any of them, except for the whole part that we have food, and they have gas (and signed lease contracts). ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1) gerben1974 raised a good point last month when I wrote about this (wow, has it been that long?) - we couldn't just not pay rent. A couple of our neighbors were almost evicted, but they ended up sitting down and chatting with their landlord. Most people on our block are now paying severely reduced rates, generally between $50 and $200 a month instead of the usual $350 to $600. My house is not paying rent still, and I don't plan to start again. I had a talk with our landlady and she was actually pretty receptive to what I had to say. She said that if the political situation stabilizes again we will be held accountable for damages and 50% of all back rent, but she also told me not to worry about it for now. I also brought her a dozen eggs which probably helped my case.
We held elections two weeks ago for a governing council. Everyone who is a part of our collective got three votes and the top five vote-getters became executive council members. I was elected by a landslide; the other council members are Andrew the gas station owner, Dr. Peters the dentist, my neighbor Andy and Mark, who has taken charge of our community defenses. We meet twice a week in my living room, although as more and more of the neighborhood joins our collective I get the feeling that we're going to have to find a bigger place to meet because our meetings are open to the public and mostly everyone comes. Our biggest concerns have been security, winter food rationing, and how to keep all of us warm and healthy as the winter settles in. Bill-paying has become a collective action, and everyone has put some money into the "treasury," of which Andrew has become the de facto manager. A cut of the money from the gas station goes into the treasury, too, which is a boon. We are trying to keep costs down, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.
Electricity has been more and more consistent as time has gone on, thankfully, so we've been able to have a few luxuries like hot showers for everyone once a week and sometimes turning on heat in certain houses at night for the sick people and the little kids to sleep in: only the ones that have natural gas heaters, though. We still cook mainly with fire: we have a big open pit between our house and Andy's house, and most people have charcoal grills where they burn whatever they can find. I use the computer these days mainly for typing up notices, spreadsheets, and correspondence with some of the food suppliers we've found nearby. We have consolidated our Internet access to one wireless hotspot, which saves a really shocking amount of money. Using leftover animal fat to make candles and soap has been fruitful and useful: you can find guides all over the web on how to do it, and it's really kind of fun when you get a whole bunch of people together doing it. Talk about quality times. The order of the day has been cutbacks, and so far, so good. This is something I feel like we can sustain. At the same time, we can also make improvements.
I'm a little less worried about food. Between local farmers, our hunting adventures, and the large quantities of rice and canned food we've been stocking up on, I think we'll make it through the winter, and although we're going to be tightening our belts a little, we won't become malnourished or starve. Some of the wealthier students are heading home for the holidays, but back here we're also planning a spread with some local wild game. We've invited all the local farmers we buy from to come down to the compound and bring a dish to pass, we'll provide the meat. So far, a handful of families have responded - it feels a little like the first Thanksgiving must have felt: a celebration of survival. |
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tired
happy