Good afternoon, dear readers who are part of this community, in times of quarantine and social confinement as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and being in a 27-week state of pregnancy, I have been forced to take refuge in the home of my second sister for health reasons and proximity to hospitals. A residence that is located in a nearby community of the Benítez municipality in the Sucre state of Venezuela called Los Arroyos. Here, I have had the satisfaction of being able to value an ancient technique that has been passed down from generation to generation and that I would love to share with you.
In my little stay of less than a month, I have been able to appreciate the elaboration and manufacture of Arroyero artisan tobacco from a small workshop that my sister and her husband have at home. At the same time, I have lived from social distancing with the tobacco people of the village observing them from the balcony, since many of them have a habit of making tobacco on the porch or in front of their homes, which has aroused my interest and total curiosity.
Before I start talking about the process of the artisanal stream tobacco, I feel the need to relate the cultural history of tobacco in this community. And it is that the inhabitants of Los Arroyos have as their main commercial activity the elaboration, manufacture and production of artisan tobacco, being recognized at the municipal level as the people who "make" tobacco. However, this mention is insignificant when through so many years and being tobacco exporters to other states of the country and even some border countries, are not widely recognized for this valuable activity. So I felt the need to know your story and share it with you.
After consulting various sources, I was able to detail that the Los Arroyos community does not have any documentary or bibliographic record that deals with the production and manufacture of tobacco since its inception. So, taking the pertinent sanitary measures issued by the WHO, I decided to carry out some brief interviews with the tobacco people in the community and through them to know the local history.
In my first interview I met 86-year-old Magdalena Garcia, she not only shares the tradition of making arroyero tobacco but is also known as a community herb, she tells me that many years ago before the dictatorship of Juan Vicente Gómez his grandparents had the need to emigrate from another state and settle in Sucre state for political reasons, at that time there were already families here who were familiar with growing tobacco and when they arrived that was also their main economic activity. They began to produce tobacco in the mountainous areas of the town and later the tobacco boom was unleashed. Many growers realized that making tobacco for consumption was more profitable than selling raw tobacco leaves, and expansion began throughout the area.
I continued and I met Mr. Juan Campos, always a farmer and tobacco producer, he mentions the importance of the production of artisanal tobacco for a lot, but that this process would be useless if people like him did not fervently dedicate themselves to the cultivation of the plant (there are few farmers who are engaged in planting tobacco today). In this regard, he emphasizes that it is not easy to care for this plant, that it must avoid a certain moth or mite, and that for that it needs extremely expensive and scarce fertilizers in the country, so it observes its cultivation daily from very close and although The plant is not fully developed as required, it assures me that it grows quality tobacco at an excellent market price.
For my second outing and taking the pertinent provisions of the case I met Herminia Aguilera, 65, she works artisan tobacco. She makes mention of the local problems that exist regarding the production of tobacco cultivation. “Years ago I left home and on every corner, I met people from right here who sold me the pacón (measured by weight) of tobacco, I selected my capes, armed my handles, and even selected the gut, which is what it is. inside tobacco, right now nobody wants to plant and I must wait for them to come from Caicara (another town) to buy tobacco at a higher price ”.
This is so informative