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Under the Asphalt, the Garden.

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    Under the asphalt, the garden.
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    How does BAH! work? (Mari Sol's point of view -BAH member)
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    BAH is a co-op that produces, distributes and consumes ecological products
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    Currently, we are 11 consumer groups. Our model is based on consumer groups.
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    Among these 11 groups, 10 are formed by actual consumers and 1 is formed by the workers. It is called GG.
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    All of these eleven groups belong to the co-op,
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    they are committed to BAH by contributing monthly a certain amount of money for its financiation
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    at the same time, in the co-op, we are committed to return all of the garden produces to the members.
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    BAH! never sells, you cannot access our produces if you don't belong to one of the consumer groups.
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    Not anyone can consume our products because all that we grow in the co-op is for the co-op.
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    We've got 2 hectares (11 acres) of land
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    to share between 110-115 baskets.
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    The thing is we don't sell our vegetables, veggies aren't sold here
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    What we do is that we hand out a closed basket of season vegetables to those 110 families each week
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    'Closed basket' means that no-one choses what they want
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    What the garden produces is equally distributed between all of the baskets, every week
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    and the members pay their monthly fee, no matter the vegetables they receive
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    If there are more, then more... if there are fewer, then fewer
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    if it hails and it all goes down the drain, the members will still contribute their money
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    because it is for the co-op.
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    How do we agree how much money to pay?
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    We simply calculate the agricultural costs, and transportation costs, the van
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    so we can fix it whenever it breaks
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    and we also agree the wages that the "Garden Group" receives.
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    At the beggining, I can't recall which consumer groups there were...
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    but there were some groups
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    belonging to the consumer groups network, which is another sort of organization
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    (another sort of organization that still exists)
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    there were Estrecho, la Prospe, Vallecas zona roja... these were consumer groups.
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    These groups joined the BAH! project, and became BAH! groups
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    at the same time, other groups emerged
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    CNT, La Guinda...
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    they belonged exclusively to BAH!
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    How was the birth of BAH!? (Mari Sol's point of view, BAH! member)
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    In 1999, at the Autónoma University in Madrid, there was a student association called 'La Mala Hierba',
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    they organized an agroecology workshop,
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    one of the projects born at this workshop was named BAH!
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    The BAH! project began with five goals: occupy an abandoned village, start a journal, write a book, create a consumer co-op, and something else I never remember.
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    So, the part related to the consumers co-op
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    starts giving talks in different social centers
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    and they also contacted another consumer group that already existed in Madrid, such as RAC
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    and other self-organized consumer groups, which already existed in Madrid
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    to present their project
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    Which are the purposes for BAH!? (Susana's point of view, BAH! member)
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    At the beggining, some people with similar motivations got together,
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    political motivations,
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    we were interested in analysing the economical model,
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    which seemed to us to be generating an inmense ecological waste, social injustice, etc.
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    We were interested in studying and analyzing the urban development of land,
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    we aimed to build horizontal communities based on assembly processes,
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    of course, we had an ecological interest, we wanted to analyse agroecological topics
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    as well as how institutional authorities deal with all of these things:
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    land, health, food, participation...that stuff.
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    With all of this in mind, we decided we wanted to do something related we agriculture
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    Based on these interests and motivations, we defined our project as a co-op
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    were consumer and producers belonged to the same co-op
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    so that there was no distance between them, so the consumers would acknowledge the farmers' problems
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    where our food grows,
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    we wanted an assembly-like structure of participation,
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    a self-organized project, clearly against capitalism,
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    where everything is an economical activity, but with a social purpose.
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    And that's how it all started.
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    Maybe at that time, at least myself, I felt took a part in debates,
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    and conferences, and I read a lot,
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    but I needed a project that could put all of the theory into practice,
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    a practice that had a global ideology,
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    but that worked on something as everyday as food, health,
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    how we are a part of what surrounds us, things like that,
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    and we came up with this project.
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    By the end of 1999, the beggining of 2000, people started to put seedbeds in different social centers
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    La Prospe, Seco, Laboratorio 2...
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    In February 2000, some land was occupied in the South-Eastern Park
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    it was a natural park with a gravel pit, and some other very polluting things.
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    That space was occupied, and the tiny plants that had been growing in the seedbeds were transplanted there, and we camped there for a while.
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    That's how it all started. The project started working only the spring-summer season.
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    It doesn't plan to cover a longer harvesting period.
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    We planted the land and formed consumer groups.
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    By that time, the project had no resources
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    the workers worked for five months without receiving any wages
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    because the money was needed for other things, but that's how it worked for six months.
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    On that piece of squatted land, we had constant problems
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    There was a fence on the land, you could easily go inside
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    then the fences started growing faster than the food
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    to the point in which it took an hour
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    from where we harvested the produces with the wheel barrow to the van.
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    Then, the police came to indentify us during a "green Sunday", in which we went to help to the land
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    After that, our motor hoe was stolen, and they destroyed a well we had.
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    In an assembly we propose to look for new land,
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    taking advantage of the fact that some workers had already made some contacts
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    and the project became very well known in Madrid, supported by many social groups, organizations, ecological communities...
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    They let us know about some land in Valle del Jarama
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    so we start leasing land in different villages.
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    We are now in Perales de Tajuña, but we have had land in Oruzco, Tielmes, Caravaña, and other neighbour villages.
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    Sometimes we had pieces of land in two or three villages at the same time, which complicated the work.
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    We had an assembly about this issue, and some people (me among others) thought that
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    if we used non-squatted land, leased land
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    the main design of the project could be changed,
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    others maintained the opposite oppinion,
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    but under the conditions given, we reached a consensus on leasing land.
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    The project didn't change.
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    The following year, the consumers, not the working group, went to a piece of land we had in the South Eastern part of Madrid to plant some garlic
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    the aim was to finance the project. We harvested them, and sold them
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    (the only thing BAH! has ever sold).
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    The earned money was for the project.
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    Was there a change of perspective? (Susana's point of view, BAH! member)
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    The project's principles are kept the same
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    the thing is that there are different ages in a project that has already lasted 12 years.
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    At the beggining, we had to invest a lot of energy to make the project work,
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    back then, it seems that it had a very high political content.
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    We had a later phase, in our case, where the energy was invested
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    in making the co-op, the garden, the distribution work
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    it was more focused on practical, organizational matters.
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    After that, there is a phase in which all seems to work properly, and we could calm down
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    we may not be at the peak of social movements.
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    But I think the principles are still kept the same.
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    What sort of troubles have you found over the years? (Mari Sol's point of view, BAH! member)
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    At the end of 2008, all the workers left at the same time
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    between october and november, we found ourselves with the garden planted
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    and during that time, the consumers had to go and work the land while searchin for new workers.
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    Two of the workers that had left helped us working part-time
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    they came to explain to the new workers how to run the garden.
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    Meanwhile, we spread the news that we needed workers.
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    Sixteen people were interested
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    Finally, five were remaining
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    but they didn't know each other
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    but as it is crucial for the working group to be an actual group,
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    we organized a training plan where the old workers were involved,
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    we also organized trips, for example, to SAS (Surco a surco [Furrow by Furrow]) which is a very similar project to BAH! in La Iglesuela
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    The new workers went ther for four days, to see how they worked their land, and so on
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    They also met Juanjo, from Galápagos, who had a chick pea project, they went to meet the Apisquillos co-op,
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    and so eventually became a solid group while moving around.
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    What limitations does this project have? (Carmen's point of view, BAH! member)
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    I guess that the limitations for BAH!
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    are determined by the society in which we are.
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    We don't have as much land as we may want
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    We can't administer a part of the co-op as we would want,
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    because we depend on external factors.
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    Limitations to the project (Vicente's point of view, BAH! member)
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    Our goals are often too short-term- like
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    we care about what we want to eat on that very season
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    but we don't think on the long term, for example, we never think about fruit trees.
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    How does the Garden Group work? (Raúl González's point of view, BAH! worker)
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    Once a week we plan the weekly tasks
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    and we try to split them
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    We also make an agricultural plan for each season,
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    we divide them in spring, summer and autumn- winter
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    We plan together all that we are planting
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    and the hard tasks that we have to accomplish
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    and another thing we do is trying to divide the work a lot.
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    For example, there are some people in charge of our economy,
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    others take care of the agricultural planning
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    others are in charge with other associations
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    some other people keep the mechanics ready to go
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    others look after the seeds and the seedbeds.
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    Are there collaborations between BAH! and other projects? Do you establish bonds with common-goal associations?
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    Yes, we are very related to other associations here, in Perales
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    such as Me Planto, Cascopuerro, BAH! San Martín..
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    and other groups, all involved in developing the seed bank that we have created
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    we are involved in the nursery, in getting seed for the summer season, we help out by cleaning the irrigation ditches for watering
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    sometimes we lend each other a hand with garden work
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    specially between the Garden Groups.
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    At each point, the number of people belonging [to the project] is indefinite
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    Right now we are about 120 baskets, so we may be speaking of about 250 people
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    Along these 12 years, we have no clue of how many people have been a part of BAH!, but I'd say a couple thousands
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    Probably the average BAH! member is someone who is involved in his/her quarter's association
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    or that is a part of a free radio channel, or another co-op for whatever work...
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    Bonds do exist, because the people involved in these groups are all socially related
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    but it is very difficult to determine which part of these relations are because of BAH! and which ones aren't
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    the lines are not clear
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    Anyway, BAH! has actually belonged to larger agroecological movements
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    of course, it is in touch with other co-ops with similar characteristics, and with the agroecological network.
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    A part of our co-op would probably like to strengthen our links a bit more
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    I think that BAH! is related with so many issues that it can probably relate
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    with almost any group that has an ideological basis against capitalism, and for assembly-like structures and that sort of things
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    What are the social benefits of BAH!? (Mari Sol's point of view, BAH! member)
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    I think you can´t quantify the social utility as it is understood, in an industrial manner
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    "I have opened this shop, and this has modified this and that guys' consuming habits"
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    BAH! works in another way
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    It modifies the consuming habits of a certain group of people
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    It modifies the production, cultivation and transportation habits of that same group of people
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    it creates new expectations
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    But anyway, it´s not the case that we have spread out and there are now fifty BAHs
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    it's not that everyone is changing their consumption manners, and all that stuff
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    The other farmers in Perales de Tajuña are still cultivating as they have been doing their entire life
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    Some of them ecologically, because they were used to that, othes industrially, because they had that habit
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    Our influence, our social utility, understood in that way, I can't quantify it.
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    A random veggie, coming from Latin America, where I know that the workers are suffering the effects of the chemical products,
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    they have miserable earnings, and live in pitiful barrack huts...
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    I may buy an avocado and it seems that I'm not hurting anyone,
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    but the truth is that if neither me nor anyone else bought those avocados, that production system would not be sustained
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    So I said to myself, to the extent to which I can alter that, which is only by means of myself, I am going to stop supporting those models
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    and that's how I got to BAH!
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    And all the co-ops of this sort, as for them taking care of the workers
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    and taking care of the land, in whichever way they know,
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    they are already proposing a very big improvement in global terms.
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    The simplest thing: you've got to change the way you cook
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    because you've got to roll out lots of vegetables
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    You start realizing what your consumption habits mean, beyond BAH!
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    your industrial ways of consumptions, of transportation and so on
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    you get closer to the ground
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    you find out that there are different ways of behaving, different ways of dealing with things
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    There have been members that have changed their jobs, their residence...
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    And, something that amazes me
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    is that I have changed my priorities at various levels
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    Before BAH! my goal in life was to be a college teacher
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    I have almost discarded that now
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    it's no longer what I want, I'm way more interested in a job
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    that relies on the decency that I want to transmit in my life
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    as may be farming your one food, or self-supplying in a humane, non harmful way, being able to control that.
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    Social utility? (Raúl González, BAH! worker)
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    It is how we organize, there are no middle-men
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    relationships are direct, we break down that confrontation between production and consumption
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    established by the markets... what we do here is cooperate
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    between producers and consumers.
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    We don't want to be opposed, we wan't everything to be a part of the same thing
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    Actually, all of this doesn't belong to the Garden Group, it belongs to the whole BAH! co-op
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    The land is not mine, or anything alike, it all belongs to the co-op
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    we try to make it all communal
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    We decide everything in assembly, there are no hierarchies
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    or that's what we try to do
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    Social utility? (Susana, BAH! member?
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    The most important thing is that it creates culture
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    a culture based on sustainability, and that sort of issues
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    Many people that join BAH!,
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    maybe with no previous group experiences in this sense,
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    start to feel interested , and expand it to
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    the way in which they buy, their way of living
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    I think it creates culture.
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    Participation and decission-making processes
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    BAH! is guided by a General Assembly, which occurs once every month
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    one person from each consumer group, and one from the working group, attend this meeting
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    where whatever decission is taken.
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    They inform the groups about whatever has to be discussed,
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    that gets to each group, and is discussed among them. Then it turns back to the assembly
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    Making decission in BAH! is a slow process
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    It is slow because, while we present a new project, or some new change
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    or whatever we want to do, or how we organize this or that
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    two months go by before it gets to the groups.
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    Then groups discuss about it, some do, some don't, and it returns to the main assembly
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    that's to more months
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    In other words, almost no decission in BAH! is taken in less than six months.
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    But there are some things which are more urgent than others
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    We think, because of our way of life and education,
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    that everything has to be quick, but that's not true.
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    The countryside teaches you that things aren't that way, they take their time.
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    Green Sunday? (Mari Sol, BAH! member?)
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    There's usually one per month, in summertime, there are two
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    It basically is a day in which consumers go down to the garden to farm
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    We decided that each consumer group would organize a Green Sunday (GS)
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    the group invites the whole BAH! to farm, it also may invite friends who don't belong to BAH!
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    for example, the following GS is the 24th
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    The 23rd everyone is going down to see the meteor shower, and many will sleep there
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    and the 24th, the GS, it is organized by "Toma Tetuán", a new group that was born after the 15M movement
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    They will be there, and whoever else wants to
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    You may also go farming any other day you feel like it
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    as long as you phone the workers, to see if it suites them.
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    What role did you play in the building of a social movement net?
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    I think BAH! has been a model of many other experiences
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    by joining consumers and workers in the same co-op.
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    I do think that is a model that has been replicated, it has evolved
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    and it's great that this has happened, that was the whole point
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    The idea was not to create a gigantic BAH!
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    but rather to create a model that may be copied, that can be adapted to every territory and group of people
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    anyone can get the idea and model it freely.
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    I think that's our best contribution to social movements
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    or to agroecology
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    The first actions we developed were in the Cornisa garden.
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    The neighbourhood was demanding a park, it was a green area that the town hall had offered to the church
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    they were going to give it to the church for them to build a seminar or something like that
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    The place was full of rubble, and the neighbours had been demanding it forever.
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    One of the first actions was to build the
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    Very Disputed Cornisa Garden.
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    We brought a truck full of soil, we did a big lunch to which we invited the people in the neighbourhood
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    we created a garden project for the kids.
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    There were two associations, Paideia, focused on education, and Cosas de la Luna,
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    another group that also worked with kids. These were the kids who were going to cultivate the garden.
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    The project lasted four or five months
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    BAH! has also been involved in Rompamos el Silencio [Let's Break the Silence] with our typical actions
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    We did one in Preciados st., on in Agustín Lara sq. (a day in support of Laboratorio 3)
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    we spread some soil, and open some furrows, we plant som plastic bottles, or bags... and then we start removing them
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    we change them for cabbage, chard... we simulate an urban garden and we make a claim at the same time.
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    We usually make lunch after that, if there's time.
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    We've done this a few times for Rompamos el Silencio.
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    We also did it in a smaller scale in front of Monsanto's head office
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    to condemn some trans corn... people sing songs that make reference to the claimed issues... or we read some special recipe...
  • 27:28 - 27:32
    Once a year, since the very beggining, we organize the Agroecological Workshop
  • 27:32 - 27:34
    it's open for everyone
  • 27:34 - 27:36
    inside or outside of BAH!
  • 27:36 - 27:41
    it has five or six sessions, in different days, with different topics
  • 27:41 - 27:48
    some are proposed by the BAH! members, other are proposed by the organizing comittee
  • 28:06 - 28:09
    Everything in BAH! is like an ant's work
  • 28:09 - 28:14
    They are all teeny-tiny things, teeny-tiny changes happening at a personal level,
  • 28:14 - 28:20
    at a group level, though the groups are very diverse, very very diverse.
  • 28:20 - 28:27
    We are not very close to neighbourhood associations
  • 28:27 - 28:33
    In BAH!, whatever we say, we always do it in a personal way, nobody represents anyone
  • 28:33 - 28:38
    I don't want BAH! to be more visible, I don't think it's interesting to have it all over the media
  • 28:38 - 28:45
    Every year El País sends us an email asking us to appear in their Sunday journal
  • 28:45 - 28:48
    because modern, we are the most modern crew
  • 28:48 - 28:56
    But the only thing it does is give a distort image
  • 28:56 - 29:01
    of the project, suddenly everyone is calling, and they make you waste a lot of time
  • 29:01 - 29:07
    because, although here the participation is volontary, the time you invest in BAH! is your own time
  • 29:07 - 29:11
    and youhave people calling you because they want to buy BAH! vegetables, and all of that
  • 29:11 - 29:15
    socially, we look great
  • 29:15 - 29:17
    but that's totally negative, for me.
  • 29:17 - 29:23
    I'm not friends of being on the media, or any sort of official information stream
  • 29:23 - 29:28
    neither on TV, nor the radio, or the press
  • 29:28 - 29:29
    nowhere
  • 29:29 - 29:34
    It 's different when we get to social press: we have no problem with appearin in Diagonal
  • 29:34 - 29:35
    speaking for Tele-K
  • 29:35 - 29:42
    Radio Vallecas, or the neighbourhood's newspaper, on this or that villages
  • 29:42 - 29:44
    report
  • 29:44 - 29:48
    In that case, we have no problem, because it is addressed to another kind of people.
  • 29:48 - 29:52
    To create a new BAH! would need a huge amount of time and interest
  • 29:52 - 29:58
    A priori, if there's no group interested in its development, the effort must come from the new group
  • 29:58 - 29:59
    We don't start it ourselves.
  • 29:59 - 30:07
    For example, we have hosted Toma Tetuán, a new group born after 15M in Tetuán
  • 30:07 - 30:15
    And for a while, some people form my group have gone there to explain, to help, to whatever was required
  • 30:15 - 30:19
    till they were sorted out as a group and they were able to join the BAH! project
  • 30:19 - 30:27
    Right now, there is a consumers group setting off in the Eko Social Center, in Carabanchel
  • 30:27 - 30:30
    they've been working for around six months
  • 30:30 - 30:37
    Some people from other consumer groups, Prospe, Bah de Verde, are working there
  • 30:37 - 30:39
    to bring forward a new small group
  • 30:39 - 30:43
    but it always starts with a group of people that shows a particular interes and proves to have something different.
Title:
Under the Asphalt, the Garden.
Description:

BAH! is a co-op interested in production, distribution and consumption of ecological produces. Currently, it has eleven consumer groups. They have got various gardens in Perales de Tajuña. They work on the basis of consumer groups. Among the eleven consumer groups, whichreceive around 120 baskets of vegetables per week, ten are actual consumers, and one is the working crew (4.5 people working full time).

These eleven groups belonging to the co-op are committed to BAH! with a monthly economical contribution, around 50 euros per basket per month, in order to finance the BAH! project, and receive the vegetables produced in the garden every week.

BAH! was born to create an alternative way of consumption, different from the dominant ways of industrial agriculture and consumption.

History:
In 1999, there was a college association called Mala Hierba in the Universidad Autónoma in Madrid, that organized an agroecological workshop, after which the BAH! project was born.
El proyecto BAH tiene 5 vertientes: ocupar un pueblo abandonado, crear una revista, escribir un libro, hacer una cooperativa de consumo, y otro no me acuerdo. ..Entones, en la parte que corresponde a la cooperativa de consumo, se empieza a dar charlas en diferentes centros sociales, y también contactaron con otro grupo de consumo que ya existía en Madrid, la RAC, un grupo de consumo autogestionado, que ya existían en muchos barrios de Madrid, para exponer su proyecto.

El proyecto se empezó con ocupar unas tierras, un grupo de trabajo plantaban en esas tierras, todo funcionaría en cooperativa y en autogestión, los grupos de consumo, que accediesen al proyecto, pagaban una asignación para el funcionamiento, y los que trabajaban, cobraban una asignación para vivir.

Al final de 1999, primeros en 2000, empezaron a poner semilleros en distintos centros sociales, era la PROSPE, el Seco, el laboratorio 2. En el febrero de 2000, se ocuparon unas tierras en el parque de Sur-Este, un parque natural, donde había una gravera, y una serie de cosas muy contaminantes. Se ocuparon esas tierras, se plantaron esas plantitas que ya han salido de semilleros, se estuvieron allí acampando durante un tiempo. Así empezó el proyecto. El proyecto empezó sobre en la temporada de primavera-verano.

En una asamblea se plantea realizar este proyecto en otras tierras, algunos trabajadores ya había ido haciendo contacto, porque el proyecto se hizo muy conocido en Madrid, está apoyado por muchísimo colectivos sociales y muchas organizaciones ecologistas. Entre ellos, nos habla de unas tierras en la valle de Jarama, entonces, el proyecto BAH se fue cogiendo tierras en arrendamiento en diferentes pueblos, ahora estamos en Perales de Tajuña, pero tuvimos tierras en Oruzco, en Caravaña, en muchos de los pueblos por allí. A veces se coincidieron tierras en dos o tres pueblos, lo cual el desplazamiento para cultivarla fue más complicado. Pasó una primera asamblea con este debate, ahí empezó a coger tierras no ocupadas, tierras arrendadas. Hay otra gente defendió lo contrario, pero antes de la gravedad de que no tenemos tierra, llegó un consenso de arrendar una tierra. El proyecto no cambió.

(...).

Durante cierto tiempo se fue desarrollando, surgió otra discusión para hablar de cómo crecía el BAH, si iba siendo cada vez una cooperativa más grande o se iba haciendo varias cooperativa. Después de muchos debates, se decidió, para ser autogesionado, manejable y entendible, no podría ser demasiado grande, se fijó un límite en aquel momento de ciento vente bolsas para consumidores, y si había interés, que surgiesen diferentes cooperativas parecidas al BAH. En ese momento, surge el BAH de Sant Martín, en la Sant Martín de la Vera, algo después el BAH de Galápagos, el de Acaria, más tarde el de Valladolid. Ha surgido diferentes BAH que han cogido diferentes suertes, más o menos con la misma idea de BAH de Perales.

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Video Language:
Spanish
Duration:
30:43

English subtitles

Revisions