Thoughts from a gringa in Venezuela

Car bumpers, engines and the remaining parts of stolen vehicles are dismantled and displayed proudly for sale in storefronts as we pass, winding our way up a mountain on a two lane road thoroughly congested with traffic, as Caracas always is. A truck sells cheap groceries to people waiting in a huge line, thanks to the government. A girl with an ice cream cone passes a group of men watching her go. Orange traffic cones are placed at random intervals in the street, groups of young military police clad in army green with berets on their heads exchange jokes, lounge on their vehicles, and rest folded arms on their machine guns. Political graffiti depicts Uncle Sam being twisted by Venezuelan Socialists. We pass groups of people in red shirts holding banners applauding their president, Chavez is coming to town. Buses on the side of the road are pointed out to me, I am told they are bussed in and thrown a bit of money to show their support for Chavez. We keep winding. We, Hernando, his family and I are on our way to an old German settlement, a lovely tourist site, it's going to take a little longer than normal today but I don't mind it one bit. I love staring out car windows to begin with and there was so much to see today, it gave me a lot to think about.

Venezuela is one of those places like China that is steeped in political intrigue and is stupidly rich in mineral wealth. Obviously being married to a Venezuelan and hearing so much about it, from Hernando, his friends and family for so many years has lead me to spend a lot of time considering it but never have I felt like I've figured it out. I don't have any answers, and I might well make mistakes in my assessments, but I have been collecting lots of interesting tid bits that I'm starting to put together.

In a place where laws can change on the merest whims of the president you have no choice but to be political. The quarrels between the US's democrats and republicans pale in comparison, here you are either a Chavista, a proud supporter of Chavez often seen wearing red, or you are vehemently anti-Chavez, and never seen wearing red. Those with money almost always hate Chavez, unless they can accredit their recent wealth directly to Chavez giving them someone else's job. The poor have always been his stronghold for popularity but these days his popularity is slipping. He's a populist, his face is everywhere, on billboards, on TV, in graffitti, and he does his best to control what people hear. He shuts down TV stations he doesn't like and transmits anti imperialist American/pro Iranian adverts on the radio. He has his own TV show on Sundays where he publicly diverts any possibility of blame from himself when there are problems and pins it on officials, summing the affair up with a public firing. You can watch the man's face fall on your screen while in your underwear at home, just watching the telly. He gives Donald Trump something to live up to. He tries to divert attention from dissenters and makes a big show of silencing the ones that act up. Lately college student groups have been organizing big rallies against him bringing Caracas' crawling traffic to a halt. I'm all for the government offering affordable food to those in need as I mentioned earlier but it could become harmful when seen as part of a larger arching sentiment he encourages. With Venezuela's oil wealth the government should be able to take care of the people, he asserts. He starts work programs, inserts start up resources and then leaves them to wilt, wither and die a lingering death of political disinterest after some time. People are encouraged to put their trust in the government and the government will play god. Public schools for education and public hospitals for health are a joke, the independence of the individual is squashed. He pits the poor against the 20% with resources claiming they are the root of their problems. In keeping with this mentality he swoops in on companies, fires all the people with degrees and puts comrades without proper qualifications in charge. I assume that means he lowers the prices of utilities but I haven't remembered to ask that question yet. However couldn't he just impose that the prices be lowered without firing everyone who knows what they are doing? For the first time in the dry season in this hydroelectric run country there are scheduled water cuts and power cuts. Everything seems to be mismanaged. But at least Venezuela still has oil right? hmm... maybe.

Though the tolls booths on highways are gone, cool, and parking lots are locked in at a nice price that will never raise with the yearly 40% inflation, and the gas at the pump is cheaper than buying a pack of gum. To fill your tank will probably set you back 30- 50 cents in USD.

Back to Venezuela and her oil. Apparently, according to a credible source, Hernando's father who is an engineer for an oil company, the black gold is running out. The government set that price for gas at least 15 years ago when the going was good. When there was lots of high quality oil just waiting to be released from Venezuela's land. Well a year and a half ago it turned out that there is still high quality oil but the cost of getting it would be at least as much as the oil itself, making it inaccessible. This happens all the time with these companies. America's coal companies project they have enough coal to last 250 years but most of theirs too in tucked away deep in the earth and equally inaccessible. So Venezuela has had to move on to extracting fairly low grade oil but their refineries are for high grade oil. Of course they should be in the midst of changing those factories over to accept the new oil but there's some mismanagement going on. Therefore Venezuela ships its oil to the islands off it's coast where there are refineries for this type of oil but those are the Netherland Antilles, a different country. In order to get the refined oil back they have to pay the same price as all the other countries per barrel and so when Venezuelans pay 30-50 cents at the pump the government is ripping itself off. It cannot afford it for much longer but raising gas prices in an oil nation doesn't make you a very popular populist president. What a pickle.

Maybe that's the best way to describe this place, pickly and confusing-- that's a technical political science term of course. It's also unsafe, as I have mentioned before. Paranoia is a way of life here. You're always looking over your shoulder to see if you're being followed, always prepared to do another loop around the block, and watching the electronic garage door close behind you, making sure you haven't attracted any unexpected guests. Though I have thoroughly and absolutely enjoyed frequenting the beautiful Caribbean beaches. And not to rub in anyones face but especially while I know most of our friends are suffering the worst snow storm in years on the East Coast-- though wasn't last year one of the most horrendous in recent history? Is it just me or is global warming catching up to us? Hmm... ok, well conspiracy theorist Manali will be signing off soon but before I go, an update.

Tomorrow we begin the last leg of our adventures. We will spend two weeks seeing this insanely beautiful country before coming back to Caracas to fly back to the US. It turns out that the US government could have grounds to screw us over in our application for Hernando's citizenship if we were gone longer than 6 months. Since we are lawyerless and just about moneyless we're heading back. However we only need to be in the US, not necessarily back in LA as we had always planned to go back to. So we'll be making a visit to our East Coast friends (yea! soo excited!!) before we go back to having jobs that wont give us leave. We arrive in NYC on February 28th, and Boston March 6th and finally LA on March 13th. And then San Francisco a week or 2 after that. So we'll be doing a lot of old friend seeing soon. Hope you'll be in one of those cities! Please email me if you will and want to hang out.