· “Venezuela is the country where you can live comfortably and work the least.”
-Brazilian store owner in Puerto Colombia when asked why he had moved to Venezuela and was living in a small beach town.
· “Chavez is the master of the universe.”
-Local fisherman in Puerto Colombia not hiding his love for Chavez at the local fisherman´s consejo comunal. Chavez has implemented regulations protecting local fisherman by prohibiting commercial fisherman from fishing in local waters.
· After hiking the Camino de los Españoles near Coro with Eric, we stayed in a small posada at the end of the trail. We walked into town in search of food and found instead a local rodeo event called toros coleados. Hundreds of people, many coming from out of town drank themselves silly while enjoying one of the most bizarre events I have ever seen. I can’t say I’ve ever been to the rodeo in the U.S. so its possible this is an integral part of American rodeo as well but I doubt it. The competition works like this: four cowboys mount horses and wait at the end of a 400 hundred meter enclosed pen for a bull to be released through a little door. The object of the competition is to trip the bull by yanking its tail and throwing it to the ground. However you only score points when all four hoofs come off the ground. You can imagine the mayhem that ensues from such a simple yet insane task. The crowd, meanwhile, depending on how many beers they’ve had, try to get as close to the action without being mauled. People sit on the fence or jump in the pen and follow the bull and horses from end to end of the pen. When the round ends, the drunkest of the crowd take it upon themselves to rope up the bull and bring it to its cage outside the pen. Techniques include screaming at the bull, throwing beer cans at it, whipping it with a stick, grabbing its horns, yanking its tail, etc. The process can be painfully slow and predictable. The bull takes the abuse up to a certain point where someone pushes him over the edge and he goes berserk, trying to maul everyone and everything near him. He then calms down and the process starts over. People were very passionate, especially as inebriation levels rose. Tempers flared. Fights broke out over missed calls, points awarded to the wrong cowboy, a missed tail takedown. There was even one woman competetor, spicing up an event that would otherwise have appeared to be an all boys club. All the while an announcer adds excitement to the spectacle, shouting “Toro, toro, toro!”, and things like “El toro dice que no!” Eventually the power went out (luckily while the bulls were locked up) and despite organizers making it clear that the rodeo would continue, we had had enough. No serious injuries, only a few tears and a lot of emotion.
· On our way to Ciudad Bolivar from Valencia we left our bags in the office of the bus company at the terminal and killed time in the local mall. When we came back to the office, no one was there but the lights were still on. Suddenly, a guy with a big broom ran over. “A la orden” (at your service). He stuck the broom, brush first, in through the tiny cashiers window. We had no idea what he was doing. It seemed like he was just putting the broom back in the office. He didn’t drop the broom though. As he stood there shaking the broom in the direction of the door we realized he was trying to reach the door handle from the inside. He eventually succeeded and we grabbed our bags, content in knowing that that broom kept our bags safe. High tech Venezuelan security in the bus terminal.
· Rumor or truth? At this point I could definitely believe it.
“In some small pueblitos (towns) near Merida, there are bridges painted blue for the opposition and red for Chávez, and many campesinos will only cross one of the bridges.”
-As told to us by Angelik, a French friend who was working with the local communities. In reality we’ve found that almost all campesinos and farmers we’ve met have supported the government but Merida is the base of the opposition, so who knows?
·The other day I went to visit our friend Corina in her office in Caracas, accompanied by her nephew Gabriel and his girlfriend. She works on the ninth floor of a large office buildng. When we arrived only one of the three elevators was working. We waited as other people got off the elevator at their various floors. When we reached the ninth floor, the elevator door started to open, but instead the left side of the door slipped off its track and just kind of fell backwards, leaving a gap at the top between the two doors and a sliver of space at the bottom. Elevators are weird places to begin with, forced awkward social interaction and when something goes wrong nobody knows what to do. This was no different. Everyone just glanced at the other passengers out of the corner of their eyes and stared at the door. Finally, Gabriel spoke up and announced this was our stop. We tried opening the doors wider to no avail and eventually maneuvered ourselves out of the elevator through the crack. I looked back in to see a group of women preparing to climb out themselves, and then, on closer inspection, a giant whale of a man standing in the back. I envisioned the fire department coming with the jaws of life to get this guy out. Instead, once the women had exited, Signor Balooga wedged himself into the gap between the doors, and after a little struggle aligned his back on one side and his belly on the other. With one quick, smooth pelvic thrust he slammed his gut into the broken door. Immediately the door shot back and opened wide, still off its track but open. He cooly strolled out and began to climb the stairs. Here I had imagined an embarassed sweaty gordo panicking and he instead acted like the elevator repair man. I could only shake my head and smile.
· Last Sunday Caracas celebrated Dia de Los Niños. I accompanied our friends Corina and Herman as they took their one year old daughter Catalina to the botanical garden. Their nephews Gabriel and Israel came along as wel. It was a fun day spent mostly following Catalina as she wandered around. On our way back to the house we passed by the Sabana Grande Boulevard. As we approached the boulevard we sat in traffic and watched the hordes of people swarming the streets. Suddenly, out of nowhere, one guy comes sprinting around the corner, clearly shaken up. He continues running past our car, down the street, followed by a family, and then a group of young teenagers, and then another family, three women, and soon the whole block was filled with people running as fast as they could away from the direction we were heading. As terrified and worried as everyone looked, no one seemed to know what was going on or why they were running. From the drivers side window, Herman asked people why they were sprinting away and between “no sé”s, someone admitted they heard someone had a gun. Again, no one seemed to have actually seen anything themselves. But in any case the racing crowd increased, whizzing past our stopped car. I couldn’t see where they were all heading, just away from the main boulevard. I turned my head forward just in time to see the driver in the car in front of us jump out of his car and sprint full speed into a garage close by. Now I got nervous. Maybe he saw something we couldn’t. I cautiously got out of the car and walked to the boulevard to see if we could fiure out what was going on. Before we could really see anything, Herman beckoned us back to the car. By now people had reduced their speed to a fast walk, constantly glancing over their shoulders back at the boulevard. Herman sat on his horn, not realizing that the driver from the car in front had taken off. We waited 10 minutes with no sign of the guy, now feeling trapped if something was actually going on. Just as Herman got out of the car to go look for a police officer or call a tow truck, the guy appeared out of the shadows of the garage and hopped back in his car. He was really shaken up and refused to drive on to the boulevard, so eventually we convinced him to pull over so we could pass by. Herman was visibly pissed by now, just trying to drive out of the “danger zone” but refusing to turn around. He was convinced that nothing had actually happened and explained to us that there is a group in Caracas that performs these stunts where they get large crowds of people hysterical that someone has a gun and take off running. He compared it to a stampede of animals, where the animals have no idea why they are running, just that they are scared. The analogy seemd appropritae in this case. But I couldn’t help but wonder if, in fact, caraqueños or Venezuelans have more to be afraid off. There is certainly a history of violance in the country, and depending on who you talk to, things are only getting worse today. Security, or insecurity rather, is the most pressing concern of Venezuelans today. Maybe this human stampede was just a by product of the hysterical paranoia around violence, warranted but non sensical, in this country. I know, I for one, felt like the threat was real, whereas in San Francisco, I may have viewed a similar situation with more skepticism. When we finally passed the Sabana Grande Boulevard, the street was packed as usual, with no sign of danger or that someone with a gun had passed through for that matter. We drove on to the house and moments later had forgotten the incident altogethr. The world returned from hysteria just as quickly as it left.
-Jake
