Caridad’s Diary

When you’re happy amidst chaos, despair and thousands of unmet needs, it feels weird. But, just because I’ve been happy in spite of the situation I find myself in, I haven’t been able to stop myself being overcome by great sadness in recent days.

Mr. Jose Manuel was 93 years old and in very good health. He lived on a mountain in Venezuela’s Lara State, and he couldn’t help leaving this world when he was visiting one of his children in the city.

Inside the system, wearing red shirts, bureaucrats who came with the “Revolution” or bureaucrats of yesteryear; might be somewhat fond of Maduro or not; they might raise their voices to defend him or just leave the insults for more intimate settings, but they don’t want a change of government at the end of the day.

There was no coup d’etat in Venezuela on April 30th. Twenty-five militarymen with a few tanks, on a highway bridge that passes in front of La Carlota military base (in East Caracas); weren’t going to overthrow any government.

Katia was my best friend in Venezuela. She was at least 20 years younger than me, but she wasn’t one of those “kids” you waste time with if you sit and talk to her… well… sometimes yeah, but it’s nice to feel like you’re “losing time” sometimes too.

A truck appears and we climb in as we can, some hand offered from above, where some twenty sweaty bodies are piled up. “At 300 to Barquisimeto”, the collector vociferates…

Electricity is the spirit of modern-day society. Without it, we become zombies, at least for a while, the time it takes us to create a new spirit. Try it out. But don’t worry, you don’t need to be guinea pigs in order to prove my theory, we are already proving it in Venezuela.

A few days ago, I mentioned how irrational the idea of “humanitarian aid” (in terms of food), is for Venezuela. First of all because the amount being donated is just enough for a couple of weeks and for less than a million people; secondly, because even though it sounds strange, Venezuela has food.

A nice thing about “crises” is that they give people suffering them an opportunity to take a step forward and evolve, that is to say, personal growth. Maybe “growth” isn’t the right word. But, people like any objective that implies competition, even if it’s just with themselves.

I want to think that it is pure ignorance that moves all those people (who are not a majority, of course) who are advocating these days for a military invasion. Ignorance must be what guides them and not that naive selfishness of believing that bombs or missiles will arrive with an ideology detector.