I thought this was a very thoughtful post about how our fear and paranoia can close us off to meeting new people and getting the most out of our travels. It comes from Jake and Caitlin’s Letters to Gringolandia blog.

Caitlin wrote this post when she had only been in Venezuela for a few weeks. I wonder if her interactions with Venezuelans changed with time, and if she answered her own question: “How do we move on and build a life here in Caracas after feeling so on edge and distrusting of everyone?”

Here’s her post:

***

The most telling experience just happened. Jake and I went to a performance tonight, a bizarre story told through acrobatic movements called ”Sueños de Golpe.” Although a little weird, it was nice to finally get out at night, especially to experience the arts in Caracas. After the performance we debated taking the metro or a taxi, since everyone has warned us not to walk on the streets after dark. But we decided it seemed safe enough to take the metro with the bunches of other people leaving the theater as well.

Everything seemed fine, the metro being very clean, fast, and efficient. As we were getting off the metro a young man in his twenties, wearing a navy blue turtleneck sweater that seemed to be out of an LL Bean catalogue, came up to us and asked something in Spanish while pointing to what seemed to be outside the metro. I couldn´t really understand him and I assumed he was asking for directions, as someone else had earlier that day. I don’t know if under other circumstances I would have understood his question, or whether his Caraqueño accent and fast speech made it impossible.

Either way, I was so caught off guard I just responded, ‘’No sé, no sé nada.’’ It was obviously a response to feeling endangered, which is how we’ve been made to feel here at all hours of the day, always skeptical of people who look at us or, god forbid, speak to us.

A Caracas metro station

Constantly looking over my shoulder, I have yet to feel at ease in this city. The man at the metro asked if we spoke English or French. I said English reluctantly but reconfirmed my Spanish speaking skills by repeating, ”No sé” in response to his earlier question. My immediate reaction was to make sure he knew we spoke some Spanish and weren´t lost or unfamiliar with Caracas. I also wanted to get rid of him as fast as possible. (I have yet to let my guard down here.) Yet I couldn’t fool him with a response such as, I dont know anything.

He began to speak to us in near perfect English, explaining that he was also at the theater tonight, the same show as us, and wanted to know what we thought of the ending. A big sigh of relief. He was at the play and was just curious to hear our reactions to it.

We chatted for a second as we walked up the stairs to the street. This feeling of relief lasted no more than a minute though, because as we aproached the street we immediately reverted to action plan mode, needing to orient ourselves to know which direction to walk. So as we stopped to discuss this, he just kept walking. We didn’t even say goodbye.

The last thing he said was, ”The whole time during the performance I was waiting for a good ending, a way to finish, but the ending didn’t satisfy me.” It’s true. It was abrupt, as if ending in the middle of a conversation, just like we did as we walked opposite directions but never had the chance to say goodbye.

I still feel unsettled, and not from the performance, but from that one conversation we’ve had with a random Venezuelan. The one stranger who’s actually tried talking to us. He was not attempting to rob or cheat us, but just interested in hearing our opinions. I can’t help but wonder if he thought we were ”rude Americans,” as is a common perception of U.S. travelers. Or if it seemed like we didn’t want to talk with him. This is a perfect example of how this city feels so far – like we’re not allowed to trust anyone, even men in navy blue turtleneck sweaters, and especially anyone who has an interest in talking with us.

How does a city survive with its people constantly distrusting one another? Maybe it’s just a feeling tourists experience to such an extreme. It seems women often walk alone at night, or in suposedly dangerous areas, so maybe all the warnings are extra precautious for us as tourists. Do Caraqueños feel as much distrust in each other as we foreigners are made to feel in them? Caraqueños are the ones telling us to be careful, con much cuidado, not to walk certain ways, not to be in the streets at night, to hold on tight to our things. It’s wonderful to have so many great people looking out for us here, but it’s also a lot to worry about when trying to discover a new city.

So the question then for Jake and I becomes, where do we go from here? How do we move on and build a life here in Caracas after feeling so on edge and distrusting of everyone? That will be our biggest challenge.

-Caitlin

Family together for Christmas food at Maracay, Venezuela

Erin, a North American who lives in Venezuela and writes a blog called Adventures in Places I Don’t Belong, recently wrote about a stomach bug she’s trying to beat, and the music from next door, and the things about Venezuela that she’ll miss if she has to move, and… this isn’t making much sense, is it?

I’ll let her tell it, but I just wanted to say that the things she describes that she will miss are almost universal to Latin American countries, and in fact to all third world countries, where people are not so much focused on precise punctuality and the Protestant work ethic, as on people.

She writes:

Something about recovering from my fifth (or sixth…?) stomach bug has made me feel inordinately grateful for my job and the opportunity to be in Venezuela. I was putting fresh sheets on my bed earlier (a task one can only thoroughly enjoy after being horizontal in bed for 50+ hours) and heard Don Omar’s latest Virtual Diva (from the album “iDon”) float in from a neighbor’s window when I felt a rush of nostalgia for my life here. I’m a bit heartbroken by the fact that I might be forced to move away if our contract isn’t renewed in a few months.

Though I will not miss the bimonthly stomach bugs, I will miss the special things about Venezuela that have made me enjoy life more. I really like the focus on today instead of the thirty year plan, celebration and appreciation of family, the freedom of spontaneous emotional expression, the humor that is a bit more bitingly funny than what I find at home, the attention to home-cooked meals and the always perfectly breezy evenings.

In any place, including my original home, there are things I want to focus and enjoy on in this culture, and other things I’ve simply grown to accept but not really adore. The things I’ve merely learned to live with include the lawlessness/ lack of accountability, inflation, thick traffic and anxiety-causing crime levels. Also when people blow up with spontaneous negative emotion I get WASPily awkward and bug-eyed, which totally ruins my chances of genuinely responding in kind.

Plaza Bolivar in Caracas, Venezuela

I enjoy reading the San Francisco Chronicle, but I recently discovered an Alternative Daily called “BeyondChron” that bills itself as “The voice of the rest.”

Eli Rosenberg, a writer for BeyondChron, wrote a piece back in 2006 that described in precise terms the constant diverging realities of Caracas, Venezuela. He wrote about the haphazardly placed skyscrapers and glittering shopping malls, surrounded by the “ranchos” or ghettos in the hills.

I really enjoyed his piece, and I’m reprinting it here, along with some photos that I added:

Life in Caracas

by Eli Rosenberg

Caracas, while home to nearly a fifth of Venezuela’s 26 million inhabitants, is a city so poorly conceived in design that it appears to have sprung up from the ground, without warning, overnight. Nestled in a long and narrow valley, it is a tangled urban agglomeration of towering skyscrapers, cluttered streets, curving highways, world-famous shopping malls, and of course, ranchos that blanket the hills surrounding the city, covering every inch of exposed land as if they were fighting for daylight.

Stacked haphazardly on top of each other, the red cinder block and tin-roof dwellings of the ranchos can be seen from the valley floor, serving as a constant reminder of the harsh reality that many buying Versace or Polo in the air-conditioned cool of a mall try to forget, but are forced to acknowledge upon leaving; que peligroso (how dangerous) they’ll say, glancing fearfully at the hills, adding even que feo (how ugly). They’ll show you the golf course too, the golf course and country club in the middle of the city that Chávez is trying to take away. He would take away our golf course! They’ll say, with the indignation of a child who hears the word no for the first time.

The division between rich and poor is even more blatant in Caracas than in other parts of the country; consecutive city blocks often alternate between these two constituencies, and on many streets, bright and modern apartment buildings, circled by tall electric fences, stand in stark contrast to much smaller, crumbling brick buildings which surround them.

Yet in parts of Caracas, it is also deceptively easy to forget the fact that more than half of the people in Venezuela live in poverty, and that a quarter of the population lacks the means to eat adequately. In a shopping mall in Caracas, one could be in any wealthy region of the world; unabashedly extravagant, they are filled with the global chains of the world’s upper class- designer clothes, first-rate electronics, and endless shoe stores on par with any upscale mall in the United States. These malls are located in neighborhoods of BMW dealerships, “American” styled and themed bars, and areas where it is possible, even preferable, to pay for apartments in dollars. It is hard to believe that such contradictions could simultaneously exist in such close proximity, with such scarce middle ground.

Millenium Mall in Caracas, Venezuela

Eating at one of the slick restaurants or glamorous bars of Las Mercedes, one could easily be in Los Angeles, and the similarities between the two cities are frightening; the blatant discrepancy between classes, the complete ill-conception and lack of planning, and the flaunting of wealth and almost psychotic emphasis on material goods and beauty. There were even mass riots of the poor in Caracas in 1989, called El Caracazo, which seemed to frighten the wealthy caraqueños perpetually, to a similar effect that the Rodney King riots had on the citizens of Los Angeles. And then there are the malls.

The wealthy in Caracas seem to embrace this retreat into irreality, flocking in hordes to lavish shopping malls, where some spend all day perusing the designer outlets, paying American prices to eat at American chains like TGIF and Cinnabon, listening to the American pop music that is piped into the cool air. These are the places they will recommend to you if you ask them where to visit in Caracas, these are what make Caracas the best city, they ‘ll say, if not in Venezuela, then the world.

Never mind the fact that you can get a good meal for a fraction of the price outside or that you could probably take a vacation here for the same amount of money spent in an afternoon at the mall. Maybe the outside world really does disappear the moment one enters a mall; how could poverty exist side by side with such profusion of wealth?

2. The other side of the coin

Boasting one of the highest murder rates on the continent, Caracas is an undeniably dangerous city. Upper-class neighborhoods surrounded by heavily-fortified walls and guard stations give some areas of Caracas the appearance of a war zone, and it is generally accepted that one does not walk around the city at night, with the exception of a few small areas in the wealthiest districts, conveniently surrounding the upper-echelon malls. Yet the ever-present paranoia of the upper-class in Caracas is almost more palpable than the danger here; I could not count the number of times that I was told to be careful in Caracas, and cautioned that Caracas is peligrosisimo (very dangerous), and sucio (dirty) too, deemed by many not even worth visiting because of this.

A street vendor displays a stopwatch souvenir of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez weeks before plans to turn back the country's clocks by half an hour.

The small hotel I stayed at was located in an area called La Candelaria, a busy neighborhood near the central district of the city. Contrary to what I had been told, the area compromising the center and capital of the city was by far the most interesting part of the city. The streets surrounding Plaza Bolívar teemed with action during the day, alive with street vendors who covered the sidewalk for blocks on end, selling clothes, food, used books, household items, and pirated CDs to the masses of people who passed hurriedly by. This was dense urban living at its finest: the currents of people, the noise and smog, the movement on every street and corner, the hustle and struggle of everybody moving to the chaotic clockwork of modern city life.

In what appeared to be an impromptu speech, a man talked loudly about the virtues of the revolution into a microphone set up in Plaza Bolívar to the sparse crowd gathered there it seemed for other reasons, some restlessly tossing popcorn at pigeons, others nodding off on the benches around the huge statue of Simon Bolívar. A man gave me a “No a la Guerra!” sticker as I sat down. In Caracas political graffiti is everywhere, large government posters hang from office buildings showing giant profiles of Chávez, and a few beautiful murals cover the city’s walls.

A few blocks from the center, El Capitolio is the district where the National Assembly meets, where the building that houses the Supreme Court is under renovation, and where El Palacio Miraflores, the presidential palace is located. Palacio Miraflores, the site of the 2002 coup in which Chávez was removed from office for roughly 48 hours, sits on streets that are blockaded on all ends, streets that you are now forbidden from even walking down.

Caracas is a place that feels like it is at war with itself; fighting between two extremes, the city burns with conflict. Chávez clearly has his support in those who believe he can narrow the immense gap between those who reside in tall apartment buildings of Altamira and those who can only watch from their hillside shanties, but despite the programs, initiatives, the constant talk and emphasis, the task remains as necessary as the distance formidable.

The Venezuelan fisherman's home town

Geraldine is a young British woman who has done a lot of travelling in Latin America and written about it in her great blog, Mole’s Eye View. She traveled through Venezuela as well, and wrote some interesting posts about it. In one, she wrote about her experience squid fishing in Santa Fe, Venezuela.

She had a great time, though she only caught one small squid, while the fishing guide was pulling them up hand over fist. It sounds so messy with the ink spraying everywhere.

Here’s Gerlandine’s story:

Squid Fishing in Santa Fe, Venezuela

Out of the six people who the evening before had wanted to come squid fishing, only two of us made it. It was worth every bit of the early morning. Speeding across the water as the sun rose made me wonder why I didn’t get up early more often. But then it’s not everywhere that you can share the sunrise with schools of sardines and a dozen dolphins.

The three of us sat for two and a half hours with fishing lines poised for a bite. The art (or lack of it in my case) of catching squid is not all that different to other types of fishing, but there is no bait. I’m a big fan of that as it means you never know how many times you got a bite but were too skill less to snap the line quick enough to claim the fish.

With squid fishing you cast out the line, wait for it to reach the sea bed and then keep pulling the line to attract the attention of any squid who may think that the hook is a sardine. When the squid engulfs the hook, that’s when you snap the line and bring in the catch.

Our fisherman deftly handled his two lines and kept bring up squids that squirted ink all over the boat as they hit air.

It took me two long hours to get my first and only calamari. Luckily, our fisherman gave us all the squid he’d caught as well as some mackerel from another boat we passed on the way back in, otherwise our evening barbecue wouldn’t have fed more than a small child.

I don’t think I’ll be quiting city life to live off the land…

"I chose a scoop of avocado and a scoop of sweetcorn... it's amazing." Customer Marjorie Castillo

Reprinted from the BBC Online, with some photos added from various sources

You might imagine that the shop selling the largest number of ice-cream flavours in the world would be in Italy or perhaps the US, but in fact it is in the Venezuelan city of Merida, as Will Grant discovered.

After looking in the windows of a couple of ice-cream parlours but finding nothing more exciting inside than strawberry and vanilla, we eventually find Coromoto, opposite a church.

The neon sign outside, with the words “Guinness Book of Records” written in pink, is an instant give-away but, once through the doors, it becomes even clearer that this is the place.

At first glance, the counters of brightly coloured ice cream look perfectly ordinary.

Close up, the flavours are anything but.

The selection includes chilli, tomato, gherkin, onion, mushrooms in wine, garlic, and cream of crab.

Coromoto was set up in 1980 by a Portuguese immigrant, Manuel da Silva Oliveira.

The owner does not come in much any more and has left the running of the place to Jose Ramirez.

Seasonal changes

Jose is exactly what an ice-cream parlour manager should look like.

A friendly man in his 40s, his white and purple shirt is spotlessly clean, and his black moustache is perfectly groomed.

“Mr Oliveira was tired of working for the big ice-cream companies,” Jose says, “and decided that he could make more interesting flavours on his own.”

The first attempt was avocado.

Heladeria Coromoto is mentioned in the Guiness Book of World Records for being the ice-cream parlour in the world with most flavours.

“It’s a tough one to get right because avocados are so rich,” says Jose. “Mr Oliveira wasted around 50kg of ice cream trying to perfect it.”

Coromoto sells about 60 flavours on any given day, but changes the flavours according to the seasons.

On one wall, a list of its specialities is made out of engraved wooden slats.

Besides the standard options like chocolate and rum-and-raisin, there are plenty of exotic fruits: guava, papaya, mango and passion fruit.

There are several vile-sounding flavours among the 860 as well: eggs, macaroni cheese and sardines-in-brandy being a few of the more bizarre examples.

And there are a lot of oddly named ones too like British Airways, Andean Kisses and I’m Sorry, Darling.

One of them, Viagra Hope, is bright blue like the pills.

I have to ask what is in it, and am relieved to hear it is all natural: honey and pollen.

“Different people like different things,” said the shop’s manager.

"Of course, being Venezuela, there are plenty flavours made with rum." Jose Ramirez, manager of Coromoto

“Personally I’m a fan of the fruit flavours but many customers prefer the alcoholic choices like Cointreau, cognac or vodka-and-pineapple.

“Of course, being Venezuela, there are plenty made with rum.”

In the back room

Ushered behind the front desk, I get the chance to glimpse what most visitors to Coromoto never see: the ice cream being made.

As we walk behind the scenes, I imagine scenes of an ice-cream version of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, complete with a mad inventor pouring strange solutions into test tubes.

However, a bit disappointingly, I am led into an airless room where two vast ice-cream mixers are whirring away. On one of the machines, a big tub of raisins is waiting to be added to the concoction inside.

In the other, a vanilla-coloured mixture is being turned but – as I suspected – it is not vanilla.

“Es cafe,” says the girl keeping an eye on the machines – coffee flavour.

Now it is my time to try a few.

‘Muy picante’

“What is the house special?” I ask Jose.

He chuckles and says “pabellon criollo” – a traditional Venezuelan meal of beef, rice, plantain, cheese and black beans, which Coromoto has replicated in ice cream.

Jose fixes me a small scoop of each flavour – and yes, they do beef-flavoured ice cream in Coromoto – topping it off with a half-scoop of chilli flavour.

The house special is made with several flavours including beef and cheese.

“Muy picante,” he warns me, but I foolishly nod… I’m sure it’s not that hot… and gulp it down in one.

Once my eyes have stopped watering and I have got my breath back, I manage a smile at Jose, who is laughing and saying, “I told you so!”

Clearly Coromoto’s flavours live up to their names.

To put out the fire on my tongue, I go for the plantain flavour which is incredibly realistic. As is the cheese, which I would not at all recommend.

Perhaps some things, like cheddar, should not be made into ice cream.

Finally the beef. Despite my misgivings, it is rich, sweet and meaty. I can’t quite believe it, but I seem to actually like beef-flavoured ice cream.

Back on the shop floor, the customers are enjoying their choices on what is a stiflingly hot day.

“I chose a scoop of avocado and a scoop of sweetcorn,” says Marjorie Castillo, who lives in Caracas.

“It’s amazing. The avocado tastes just like avocado and the sweetcorn like sweetcorn.”

Her 14-year-old niece, Marvery, concurs. “It’s exotic, divine,” she says.

“You’ve only got 858 flavours still to go,” I tell her.

“I know,” she says, giggling into her ice-cold treat. “But I’m sure I can do it. One flavour at a time!”

News crew at Catia La Mar beach, Venezuela

In a blog post titled “Lonely Planet or off the planet?”, Cowboy in Caracas complains that the 2007 edition of Lonely Planet’s Venezuela guide is woefully out of date, whether as a result of poor research, or political bias. He writes:

From Caracas the nearest beaches are west of the airport in Catia La Mar or east of the airport in the direction of La Guaira.

A horrible tragedy hit this coastal area in December, 1999. Some estimates of the dead were as high as 50,000 inhabitants. The massive landslides wiped out not only humble dwellings but even multiple-story apartment buildings. Ship containers were washed into the ocean and survivors had to be evacuated in helicopters and military landing craft. Hardest hit was the area east of the airport.

A drive from Caracas along this eastern area today reveals a completely different picture. Some beaches are larger than before as the landslides pushed the coast maybe a hundred yards further into the ocean. A six-lane road covers a part of the coast where before one had to take a slow drive through a coastal town. Flowers, bushes and trees fill the brilliant yellow curbing that divides much of the way. In other places the cement dividers are painted in pastel colors. Long walls are covered with colorful mosaics. Hanging from the lampposts are decorative and bright drums and maracas, seahorses and crabs—illuminated at night.

The beaches have new restaurants and stands for vendors. And, the beaches are packed this week with visitors.

Catia La Mar from the air. Clearly there is quite a lot of development.

Now read what the 2004 edition of LONELY PLANET had to say about this area:

After the 1999 events, “The whole area from La Guaira to Naiguatá became a sea of ruins,…. Macuto, Caraballeda and Naiguatá, once thrilling seaside resorts for ‘caraqueños,’ were turned into ruined ghost towns, and remain much the same. It will take decades before the urban fabric is fully rebuilt, if ever.”

In 2004, the authors of LONELY PLANET’s Venezuelan guide saw no hope—possibly forever—for the region. But it didn’t take decades to restore the area. It didn’t even take half a decade…

A few days ago, a visitor showed me his 2007 edition of the book. LONELY PLANET doesn’t seem to be aware of what has happened here. The same words of the 2004 edition are basically repeated, although now the book at least gives the names of a few hotels in the region, something they didn’t do in 2004.

I suppose one can forgive the authors for not being able to foretell the future in 2004 (although progress was already happening), but to repeat their mistaken forecast in 2007 was a case of blindness.

Can someone explain to me the Venzuelan concept of the cuaima? In any case, this photo depicts Snake charmer Khum Chaibuddee kissed 19 highly poisonous king cobras in an attempt to set a world record at Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum in Pattaya, Thailand in 2006. One by one, the cobras were released onto a stage, where the 45-year-old snake charmer kissed each beast and then moved onto the next.

Before you blast me, that’s not my definition. Here it is from the Urban Dictionary:

1. cuaima
The nickname of an aggressive poisonous snake, Bothrops lanceolatus. Also, used in slang to define a very jealous and impulsive woman.

“Here comes your cuaima dude.”

2. cuaima
In Venezuela (spanish), a very poisonous snake, also the wife, the women in general.

Be careful, in this area there are “cuaimas”; How is your cuaima (your wife); The cuaimas aare heving a meeting (women are having a chat).

I actually looked it up because of a recent post by the Chica Extranjera, author of “Adventures in places I do not belong.” Her post is titled, “1950 comes to Caracas” and she writes:

I just read a book that I (wishfully) thought would be a constructive critique of cuaimas but is actually a full blown celebration of the cuaima.

If in 300 years an alien comes to Venezuela and reads this book, it will think that the life of a woman passes no further than her house, her child’s school, and her church, and that her self worth depends entirely on making her children lunch and ironing her husband’s shirts. The author forgets to feed herself breakfast while making elaborate meals for her husband and children, labels her plastic surgeon a “magical god” and seeks guidance from a priest who informs her that the habits of her egoistic and alcoholic husband are something for which she needs to “be stronger”. And that the “strong” friends she really needs are the one that also cry when she goes to them with repeated sob stories about her husband’s behavior.

The narrator’s “breakthrough” moment is when she realizes that she doesn’t need to “clean what is already clean” (como se le occure hacer eso??) and that she can, in a motion of self discovery, take a walk outside with her friend, go window shopping at the mall or go to the gym to pursue a “beauty routine”. Amazingly, even if she does not clean the house that day and pursues these “independent activities”, the house will still probably be as clean as it was yesterday, so worry not.

Throughout the book I found myself hoping for a sign that it was all a farce: that the author understood the nature of her codependent existence and wrote all that drivel as a form of mockery, or at least as the “what not to do” section of a corny advice column, or that the book was a reprinted version of the 1950 edition, but no.

I recently had a discussion with gringas and venezolanas about dating/ gender stereotypes here. Highlights:

-One friend was asked by an older woman, on three separate occasions, if her boyfriend was indeed single and not married to someone else.

-After getting a haircut, one friend was complimented that if her boyfriend was married he would leave now indeed leave his wife for her. Congratulations.
-One friend’s mother regularly tells her that if she does not stay pretty and cuidar a su novio then he will unquestionably leave her.

But alas, things are the way they are, and no point in getting pissed off about them. Off to bed.

Chinese team Inspecting equipment in Venezuela

I recently came across a description by a Chinese businessman of his trip to Venezuela. It seems he is an employee of the China Machinery Industry Corporation and was sent to negotiate a corporate contract. In any case I found his narrative of his three months in Venezuela to be interesting. It’s essentially a press release on the corporate website, and the actual name of the businessman is not given. I see in it elements of the Chinese culture which requires putting everything in the best possible light, and in which social harmony is the ultimate goal. I am reprinting it here:

My Life in Venezuela

2008-05-07

The airplane just took off and the home-departing trains of thoughts engulfed me like overcast dusts. The airplane, like a giant hand, picked me up by my collar and turning around, put me down in a strange city over the other side of the Earth.

Landing in Caracas from the Air

The irregular changes of colorful clouds outside the plane over more than 20 hours and the beautiful scenery I saw in transit at Pairs could not be compared with the happy surprise I felt at the first sight of Venezuela, which could not be described just with the word of “gorgeous”. Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, is a city grown in forests and mountains. Green trees, distant mountains and the perpetually clear sky are surrounding the simple groups of buildings. Just thinking about it could calm you down and once in the city, you felt contended with the peace of mind. The road from the airport to our residence was full of colorful slogans. “Marching towards socialism!” and “Support Chavez!” were most common words bumping into your eyes, from which one could not help but feel strongly the surging emotions of Latin American people.

Life + Work = Intimate Family Members

To share your spare time together with your boss for the first time indeed made you feel somewhat uneasy. Fortunately, my colleagues had already managed to separate work from life. During work, we were dedicated and hardworking and united as one for good cooperation, and thus turning heavy pressure into joys of common struggles. In life we were forthright and unrestrained, passing good mood to everyone near you. In this intimate environment, colleagues gradually became friends and friends gradually became family members. Unconditional support and trust became the biggest motivation to drive you to grow, for each of your small progress could invite loving watches of leaders and colleagues

Fighting!

In work, we seemed to be fighting everyday and so it was not strange for our colleagues in China to call where we were as the “front line”. Morning always elapsed in a hurry without notice and we had to handle more than ten e-mails everyday. Telephone calls from subcontractors seemed endless. Each entry of payments had to be recorded for files and the thick contract copy was full of notes and remarks. Running here and there all the time with documents in hand, when at last you touched down on the chair, you could be dragged away at the next moment. This was the routine for everyday. It had already been noon time while you were still thinking as if the day had just started.

The negotiation seemed more like a seesaw battle, and a competition of wisdom and willpower. Both sides were so highly absorbed in their state of mind and the ashtray would be full of cigarette stubs in a while. The negotiation venue changed from the long table into the dining table and again changed back from the dining table to the long table. More than often, the battle would last until it got dark. Touching the hungry belly and looking at the revised contract filled with dotted remarks, one would feel contented in heart for at least something had been accomplished out of the hard efforts. With a piece of bread and two hands still busy on the keyboards, I was racing against time to finish the translation of the revised contract, which would be sent back to China for review. It was already dead night after the day’s work. After a quick bath, I dragged my worn-out body to bed. I was still wide awake enough not to forget to set up my alarm clock.

Together with You!

To keep in touch with the company in China was an indispensable part of our work in a foreign country. The time difference between Caracas and Beijing was exactly 12 hours. The overtime in the evening after a day’s regular work was normal routine of the day. Under such environment, to adjust and relax promptly was more than necessary to keep good working morale. Weekends were the time when everybody felt most relaxed. There were quite a few options to choose, such as watching movies, Karaoke, strolling along the streets, enjoying sumptuous meals, going to beaches or hot spring spas. It was all up to the mood of everybody. But most of time, people would feel excited to respond once there was a suggestion or a hint as what to do. Could not remember who had said something to the effect that “What matters is not what, but who.” No matter where we went, there would be joys and laughters as long as we were with our colleagues.

At twinkling of an eye, three months had passed by since we came to Venezuela. More than 1000 pictures were stored in the camera, very faithfully recording each and every smiling face and little bits of our life here. Do you need a reason to love a city? Perhaps, the answer would lie in our smiles.

Smiling Chinese visitors to Venezuela

Maracaibo is the second largest city in Venezuela, 500 km west of Caracas, with a population of three and a quarter million. In recent years, many people have moved there from Caracas to escape the unchecked crime in the capital.

The city of Maracaibo sits on the shores of Lake Maracaibo; it’s the capital of the beautiful and agriculturally productive Zulia state. Separated from Caracas by distance and geography, Maracaibo has been shaped in unique ways by its isolation and its overwhelming physical feature, the lake. 13,000 square kilometers in size, the lake cuts a huge teardrop shape out of Venezuela’s northern coast.

Map of Venezuela. See Maracaibo at the upper left.

For 390 years of the period of Spanish settlement, Maracaibo could only be reached by ferry across the immense lake. The General Rafael Urdaneta Bridge, named after a hero of the War of Independence, was completed in 1962. It spans Lake Maracaibo; 5.5 miles (8.7 km) long, it is the longest pre-stressed concrete bridge in the world.

Bridge across Lake Maracaibo, Venezuela

The people of Maracaibo – known as Maracuchos – are proud of their city, their culture, and of Zulia. They sometimes think of themselves more as people of Zulia than Venezuelans.

Maracaibo is known for its colorful houses, warm weather, the unique indigenous lake villages and canoe traffic still found on the lake, the famous bridge across the lake, its own style of Afro-Venezuelan folk music called gaita Zuliana, its unique dialect (the people speak quickly and roughly and use the Castilian “vos” plural), and for generally being culturally different from Caracas in every way.

A floating church on Lake Maracaibo

The Source of Maracaibo’s Wealth

If I’ve made Maracaibo sound like some backwater lake village, forgive me. In fact it is a bustling, modern metropolis, with modern towers lining the lakeshore. With its remote location, this might seem unlikely, except for one fact: oil.

I’ll write specifically about this in Part Two, so stay tuned.

A gaita zuliana band in Venezuela