Venezuela 2000 First Email
2025 Intro: Remember that confusing election in which we didn’t know who actually won? Yes, that’s right! November 2000: Bush II vs Gore. It all came down to a few hanging “chads” on punchcards in Dade County/Miami, Florida and took over a month for SCOTUS to finally rule.
December 2000
Anaco, Venezuela
Buenos Dias!
What a strange land. All Spanish-speaking to the point I needed an interpreter for any communication. The corruption in the local government here is unbelievable. The corruption is so great locally that it extends beyond the surrounding community influencing the regional and national level. Then I left Miami Dade County where my flight connection was and continued on to Venezuela. I expected to be knee-deep in dimpled and pregnant chads, but saw nary a one. Speaking of which, who is president? The news is very old in Venezuela, at least when it is in English. I saw one headline that said “Bush Wins”, but it was dated November 1988.
Why is it that styrofoam or ceramic doesn’t seem to exist in these third world countries? Never let someone hand you coffee here, India or the Middle East. I can’t tell you the number of times I have been handed a cup of coffee in a flimsy plastic cup so thin that it instantly scalds your hand while your frantically search for a place to set it. Of course, you probably think I’d learn after 1,742 times scalded. Before you cast that first stone, however, just how alert are you before that first cup in the morning? All the cups I’ve seen are the same: about 2 ½ inches tall, about 2 inches across and extremely thin opaque plastic. I have even had some cups to melt from the coffee forcing me to ask for another handful. Remembering the story of Gideon selecting soldiers to fight the Mideonites, Termites, or some-ites based on how they drank at the stream, I always drink coffee from my hand in those situations and don’t stoop and drink directly from the spigot on the urn. Where is that lawyer that sued McDonald’s for scalding coffee, anyway?
Once again, I have to ask myself why I’ve never learned Spanish. Oh I know all the usuals: si, adios, gracious, senior, senioritta and hola. Plus just by being alert through the years in daily life I’ve picked up “por favor” (please) from eating at Ponchos, “yo quero Taco Bell”, “muey loco la capasus” (very crazy in the head) from a Speedy Gonzalez cartoon, and “casa de pe-pe” (restroom) from an old Steve Martin movie. I’m not sure what you’re supposed to do about all those apostrophes (‘) and swiggles (~) and other symbols over letters with otherwise familiar letter arrangements that make it appear you are only reading the pronunciation in the parenthesis following the actual word in the dictionary. At least it isn’t French where you must gargle phlegm in your throat in order to get the correct sounds, or German where they throw you in prison if you overlook fully enunciating one of the twelve consonants in a word.
Last night, while eating pizza in a local, well, lets call it a restaurant since other words like “health department poster-child” or “e coli” are already taken, I saw what I thought was a mouse run by the table. I turned and got a glimpse of the largest cockroach I hopefully will ever see. The only way this thing could have appeared more threatening is if he’d been tatooed, pierced and armed. Or, if he’d been touring the US with Joe Librieman. Whoops! I didn’t mean to imply a personal dislike there…cockroaches aren’t that bad!
So far, everything has went well here. The climate and people are nice. The driving is just like other places I’ve been with stop signs and red lights viewed by the natives in the same way we’d view a billboard at home. Communications are not great. On good days, I can get attain the modem speed of 4800 bps. Diesel is currently 197 Bolivares per gallon (about 28 cents), gasoline is outrageous at 40 cents/gallon forcing the locals to use diesel vehicles.
Asta la wiego, or in Texas we’d say “Austin in a Winnebego.”
-Keith