It's A Beauty

By Adriaan van Ginkel

These days I received a lot of positive remarks and compliments about my blog.  Thank you all! It’s encouraging to see that my words are actually being read on several continents. I also got some remarks as to why I don’t write more about what’s really happening in Venezuela, day to day. Or more funny stories. Well, there was a time when I did report day-to-day what was happening on the streets. It became a repeat performance. And for funny stories, you have to squeeze everyday life to get some funky juice out of it. Let’s admit it: today’s Venezuela is like a country at war. The funny things are situational; you have to see them for yourself. All things considered, writing is easy. But maintaining an entertaining blog is something else. I guess some of you have experienced that.

Now, for the latest news. Not Greece, because Venezuelans care a hoot for what is happening abroad. Beauty, and especially female curves, attracts all attention 24/7, no matter what your politics are. Last Sunday’s Miss Universe beauty pageant prompted me to delete everything I’d written some days before – boring stuff about people leaving (another hot item by the way), and start all over.

How can I better explain the source of pride of most Venezuelans, than showing it? Miss Venezuela 2013 María Gabriela Isler (right), last year’s Miss Universe, shows all attributes of an ideal woman in this country. Curvy with 90-60-90 proportions, glamourous, lush hair, sharp-witted, with perfect features (courtesy, in many cases, of the best plastic surgeons money can buy) and NOT sleazy. The quintessential Latin beauty. Women and men alike, no matter what their sexual preferences are, take pride in “their” queen. And they can point to success: Out of 63 Miss Universe contests so far, Venezuela has won 7, making it a historical front-runner. And nearly all Miss Venezuela’s made it to the finals year after year. If the nation’s other pride, baseball, has produced some great players who all play in US teams for hard bucks, the constant stream of stunning beauty queens surely has given some hard-needed good vibes to this plagued country. The economy may be in a coma, politics offer no solution whatsoever, but we have the most beautiful women in the world. You will hear that from any straight-mouthed Venezuelan, who will then order an ice-cold beer along with a good parrilla or BBQ to underline the statement that Venezuela is in fact a fine country with its delicious and beautiful sides. A fair and true point made.

But, if you look at the picture on your left, you will ask yourself, how can such a beauty like Isler (right) have such a figure eating typical Venezuelan BBQ monstrosities like this one? The answer, my dear reader, is in your imagination. Imagine how people look like who eat this load of food together with a six-pack of cold beer (or more) every weekend. Imagine yourself doing that. And then you can probably deduce how many Venezuelan women AND men look like. Curvy, yes. But not like Miss Isler on your right, who undoubtedly doesn’t eat a hamburger like that every weekend.

It’s a beauty, indeed. 

Now something about the cartoon at the beginning of this letter. Like all straight men, Venezuelan male like to look at women in a certain way. Especially if the object of their attention is filled. However, the focus of their macho attention has shifted from one bulge to another bulge, as you can see in the drawing. Blame it on the crisis. Still, curvy females get enough attention on the streets, as long as it’s done discreetly. There exists one big plus point for the Venezuelan woman. They like to have boob jobs, nose jobs, ass jobs, have their hair done and put on a lot of makeup. But primarily for their own good feeling. Every girl here dreams of one day becoming a beauty queen. And if they don’t, they will put a great deal of money, effort and pain into it to at least look like one. They love and loath at the same time being admired by men. In a society still stamped by macho supremacism, beauty is a way of women to get even. Look at me, is the message. Don’t I look like a beauty queen? But don’t ever think with your tiny male brain ever putting your dirty paws on me. 

Good girl.

Have a great week and till next Wednesday!

© Adriaan van Ginkel 2015 

Scarce And Scarcity

By Adriaan van Ginkel

Yonarkys could be any hardworking Venezuelan housewife and mother. While I’m writing to you, she could be standing in a kilometrical queue in front of a supermarket anywhere in Venezuela with her child in her arms. For hours and hours, since before dawn. Yonarkys was there already at 5.30 am. She put herself and her baby behind an enormous queue of people who were already standing there all night, despite warnings from the authorities not to do so. The drugstore opens at 8.00 am. There is an acute shortage, nation-wide, of diapers. And of a lot of other items. So when disposable diapers are distributed in some supermarket or drugstore, mothers flock to that spot, baby in one arm (they have to show them to the shop employees), and the birth certificate in her other hand. She is a single mother, like so many. Standing in the queue, they wrote a number on her arm with a marker. 164. And they only let twenty people in every 30 minutes. That means a waiting time of at least 4 hours on top of the time she already spent in the queue, before she can enter the store.  Finally, at about 12.30 pm, they let her in with 19 other desperate mothers. Her ID is checked, the birth certificate is checked as well, and then she gets permission from the shop employee to go to the diaper stack. Soldiers from the Guardia Nacional, toting their Kalashnikovs, are everywhere in the drugstore, keeping an eye on the mothers. In case someone gets crazy, screams, or just starts complaining. Then they move in and arrest the hapless shopper. For disturbing the peace and “fomenting social unrest”. If we believe the latest statements of the Maduro government, everyone who is complaining, getting into a fistfight with others for milk, diapers, shampoo or toilet paper after standing 5 hours in the baking tropical sun with a number on his arm, or even taking pictures of the sad scenes, is an agent paid by the U.S. to provoke unrest and riots. 

Yonarkys’ only big trip ever has been from her birth village in the Llanos to the capital Caracas. Her cousin has been to Miami once or twice, but she never left the country till now. She has no passport, no money to travel, and ever since her husband left her and her newborn baby, she has had quite a hard time mending all ends in the beginning. She has no contact to any American “gringo”, she knows no foreigners, so why should anyone arrest her? There was a time she voted for Hugo Chavez, who promised a better life for people like her living in the enormous shantytowns, or barrios, and for some years, life was becoming easier. She got married and settled down in a little house crudely built of bricks in the middle of a big barrio sprawling over the hill tops of southern Caracas. Ever since her husband left her for another, she and her baby stayed in that little house. But the neighbors are kind, they help her out and somehow, with the little she earns sowing clothes in a sweatshop nearby, she ekes out a simple meagre living. At night, shots ring out near where she lives. Next day, one or two malandros are found dead on the pavement. Another gang shootout, that’s the way it goes every single day. But like so many single mothers, she finds joy in her baby, in the contacts with her neighbors. And she has some nice gossipy colleagues too, at the sweatshop. She lives day by day, accepting her poverty as the only life she knows, getting happy over what scarce things she can get after much pain and effort. Her only concern now is to get that pack of diapers, move her sore feet towards the cashier, pay, walk towards the bus that will take her to her home, and then see what will come next. She plans to burn a candle in front of a picture of the Virgin of Coromoto when she gets home, thanking her, as a mother, for getting those diapers at a low price. Politics are just a far world for Yonarkys. She has a distinct feeling that her place is at home and not on the street protesting against those horrible queues and the scarcity, getting kicked or beaten for some ideal that won’t change her life. Why should it? It’s the life she knows, why should it change? Politicians are just a bunch of liars. Next day, she will see where to get maize meal for making arepas, the local tortillas. And stand in another queue for hours, like today.

Meanwhile, Concepción, a mother of two adolescents, is desperate. She lives at the other end of Caracas, in a middle-class neighborhood. In Venezuela, you can hold a local credit card, but the foreign currency you can pay with it electronically, has to be permitted by the government. You cannot exchange dollars or euro’s just like that at the bank, you need a permit, and they are extremely hard to come by, if you are not connected, or enchufado, to the government. And since there are more and more indications that the government is running out of dollars, panic is being felt among many Venezuelans. As in every year, a cupo of US$ 300 is allotted to every credit card holder in the country to do internet shopping, or some fantasy travelling – you won’t even survive a day on Aruba with only 300 dollars. But this year, the cupos have been blocked. Yes, the government allowed the 300 dollars to every card holder. No, the bank is blocking the cards because of “uncertainties”. Is there money, or isn’t it?

Concepción doesn’t need the dollars right now. But the anguish she feels, looking at her blocked credit cards, is choking her. For her, as for the rest of her countrymen, life hasn’t become easy since the economy began to collapse years ago. Every year, she flew to Spain to visit her relatives. But now she hasn’t travelled for more than a year. No dollars, no payable flight tickets. And now, the scarcity is crawling into her house. She should be joining other mothers like Yonarkys in the food queues. There is no milk, no oil, no chicken, and no laundry detergent in the house. Two rolls of toilet paper which she will cut in half by the end of the day. But she won’t stand in the queues. Not her. Not now. She has so much trouble accepting the scarcity of everything. Accepting that she doesn’t feel happy anymore in the country she was born in. Her life was normal, according to first world standards, before politics started ruining everything around her.  Her standard of living, despite her husband’s job as an accountant, descended every year a bit more. She hated the government for so much time, she longs for it to fall. She blames the sitting president for her blocked credit cards and for the scarcity in her life. 

She sighs. Maybe one of these days she will stand in a queue, to get goods that get scarcer every day, at a reasonable price. The supermarket she always frequented, now boasts empty shelves where she normally found her cheese and the yoghurt she loves to take for breakfast. No matter how much her husband makes now, the prices of what can be gotten in private shops, are off the roof, unpayable. 30 dollars, according to the black market rate, for a piece of Swiss cheese. Crazy. 

Concepción won’t accept for now that there are fewer and fewer differences between her and Yonarkys. The gap is closing in Venezuela between scarce and scarcity. The first one – Yonarkys’ life - is eternal, but livable poverty. The second one – Concepción’s - is a horrific mental state that makes it impossible to bear the poverty you experience - for the first time, for many.

Maybe one of these days Concepción will have a nice chat with Yonarkys, although that chance is remote. But I hope they will meet, and learn from each other. For the crisis that lashes Venezuela could either split society into even more pieces than now, or create a bond that will unite all mothers who suffer to feed their families in such hard times.

Thanks for reading my letter. Have a great week and till next Wednesday!

© Adriaan van Ginkel 2015

Freedom Of Speech

By Adriaan van Ginkel

Rayma is the name of Venezuela’s most prolific satiric artist. Her drawing pencil is merciless as well as her humor. Needless to say, good political satire always shoots her poisonous arrows at the elite in power. In Venezuela, the government is of a Marxist cut, Castro-Cuban style, with own satiric artists who invariably attack everything connected with the “Empire of Evil”, i.e. the United States. Their eyes are closed however when it comes to the errors, lies and hypocrisy from within their own ranks. Last year, the Venezuelan government had enough of Rayma and her stinging cartoons attacking the increasingly totalitarian “red” Chavist regime of Nicolás Maduro, and forced the media buying her daily cartoons to suspend the publications. She was fired, in fact, under pressure of the regime. Rayma keeps on drawing and publishing using her own website. And keeps on being enormously popular among those Venezuelans who oppose the government.

Since Rayma’s firing was in fact an action against the freedom of speech, some attention was given to it in the Latin American press. Beyond those borders, the attention was nil. Other Venezuelan journalists who were, or are being fired because of their critical attitude towards the Chavist regime, draw little to no attention worldwide. Some have been physically attacked, others have been forced to leave the country, and the increasing political repression has caused yet another wounded journalist, just the day before yesterday, during a student protest, in the west of the country. He was hit by a rubber bullet fired by police.

As I was watching the enormous multitude in Paris protesting the killing of French journalists last week – an abominable deed, by the way – my thoughts went to the freedom of speech in Venezuela. Why can millions of persons be called upon to protest against the attacks on freedom of speech in France, but none whatsoever when it comes to a country like Venezuela? Rayma wasn’t hurt, thank goodness. Others have been, however. The world press apparently doesn’t sense the need to cover what is happening in Venezuela with freedom of speech. Officially, there is such freedom, and the government will go to lengths to prove their point by explaining that the jails are not filled with people like Rayma. But isn’t shutting someone up the same as jailing, when it comes to freedom of speech?

Isn’t the cry “I Am Charlie” the same as “I Am Rayma”, when it comes to freedom of conscience, of opinion and of speech? No matter if people die or not?

Now, let me tell you one thing. I am NOT Charlie. That was my dad’s name. I really am not a true fan of what some people call media hype. But when I see so many people walking around with signs telling the watching world that they ARE Charlie (my dad would have ironically smiled at this), then my inquisitive and critical mind screams out. I think that no matter the geography, no matter whether there are people killed or not - if freedom of speech really matters to YOU, then Rayma should also matter to you. Regardless where you live, or what your ideological preferences are. 

Rayma published a cartoon of Che Guevara with a clown’s nose, referring to the clownesque performance of the regime these days. Is it hurtful to you, but you still see yourself as an open-minded person? Revise yourself and your ideas. If drawing ridiculing cartoons of Muslims is OK and makes you want to be Charlie, but this one above isn’t OK, then what is freedom of speech really to you? A term you can bend your own way? Rayma’s work shows us that satire, and freedom of speech for that matter, have no color, no gender, no ideology, nothing that limits it. Satire’s only purpose is, opening our eyes and push us to rethink our own opinions and positions. If Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons, and those of Rayma, achieve this, then they have reached the goal set by the freedom of speech. Everything else is superfluous, empty narcissism. 

For those interested in Rayma’s work, go to:  http://www.boardsnet.com/rayma.htm or google her cartoons on the web.

Thanks for reading my letter. Have a great week and till next Wednesday!

© Adriaan van Ginkel 2015

The Hole In The Road And The Trees

The Hole in the Road and the Trees

By Adriaan van Ginkel

Telling about Venezuela can be done in many ways. Tropical country with lush beaches washed by the Caribbean, Amazonian rain forests, green plains, Andean mountain ranges, breathtaking views. Or you can talk about her people. Easy-going, party lovers, jokers, inclined to look everything from the bright side of life. Sheer positivism. Venezuela has not only a very stable, pleasant climate and a lower incidence of earthquakes than surrounding countries; it possesses the biggest oil reserves on this planet and is a continuing source of breathtaking beauty queens. A country which is blessed with so many good things that other countries lack, should be enjoying the sunny side of life every single day.

Therefore it isn’t easy to combine these facts with actual reality. Let’s call it the other side of the coin. Misgovernment in all levels, a rampant level of corruption nationwide, abuse of power, a total disregard for human and animal life and the surrounding biosphere has put another face on this cheering Latin American country. After almost 9 years of living and working in Venezuela, I compare this country to a clown with a gun. Funny and scary at the same time. Venezuela can “boast” of being a country with one of the highest homicide rates these past years. Walking around in the cities after dark is more and more an endeavor for the brave and has a good chance of ending in robbery and murder.

Now. I won’t waste your time with facts, factoids and statistics you can look up anywhere. Nor with political themes. The topic today is, how does a country, which is living in a semi-state of war with enormous shortages, a collapsing economy and the highest inflation on this planet, cope with all this negativity flushing like a tsunami through doors and windows into your own life?

Many Venezuelans just can’t. Of those, many are leaving the country in search of happier surroundings. Many others who stay bound to their lack of courage to emigrate and start from scratch, or who just don’t have the means to travel, cannot combine the gruesome harsh facts of Venezuelan daily life with their cheerful way of looking at things. They either just look away, lock themselves up in their neighborhoods and residential compounds, and pretend that nothing bad is happening. They misread the advices of life coaches and mix up acceptance of daily life with either acceptance of the bad situation as good or even negation of it. It’s the ostrich walk that characterizes these persons. They won’t follow the news; they just pretend that it doesn’t exist. They are so concerned with keeping the “good vibes” that when reality finally knocks at their doors, they don’t know how to cope with it. The resulting reactions range from shock, disbelief and inertia to aggressiveness. And this I can witness now, at this very moment. People beating each other in supermarkets looking for scarce goods, I saw it yesterday in a supermarket in Caracas. It looks like a struggle for survival. It is, actually.

There are others who see the misfortune of Venezuela as a challenge. Like me. If you can make it here, you can make it everywhere. Like me. I’ve learned so many lessons of life sharing the good and the bad aspects of living in Venezuela with the people here that I’ve grown as a person. Of course, despite two failed kidnappings, I’ve not experienced really shocking things. Seeing shot people on the streets is something you get accustomed to, sorry to say. Those are not the really bad things. Bad things are being robbed on the street or in your own house, see someone you love being killed in front of your eyes, being kidnapped with a 50-50 certainty you could get killed, or experiencing that with someone you love…. In a certain way, you balance things. You search for equilibrium. And that is the keyword to true mental and emotional survival in a country like Venezuela.

Imagine yourself walking down a street. All of a sudden, you see a big deep pothole in the middle of the road. You won’t take your eyes off it, will you? It is a normal reaction. You try to walk around it, not to fall into it. All your fears of not falling into the pothole makes it impossible for you to enjoy the beautiful trees lining that road.

A true Venezuelan optimist will then say: see, you have only eyes for the bad things in life. That is why you attract the bad things, like that pot hole. Why don’t you enjoy the trees and the surroundings? Why do you only look at that ugly thing on the road? Some will even proceed saying that if you don’t pay attention at the pot hole, it will automatically cease to exist.

These jokers – because I have no other word for them – either don’t understand the true secret behind the Law of Attraction, or they just won’t tell it to you. The secret is equilibrium. Looking both at the pot hole and the trees, enjoying the beauty of life and being aware at the same time of the dangers of it, and knowing that in the end, the road leads to somewhere. A true optimist that doesn’t split up the world in positive and negative bubbles, and gets the true meaning of the Law of Attraction, will tell you to watch everything that surrounds you, and just push through walking down that road. It will take you somewhere, there are no roads to nowhere.

And that is my message for you for today. From Caracas, Venezuela, I wish you a safe journey and a great week.

© Adriaan van Ginkel 2015