Parting Thoughts

I head back to Washington, DC this weekend, but before I do I thought I would write one last post with some brief thoughts on Venezuela and what may or may not happen in the year ahead.

First of all, I had a thoroughly rewarding experience here, and would happily stay longer if circumstances dictated that I should and could. The people here are incredibly welcoming and friendly, and during my entire time here I only encountered one instance of some anti-imperalismo, with a soldier in the San Antonio de Táchira airport. For the reasons that I wrote about previously, Venezuela is a pretty great place, and I didn´t even travel to any of the spots that everyone says are the best in the country - the beaches of Los Roques and Margarita (and pretty much everywhere else too), Angel Falls (the highest waterfall in the world), Mérida (the picturesque city in the Andes), the national parks of El Morrocoy and Henri Pittier, etc.

Cleaning Out The Camera

I have taken a lot of pictures during my time in Venezuela, no doubt to the surprise of all. Many of them didn´t fit neatly into any of my previous posts, but I thought some were still worth sharing. So here is a smorgasbord of shots I have taken, which probably in some way also capture how I have spent my time here, along with some captions to put them into context.

The famous Patricia. She never wanted me to take a picture of her, but yesterday I took her to the movies as a thank you for everything and managed to snap this shot. I told her that my camera was out of batteries and then snapped this one after she let her guard down.

Capriles Assassination Attempt?

You may be forgiven for not hearing that there may or may not have been an assassination attempt against opposition candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski this weekend. Heck, even if you live in Venezuela you might have overlooked the story given that most of the press coverage here is still focused on President Chávez´s recuperation in Cuba and the government´s recent announcements of products that will have their prices lowered by fiat in the coming months (a common election year tactic). The details of the incident remain murky, but here is the best account I can give.

Baptism By Fire

If I were a movie writer, I would get out my pen this morning and start working on a script based on how I spent my day on Saturday. The story would start on Friday evening, when I strolled the few blocks from my apartment to that which has become almost a second home for me: the apartment of the mother of my ¨padre/hermano perdido¨ in Venezuela. Those of you that have kept up with my blog since its inception will remember that I befriended a family who I met at the very first baseball game I attended, the very first week I arrived in Caracas. They have since become my closest friends here, and in many ways I have become an adopted member of their family. For the purposes of my movie and my readers´ understanding, here is a cast of characters for the folks I was with on Friday:

Food!

I think one of everybody´s favorite things about traveling is trying new foods. And one of everybody´s favorite things about hearing about other people´s travels is hearing about their culinary mishaps. With that in mind, although sadly I do not have any horror stories about food other than Patricia´s attempts to make me a jockey through her less than enticing cooking, I thought I would give everyone a taste of what kinds of food are most popular in Venezuela.

A Little Bit of Mischief While the Comandante is Away

Since President Chávez left Venezuela last week to go to Cuba for his surgery, a bit of a power struggle seems to have broken out in his absence. It is more clear than ever how critical his persona is for the government and the PSUV (his political party) and how little consensus exists within it apart from support for His Excellency. Roughly speaking there are two leading factions within the government - the radical leftists, currently led by outgoing Vice President Elías Jaua, and the military, led by former soldier and current Speaker of the National Assembly Diosdado Cabello. The radicals unabashadly look to Cuba for inspiration while the military wing seeks above all else to maintain its own privileged position and business interests, and has more desire to protect law and order (or at least order). Chávez himself bounces back and forth between the two groups as is convenient, never allowing (at least until now) one faction to gain too much influence.

During the past few months Chávez has seemed to favor the military branch more than usual. He has praised them repeatedly in public appearances, increased their salaries yet again, promoted Cabello to Vice President of the PSUV, and controversially declared that the military is chavista and owes its allegiance to him and not to the state. Jaua has already been informed (and that is exactly how it goes, Chávez dictates to his underlings what they will do) that he is to run for governor of the critical state of Miranda this year, though no date has been set for his departure as Vice President (it will have to be by June). Pundits speculated that Chávez was seeking to shore up the support of the military in advance of the October elections which could be quite close. Its support could be the critical factor in determining whether he is able to hold onto power in the face of controversy and protests.

A Return to the Field

After quite a hiatus I finally returned to the sports world yesterday and attended my first soccer game in Venezuela. Local club Caracas FC took on FC Carabobo in a matchup between two sides that were sitting in mid-table early in this Clausura season. The rojos, as Caracas is generally known, are one of the strongest teams in the league, finishing third last season and forming one half of the league's glamor rivalry with Deportivo Táchira, while as far as I know Carabobo does not have a particularly illustrous history. Further tipping the scales in the home side's favor was the fact that the day before the game the Caracas FC administration sent out a release informing supporters of Carabobo that they could not guarantee the security of their fans at the game, as violence has increasingly become a problem in the Venezuelan league. Thus as best as I could tell there was not a single Carabobo fan in the stadium. Or at least if there were they did not reveal themselves.