Ringing in the New Year

A recap of the festivities of New Year's Eve seems as good a place as any to begin this blog, so here goes nothing. Looking back at last night, if there is one lesson I learned it is that Venezuelans of all sorts seem to be made of sterner stuff than us Americans. I spent the first half of the night at the Plaza Altamira, located strangely enough in the upscale Altamira neighborhood of Caracas. The plaza was adorned with Christmas decorations and a large stage where several excellent bands performed throughout the evening, and packed almost shoulder to shoulder with revelers. Nevertheless my focus throughout the night lay almost entirely on the streets surrounding the plaza, which appeared to be the scene of the latest Greek protests against further austerity measures. There, a most impressive display of fireworks craft and courage/disregard for the need for two functioning eyes took place over the course of several hours. Fireworks of every type imaginable were placed, set, thrown, waved, and shot into, over, and across the street, leaving plumes of smoke, small fires, and a veritable minefield of explosive devices for kids to joyfully navigate, sometimes with their parents in tow. During the peak levels of activity it looked as though a standoff was underway as crowds gathered across the street since nobody could possibly cross it to get to the plaza without suffering third degree burns.

The locals definitely went for noise over color or size with their choice of fireworks - chest rattling explosions regularly startled me if I happened to look away from the action for a few moments. And yet throughout the night infants, toddlers, and children of all ages played on unaffected, maintaining their smiles and their calm. For the life of me I cannot figure out how. Just about every young child I've known has been scared by the loud noises of thunder, a movie at a theater, or a crowd at a sporting event. The noise last night dwarfed all of those, but I never saw a child upset. Even the dogs there (and there were plenty) took it all in like a champ. As the clock drew closer to midnight, the ambition of the artillery grew and for about 20 or 30 minutes the fireworks rivaled that which you would see at a typical municipal 4th of July celebration in the U.S. But for the most part the show was produced only by the crowd that attended and the fireworks they purchased from the many street vendors.

After I had my fill of fireworks I met up with a friend and headed over to a family celebration at a house in the Macaracuay neighborhood. There were probably 30 people gathered for dinner, their own fireworks show, and then a mini-dance party of which Fur in Washington, DC would be proud. When we left at approximately 4:15 the party was still going strong, with multiple grandparents still up and active on the dance floor. Given my parents haven't greeted a new year since I can remember and half of my friends can't stay up past 10:00, once again I was left in awe of the Venezuelans' hardiness.

A few other holiday notes from my time here so far: Santa Claus is not such a big figure in Venezuela. He is familiar to all, but kids' presents here are delivered not by him but by the old Ricky Bobby favorite el niño Jesus - little baby Jesus. Presents are opened on December 24, often at midnight (what do they put in the food?) and not on Christmas Day or January 6 as is the case in parts of Latin America. As the clock strikes midnight on New Year's Eve people here eat 12 grapes as they do in Spain and elsewhere, with the difference that the grapes here take HGH and are the size of doughnut holes.

Finally, one last note and how I intend to set up this blog. In order to minimize the time it takes this site to load, I will limit the number of pictures I place in each post, probably to two. But in order to showcase some of the pictures that miss the cut and in a homage to the great website soloenvenezuela.com, I will start a separate post with some pictures and short captions. As a teaser, the first installment contains what should be on everybody's wishlist for next year's Christmas decorations.

Happy New Year.