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.

After 2 Months Patricia Still Doesn´t Know My Name

Patricia´s note to me. Or possibly Mark McGwire.

Native Spanish speakers have a ton of trouble pronouncing my name, because there are hardly any words in Spanish that end in a ´t´. I would say most people here call me ¨Mats¨ but I also get ¨Max¨ and ¨Mac.¨ On Thursday Patricia called me ¨Michael¨ and I gave her grief for the rest of the night about it. I also wrote my name in her address book with my phone number in the U.S. You would think that would be enough to get her to remember my name, at least for a couple of days. You would be wrong. Here is a picture of a note she left me yesterday.

Chávez´s Health

I´ve received a couple of emails asking about President Chávez´s health in the wake of his announcement on Tuesday that a lesion of approximately two centimeters has reappeared in the same area where a tumor was removed in June. Since that has dominated headlines here ever since I thought I would try to explain the impact it has had and will have moving forward as the presidential campaign season gets ready to kick into high gear.

The most important thing to note is that nobody has any idea about the true state of the President´s health, and anyone who says otherwise is bluffing (including the Brazilian doctors who continue to make statements to the press). In general in the foreign press the more anti-Chávez the source (link in Spanish), the more dire the prognosis of his health. In Venezuela that is not necessarily the case, which I will explain below. About a month ago a series of articles appeared around the globe claiming that Chávez would die before the election on October 7. Now many seem to be saying that he has less than a year to live, but that he will make it until October. The fact is, Chávez goes to Cuba for medical treatment, and nobody outside of him, his doctors there, and possibly the Castro brothers probably know the truth.

A Bungled Attempt To Culture Myself

Apparently my experience in Venezuela had been going a little too smoothly, because I hadn't had any inspiration lately to write another rant of a post. Fortunately for you all, that problem no longer exists.

Sometime last week I got an email from my aunt alerting me that I had the opportunity to attend a once-in-a-lifetime concert. 31-year old Venezuelan native and genius Gustavo Dudamel was returning home to conduct the Los Angeles Philharmonic for a series of symphonies composed by Gustav Mahler at the Teresa Carreño Theater, which is located about half a mile from my apartment. I was vaguely aware of the performances because the Dudamel/LA Philharmonic combination just won a Grammy for best classical music, or something like that, which garnered a good bit of coverage in the local press here. I had heard of Dudamel in the past, as he is the crown jewel in Venezuela's famous ¨El Sistema,¨ which provides free musical instruments and training to underprivileged children throughout the country. It is one of the Chávez administration's most impressive achievements. But I hadn't really given any thought to attending any of the concerts.

The Best of Venezuela

I have written a lot about Venezuela´s challenges and problems, so since today marks the unofficial beginning of Carnaval, I thought now would be a good time to devote some space to highlighting some of its people´s best qualities, just as I did for Patricia earlier. As an aside, Carnaval here reminds me a bit of my days playing American Legion baseball. Then everyone on my team liked to play the game ¨spit your wad of dip on an unsuspecting soul´s cleats when they´re not looking¨ which is terrific fun for those that don´t use dip. Here Carnaval is quite a bit like Halloween. Kids dress up and older ones throw water balloons and eggs at unsuspecting passer-bys. Patricia got nailed yesterday and I managed to maintain a stern expression of disapproval when she arrived home. But I won´t be laughing if I get my turn and there wouldn´t be much I could do about it. Anyway, without further ado, here is a list of the top six characteristics of the country.

6. Taste in Humor
El Universal, the newspaper I read here every day, carries Calvin and Hobbes in its comics section.

Trip Pictures

Last week I traveled to the west of Venezuela for the first time, to the city of Maracaibo and then to the state of Táchira. I was too busy last week to write a post about the trip, and at this point I can´t really think of a narrative I can create to capture the entire trip, so I decided just to post some pictures I took along the way and write some captions. Sometimes it´s more fun anyway to look at pictures, right?

A Great Day for Venezuela

Yesterday´s primary resulted in an indisputable triumph for Venezuela´s opposition, with voter turnout greatly surpassing expectations and Henrique Capriles Radonski securing an unassailable mandate through his unexpectedly large margin of victory. With absentee ballots from Venezuelans living abroad yet to be tallied, Capriles won an impressive 62% of the more than 2.9 million ballots cast, receiving 1,806,860 votes. Pablo Pérez finished in second place with 867,601 while María Corina Machado received a disappointing 103,500. Diego Arria tallied 35,070.

In the lead up to the primary, opposition officials cautiously hoped for a turnout that would exceed two million. There are expected to be 17.9 million voters registered for the election in October. Of those, approximately seven million are estimated to be reliable supporters of the PSUV, Chávez´s party. Turnout for the last presidential election in Venezula was 74% (suspiciously high, some might say) while the last major poll, the constitutional referendum of 2009 drew 53% attendance. That means that to win in October a candidate will probably require at least six million votes. Chavistas will employ every tool at their disposal to get their supporters to the poll and will almost certainly use some dirty tricks to minimize the opposition´s ability to do so with their own.

With almost three million voters turning out yesterday, Henrique Capriles Radonski suddenly has real reason to hope. A huge number of people who do ultimately prefer him to Chávez did not vote yesterday. For some people it was because of inconvenience - they had other plans or did not wish to spend most of their day in line (more on that in a bit). For others it was because they did not have a strong preference between the opposition candidates, and prefered to wait until October to vote for whoever won. For others, it was a matter of fear. I spoke with many young people who are searching for employment who explained that they would not vote in the primary for fear that it would disqualify them from getting many jobs, including any with the government. Many people with public jobs were told or received hints that they too, should not vote. I met one woman yesterday who showed up to her polling station wearing a wig and baggy clothing to hide her identity. I spoke with another who had heard from a friend that she would be kicked out of her apartment building if she voted, but did so anyway. At some of the stations, especially in Chávez strongholds, men on mopeds drove past the lines with video cameras to record who had dared to support the opposition. The list goes on.

A Bit of Dark Humor on Primary Day

Today has been a busy day of voting in Venezuela. Tomorrow I´ll give my report on how the day went, but for the most part it seems to have gone about as smoothly as could have been expected. Which does not exclude waits of four hours and longer.

Anyway I wanted to share with you briefly a great email I got from one of my friends here. As background, on Friday there was an oil spill in the Guarapiche River in Monagas State, with estimates of up to 60,000 gallons contaminating the Maturín region already. This email is a fake memo that captures beautifully how chavistas actually sound. I know it´s in Spanish, but I don´t have time to translate it right now and google translator should be effective enough for those of you who don´t habla español.

Comunicado de la Embajada de Caripe. Por Benjamin Rausseau, Er Conde. En refrencia al bote d petroleo q hay en Maturin.Gracias a la revolución y a nuestro Comandante en Jefe Hugo Chávez, con el apoyo del pueblo Cubano y de nuestro Padre-Comandante Fidel, ahora Maturin es una ciudad rica!! El Socialismo ha convertido a Maturin en una ciudad tan rica, que abres el chorro de agua y lo que sale es petróleo!!!! Nojoda ni en Dubai hay esa vaina!!! Somos ricos nojoda. Viva Chavez!!! Viva Fidel!!!! Ahora el petróleo si es de todos!!! La nueva PDVSA lo puso en tu casa, en tu lavamanos, en tu ducha!!! Ahora los monaguenses se pueden hasta bañar con Petróleo. Hasta te puedes lavar el culo con petróleo si quieres!! Ni los árabes, ni los gringos, ...nadie es capaz de eso!!!! Asi es que se gobierna!! Solo en Revolución y gracias al Comandante Presidente esto es posible!! Petróleo para el pueblo!!! Que dirán los de la PDVSA aquella de la meritocracia que mantenían el petróleo encerrado en tuberías y el pueblo no lo podía tocar! Ahora el petróleo corre libre, libre como el cabalgar de Maizanta, de Zamora, de Bolivar.... Corre el petróleo libre sobre los ríos de Monagas!! Antes solo hubo agua en el Guarapiche, ahora la revolución y el Comandante Chavez lo han llenado de petróleo para riqueza del pueblo Monaguense. El agua es pa' los pobres, nosotros los ricos nos bañamos con petróleo! Gracias por todo Fidel!!! Viva Cuba! Viva Bolivar! Viva la nueva PDVSA! (Por favor NO VOTES el 12F. Los escuálidos son capaces de recoger el petróleo y venderlo en dólares en el mercado internacional !!!!

Primary Preview

Sunday comes the day that so many Venezuelans have been awaiting for so long, the opposition primary. Yesterday marked the end of the campaign, as per rules agreed upon by the candidates themselves, and I managed to attend a march led by Pablo Pérez and the last speech made by María Corina Machado, meaning that I have seen in person each of the three most important candidates. As such I feel that I am somewhat qualified to offer an evaluation of each and make a quick prediction of how I think the voting will turn out this weekend.

A Quick Update

I only have a short time to write this post as I do not have internet at my hotel right now and time is of the essence. But I wanted to let a few people know that I made it to my destination safely and mention a few things before they slipped my mind.

Yesterday I arrived in Maracaibo, Venezuela´s second biggest city. Venezuelans like to describe it, along with the entire state of Zulia, as the Texas of Venezuela. By that they mean that it is the richest region of the country, thanks to being the home of the oil industry, and that its people (known as maracuchos) are loud and gregarious. Many Venezuelans in the rest of the country profess not to care too much for the maracuchos, although others find that they are some of the friendliest and most entertaining.

Patricia's Story

I know I have been sharing a number of stories about my roommate Patricia that tease or criticize her a bit, so I thought it only fair to share with everyone what is actually a remarkable tale of her life and who she is. So here goes, and I apologize in advance for its length.

Patricia was born in 1958 in Zipaquirá, Colombia to a family of fabric makers. Her grandparents would buy wool from local shepherds, gather plants and berries, and spin and dye the wool to make cloths and other materials to sell. Zipaquirá at the time was a rural town just outside of Bogotá, but as the capital city has grown it has since been absorbed into the greater metropolitan area. Her mother was deaf and mute, and her father was a malandro (a bad apple) and never around. She has two sisters (two and four years younger, respectively) by her mother and two brothers and two sisters by her father. Because her mother suffered from ill health in addition to her disabilities she was essentially unable to care for her own children. Patricia was thus raised primarily by her aunt and grandmother, but as soon as she reached adolescence (or even a little before) she became the primary caretaker of her sisters.