Venezuela

For a few weeks in July/August, I was invited to assist one of my professors doing field research in Venezuela. Two students and a professor, we flew into Maracaibo, Venezuela's second largest city and the capital of the state of Zulia. Zulia is Venezuela's western-most state, bordering Colombia and shaped kind of like a horseshoe around Lake Maracaibo.

While the trip was very educational and fun, I can't say that I would recommend anyone go to this part of the world for vacation. There was an overall lack of aesthetic charm, cultural identity and general consideration for other people. I can handle the maniacal driving and obsession with loud noises, but seeing trash strewn everywhere and breathing dirty car exhaust took its toll. Not to mention the half-maintained buildings and roads. And the food was very boring--every meal was based on a dairy and a meat product (the thought of ham and cheese is still nauseating).

We were based in Maracaibo, but we spent most of our time making day trips into different communities within a 60-mile radius. We would go places where the professor either knew--or knew of--someone, show up, strike a conversation and eventually get a sense of what life is like down there (to be honest, the professor had been to most these places at least once before, so we weren't as intrusive as I'm making it sound).

Our trip was more "investigation" than "research." We met with elders of indigenous communities in remote mountain villages and engineers contracted by the government to pump water across the country. (See "Trip pictures from Venezuela" below)

The idea is to use the contacts we made and information we gathered to put together a proposal for a much larger, several-year project, which I may or may not be a part of, but I couldn't pass up a free trip to South America.

Without a doubt, national politics is on everyone's mind. And if it's not, the omnipresence of Hugo Chavez's image plastered on buildings and billboards throughout the countryside is a constant reminder of the "revolution" they are living. Chavez is making great progress, systematically running the recently-nationalized oil and mining countries into the ground. And while I was there, the government overtook the largest coffee companies--causing a coffee shortage; and shut down 34 radio stations, and is expected to soon shut down 160 more--not because the stations didn't support Chavez's "revolution" but because they "didn't comply" with new regulations. (see "Viva La Revolucion" pictures below)

I can't speak about the rest of the country, but the state of Zulia is pretty messed up. All the country's wealth comes from underneath Lake Maracaibo, but there is little to show for it, just oil slicks and a dead lake. And as much as we complain about gas prices in the United States, Venezuela's cheap gas (less than 10 cents per gallon) does not seem to be solving any problems there; rather it seems to be perpetuating them (see "Los Fabulosos Carritos" pictures below).

abrazos,
George

Photos:
Trip pictures from Venezuela
Viva La Revolución (roadside propaganda)
Los Fabulosos Carritos (a tribute to cheap gas)

Videos:
Venezuelan Music
Mountain climbing (sort of)