Since I had written the last post I felt  like I  had to tell  Manuel, who is my Chilean friend who lives in Brasil, after all,  I didn’t want to offend him. He was amazed that I had actually met people who he felt seemed like the upper class of Sao Paulo 🙂 He told me I should have told him I was going there not knowing anyone so that way he would have told me who I should meet. He immediately put me in contact with many of his friends. I smiled, was happy, and thought it seemed like a secret society. And I met his friend and his friends.

We took a bus to Vina del Mar. We were met by Matias who was a teacher in a school. He took us to eat and drink, got us bikes and we rode all the way to Valparaiso. Another friend had come to show us things. They were great people. And my favorite person was Mr. Moises Matias’father.

Moises was older and asked me to say what I had thought about Chile. I was concerned about what to say but was honest and said:

“I think people are apathetic to things here. I am sorry to say that. But it is so hard to get people to talk to us.”

To my entire surprise he replied by saying things like ….

“I am not a nationalist. And I agree with you. We are descendents of fear. My son, and his friends can speak. I grew up going inside of the houses of policemen , our family gave them sweets and then one day Pinochet came. They were no longer our neighbors nor could we ever speak. I am lucky because I was never arrested and tortured but many people that I know have been. So to this day many of us do not speak. We grew up to not trust not even our neighbors. Anyone could condemn you secretly.  I prefer a corrupted democracy than any dictatorship. I also do not support what the USA does. It is true that Pinochet is associated with economic growth but the price we had to pay for that, cannot be supported.”

Moises is a shoemaker.  His family hosted us. He spoke to us. He explained to me why people in the south wanted the death of the Mapuche. The Mapuche is an indigenous population. He knew way more about the cause than the younger boys. He admired the fact that the youth could speak. I am very thankful to Moises, Matias and Andres. They showed and told me a lot of things.

And then I had short time. Enough to see again an old lady in Santiago selling some cards. I offered her a meal. She cried. I was still doubting whether she was simply crazy but I invited her to seat with me inside of Juan Valdez. She told me her story never making a single mistake about it. Every single time I asked her the same thing. She said the same. She was hungry. She ate fast. She lived with two grandchildren. The mother had disappeared 7 months ago. And she was so shocked by it. And then her 41 year old son. The father of the grandchildren fell in love with another woman and left them. That had happened just 2 weeks ago.

“I am lucky that I have my own house. It is made by wood but it is mine. The school I cannot pay. I cried a lot and they let them stay there this month. In fact the only problem I really have is that my gas finished. So thought my neighbours have given me some food I can’t cook. I give them bread in the morning and while they are in the school they can eat. Thank you so much for this meal. I hope I can sell those cards now that is close to Christmas”.  She never really asked me for anything. I believe she was lonely. Despaired and very hungry. No one has thanked me so much for a meal before.

That happened yesterday and we took the tube to go to the airport and suddenly we were trapped. The metro stopped and women dressed in red and yellow came running in the station. People around me were not too concerned and I was trying to pay attention and suddenly the speaker said that someone had tried to commit a suicide. The lady next to me asked me whether I had understood what had happened. I told her, I had barely understood it.

“The people you saw running outside is part of a special force there is there to pay attention on people in the platforms, they are there to prevent people from jumping in front of the metro. They are not always successful like today. It happens many times here in Santiago.”

I was rather surprised that such a service existed. I am aware many people jump in front of trains but I do not think it is so common to have people specialised to prevent that.
I left, with more cordial feelings to Chile, I left with friends.  But I left thinking there are many people who are depressed, lonely. It was confirmed to me that the roots had to do with colonialism and  the fear created by Pinochet. People do not speak that much. And to enter Chile, I guess it was necessary for me to actually tell my Chilean friend in Brazil. I wish I had told Manuel way earlier. Could have heard way more things.

I sometimes wonder whether we are the victims of having little time to visit this country or rather they are the victims of being so isolated by mountains and Pinochet. Differently than most people who might have loved this country I feel rather bored by it. Sometimes it feels it is very  non Latin America, people don’t speak much, or sometimes someone is open to speak to say they wish the  destruction of the Mapuche. They speak of their terrorism, they speak about how correct was their taking of Bolivian exit to the sea. So then they seem like colonisers. So, though I was asked to have tales to tell about Chile, and Chileans all I have to say it is a country that feels apathetic to it all.

Sometimes I stopped and though it could be simply the amount of mountains, rivers, that made it feel so slow but then immediately came to my mind how the Himalayas have never taken away the personality of those lands around them. How could you forget being in the Himalaya. Here I can support the statement that the wine is good, the mountain is beautiful, and it feels peaceful but unfortunately I cannot say much more. It feels I will forget most of it entirely.

I might be the victim of having seen too many places in the world so I expected more. We have spent more than 16 hours in a bus to cross this country by day and night and still was not enchanted by it at all. I would advise my friends who love mountains to go to the Himalayas. To those who want to see Latin America to go to Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia,  Brasil  etc…but not really here……

So the tales I have are not from Chileans…. those tales were boring. Were racists…. I thought the tales that came from Colombians and from Indians were more interesting.

The coffee here is always burnt. So I went to Juan Valdez. I learned the story behind Juan Valdez which is not a person. It is a common name in Colombia. The coffee in Juan Valdez  comes from many farms in Colombia. There I met Pablo, who is gay, and came when he had broken up with his boyfriend in Cali. His homosexuality was never a problem with his family. But latin american as he is, he explained, the end needed something radical. So he moved to this country and found a Chilean gay lover. But  even while I was here he was bored by his apathy. Pablo’s father is a coffee farmer who also sells coffee to Juan Valdez. He told me a lot about how it is that it works the organisation of Juan Valdez. And then I met Andres from Medellin who told us he  also came from a coffee farming family and answered to me a lot about Escobar.

As it had been told to me by another Colombian, Escobar was still admired in Medellin by people who came from poor families. Today that was confirmed to me.  Escobar did a lot to people in Medellin. And then I also met Indians. First I met a whole family in Puerto Varas that thought Chile was rather boring. Yesterday in my eternal attempt to return to India I took Andre to Saffron, the indian restaurant closed to where we are staying. I am also in the house of a Indian Brazilian , who has been my dear friend for many years. As I entered this gorgeous restaurant I had more feelings than being days here. My senses were immediately touched. Strong incense, many people coming towards us to speak and to ask what we needed, Indian music, food with lots of flavour. Lots of colours surrounding us all over. It was wonderful food, amazing tea, flavoured dessert, perfect plates and the right to eat with your own hands 🙂

Those are my tales….. The nicest people I have met here were Colombians, Indians and Argentinians. The Chilean do not seem to be that interested in talking to us. Did not seem to be interested to know their indigenous people. It feels like a great place to be retired in. Sometimes it feels like you are in America. Not Latin America. This does not feel like any country I have been in Latin America. I know this is a poor tale. Violent tale but I do not even wish to ever return here. There so many beautiful mountains all over the world. So many nice countries in Latin America. To those who search total peace and silence this is the country. I rather go to places where there are many tales… but that is just me and luckily Andre also wants to go there.

Love,

Jules

ps: There are still some days…. maybe it could all change 😉

The gift  according to Marcel Mauss is the foundation of reciprocity. We give gifts to create an eternal relation of dependence to the other. There is a whole book and thought on the idea of gift exchange. But that is not what my post is truly about. It is about the gift  that we chose for our wedding.

We realised we needed little. Andre was kind enough to accept to live in the house of my grandmother. It is a huge privilege to all of us. I want to be here always.  He agreed and therefore luckily we did not need anything else material today. So we both agreed immediately, we do not need a gift.

Others did not understand this idea so well. They thought they needed to give us something. And so we created our gift. People’s presence in our party which was in another town to 99% of the invited people. That was our gift. Their presence. And again that was not good enough. So we created another gift. A donation to Nepal.

I forgot to tell people why. Many people thought it was a hippie idea. Some thought it was not nationalistic to give money away. And here I am to explain why Nepal.

We are aware there are tragedies all over the world. And we are aware we could never give that much money. Not even for one cause.  So we chose only one cause: Nepal. To give at least a little.

Andre nor I have ever been to Nepal. But we love mountains. And we were together when there was a huge tragedy there. Not a political one. Those have always many sides to them. It was a climatic one. To those who do not know, Nepal it is located in the Himalayas. Bordered by Tibet/China and India. Nepal has eight of the world’s ten tallest mountains  there. The highest point on Earth is there. So yes, you got the idea…. it gets cold. To those who do not know… it is not a buddhist country. It is  a country populated by Hindus, Buddhists and some other religions. It is populated by people like us… human beings.

Their economy depends a lot  on money that comes from tourism. So yes, a climactic tragedy in Nepal has destroyed not only houses,  temples, trees, people but the tourism industry. That is very serious for them. They depend on that money. And as mentioned before crossing these borders led them to places that are overpopulated and have their own political problems.

So we chose Nepal. And I chose an institution that my friend Denise told me about. She said it was a good one. I met Denise in front of HH Dalai Lama in India. Then she took me to meet in her private meeting HH Karmapa. Then she asked me whether I could bring to London Lama’s clothes to Lama Lobsang. He became my friend. The tibetan Lama teaching Buddhism in Europe came many times to my house, and I came to his. After that Denise also introduced me to Lingtrul Rinpoche. So, yes, I trust her. The name of the institution is ajudanepal.org. It is a Brazilian institution and that way we could make deposits here in Brazil.

So in the day of our wedding I received many envelopes with cash and checks. So, back in Sao Paulo I deposited the money that was with me in the bank account of Ajudanepal.org

And then two things happened….some more money appeared here, other people gave, Andre had gifts of others, my grandmother and I did not know what to do now.

I decided before giving more money there I should contact the people. Had yet not spoken to anyone there. Since I could not yet reach anyone in the ajudanepal I decided I would make a donation here in Brazil. I could not keep that money with me. I asked Nininha, the cleaning lady, where did she recommend. CCA a school in Capao Redondo. Capao Redondo is a violent neighborhood and it is where Nininha, the cleaning lady, lives and it is where her child goes to school.

Being the honest woman that she is. She asked me to talk to people in the school first. So I did. They thanked me a lot. Some of this money has been given to a school in a poor  and violent region to buy food for children.

Just now, I managed to speak to someone from ajudanepal.org . He was great. He knew Denise, he told me people were going now to Nepal. They would send me info.  I was happy because anyone who has studied conflicts, like me, knows that in the beginning of a tragedy lost of people give money. It is always complicated because there is still no structure for the use of that money, there is waste and easy robbery of the money. And finally when they are no longer in such a complicated stage, they are also no longer in the News. So when people most need and can use properly the money they rarely receive it. They are distracted by a new tragedy in the News.

So we chose Nepal. Things are calmer now. They still need help. Now, however, few people help. So we decided it. This would be our gift. The gift of all of those who left them with us. They gave to Nepal and to a school in Capao Redondo. The receivers on both ends have now spoken to me.

So let’s hope we have made  in Mauss’s terms and act of reciprocity. Solidarity is reciprocity  in my mind. It is not in that “negative” term I feel reading Mauss. To me it is in the thought that we as human beings and all that exists is made of atoms. So we are reciprocal to all, after all they are just as connected to me as anything else. So our gift go far, I have not seen these people but we know  we carry the same matter. They need them way more than we do. A gift is always a gift to all of us.

My Own Life

Oliver Sacks on Learning He Has Terminal Cancer

Yes it is true I am getting married 🙂 Most people I know asked me why. Who with? And so I felt like telling it in this one message. How it is that it happened.

We all know I almost died. Not so many people know that I felt hatred, and anger, betrayal, abandonment. Some might even know that I had simply given up completely. I did not even want to live anymore. And definitely did not believe I could ever love again.
And so I joined Tinder. For all kinds of reasons. And one day I met Andre. He was at the beach like me. He had quit his Masters, his job and was there taking his time resting. I was there recovering my mind and my body. And we met to drink coconut. He told me he would like to climb Pico do Corcovado. I immediately considered that that meant we should be friends forever but not lovers.
I went home. We woke up and it rained and we did the track under the rain. I wanted to go to that beach no one wanted to do it, he agreed to go like that. And that day I already liked him and decided I could never kiss him because the mountain was way more important than one more kiss. I prefered the climber than one more kiss that I would forget hours later.

And then I got my period that same day and I could not do anything. No climbing, nor difficult tracks. I had period cramps. I told him about it. He did a massage to eliminate my pain. Then in hours we kissed. And then he never left my house.
Carnival was about to come and we decided to go to Venezuela to climb Roraima. He met my parents, my grandma, I met his family. We went to the north and then crossed to Venezuela. We spent 7 days in Mount Roraima and then spent more than 40 days in the rest of Venezuela. We crossed the country learning all there was to be learned from all sides.

We came back and we took my grandmother and her 89 year old friend to the beach. We walked every single day with them. We went to the sea. And suddenly I was happy beyond belief.
“Let’s go to India?!””

He was apprehensive. The tickets were expensive. He realised how important it was for me to go back to Asia. He agreed to that. And then he was called for an interview and two days laters we are in Sao Paulo and he is hired.

“Are you sure Andre? Do you want to live in Sao Paulo? We can’t even go to India anymore! You are not even from here.”

“We can go later.”

“Let’s get married than ; ? but it has to be secretely?! ;)”

“Why do you want to hide it? ”

“No, I am apprehensive. I already got married before. Parties of marriages are so complicated. I will ask my grandmother what does she think about a secret marriage.”

“Julieta what a silly idea. We will celebrate it. ! ”
And then my parents were totally into the idea. So were his parents.
So, we are getting married.

It will be on the 91st birthday of my grandmother. It will be on the beach. It will be spring. I will be barefoot. I have a dear friend who will do a Tibetan Brazilian ceremony for me. I met her in front of Dalai Lama. She took me to meet Karmapa, Lama Lobsang, Rinpoche. She is my friend. The Judge will also come.

There will be music played by amazing musicians who I know, and who I have seen playing so many times in Cidao.

The photographs will be done by someone who became my friend this year. I met her in the beach. I also met Andre this year.

I did not invite many people. I simply invited close friends, and people I deeply respect.
My invitation is done by a great friend. It carries a tibetan eternal knot on it.
The gift is the presence of these people who can come to our party. It will be also a donation to Nepal.

I am not getting married because I am pregnant. I am getting married because the past 7 months I have spent 24 hours a day with Andre. Those were wonderful days. There is nothing exceptional about it. Simple joy to be alive, to love and to be loved.

And now we plan to go next year to Iran, to Burma or India for our honeymoon.
With love,

Jules.

One of these days, I read the letter that was written by Mohamad Jehad Ali Tayeh, a Brazilian Palestinian. It was written to Michel Gherman who is Jewish and had asked his Palestinian friends to write what they thought about anti-semitism. He said that he had many answers and posted this letter on Facebook. It is in Portuguese, so after I read it, I decided to write to Mohamad to ask whether I could translate it to English, so that I could send it to my Israeli and Palestinian friends. He told me I could. So, here is my attempt to translate what it is there.

“I studied in the middle of the 80’s in a public school in Sao Leopoldo. Though it was a public school, because it was located in the centre of town, the school was attended by traditional families that were mainly from German origin. I believe that at the time there was not such a gap in standards between the quality of public and private schools, as exists today in Brazil. In a certain year, the Federal Government gave us the usual books but also a notebook, with the following slogan: “Education for all”. I remember that one day, when I came back to my desk I found all my notebooks completely scratched in red. On the top of that slogan, someone had written: “Not for Turks!”. I was about twelve or thirteen and I did not have the maturity to raise my hands and voice to protest against it. At the time, I believed I was condemned to be forever simply the son of the Turq, who owned a shop in the centre of the town. That was simply what I would be. This and some other unpleasant experiences happened. Some were not cruel while others were more profound and serious. These experiences became part of my daily life and have shaped who I have become. Most of the time I remained silent, and the price of this silence was high.

My Palestinian father raised me with the belief that on top of being persecuted in our homeland we were not accepted in many other places and even when they seemed to accept us, we were at best, simply tolerated.

There were subliminal messages like hanging a catholic rosary in the doorknob of our house, which my naive Syrian catholic mother believed it to be a gift. There were even rules against us attending the clubs of the countryside of the state. Because of all of these experiences, I have developed a profound repulsion for racism. This degrading feeling that flagellates humanity persists even while it is always fought against it.

As a result of these experiences, I see myself in the obligation, as a Palestinian, to show my repulsion in relationship to how some political sectors have been treating the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Beyond everything, I want to make it clear that I am a harsh critic of the Israeli colonial expansionism. I have seen closely the ills that this politics had and have created among the Palestinian people. But I have used my profound knowledge as a Palestinian to become more knowledgeable of the real situation in order to be able to have a more humanistic reading of this conflict.

It does not matter who oppresses the Palestinian people. What matters is that we cannot fall in the trap of judging a whole population because of the political decisions of a State. If Israel is an oppressive state against the Palestinian people, Israeli citizens have the obligation to change that, but they cannot be blamed for it.

I say this because I am very concerned about the rise of anti-semitism as I am concerned about the growth of Islamophobia. There are today inside of Israel several organisations that fight for Palestinian human rights. These organisations are without a question, fundamental for the search of a peaceful resolution to this secular conflict.

In Brazil, specifically in the Rio Grande do Sul, there are large Brazilian Jewish and Palestinian communities. These communities have worked honestly and hardly for decades to develop a harmonious and civilised relationship between these two communities. We cannot allow the harming of this relationship because of inflamed, incoherent, irresponsible and many times criminal discourses. We cannot be silenced in the face of injustice. We cannot omit ourselves when we see people being stolen from their basic human rights. We cannot ignore when violence intends to give answers to just demands. We cannot in any way endorse the judging of a whole people. There should be Education, peace, freedom and justice to all.

For that reason I affirm and scream from the top of my lungs that we should fight against all the forms of discrimination. Therefore simplistic perspectives that use anti-semitic and anti-judaism colours should be denounced just like Orientalist and Islamophobic discourses that are used to refer to Arabs and Muslims as common and similar groups.

As a Palestinian, I affirm that the anti semitic is my enemy like it is the enemy of the Jew. Anti Semitism should not be used, in no way, in my name. It demoralises and brings shame to my cause. It cannot happen under my name.

  
Drawing by Thomaz Bondioli

She can’t really tell what comes first, the air pushing her suddenly aside or the explosion that makes her heart skip a beat. She is almost certain that everything suspends and stops in a vacuum inside and outside for a millisecond. She looks at the petrified tourists around her. They are Israelis, and for them everything stops in a different place. Everything stops because they feel a millisecond of terror, until their mind reminds their bodies that those are bombs of joy. It is Diwali, the Festival of Light in India. Tourists do not understand that these firecrackers not only fight evil, but that they also celebrate the return of Krishna. And both the tourists and her do not understand that behind Diwali there is an awareness of one’s inner light. She might have once known it, but now she doesn’t anymore. How could she, if inside of her she feels less lit.

She wants the bombs to keep exploding to get again and again a millisecond of suspension of pain. Not even looking at the children laughing while throwing firecrackers at the legs of Western tourists does it anymore. Western tourists never understand that they are children, who do not understand it is dangerous. She used to feel amused looking at the tourists jump and look for an adult to complain to in total anger. “They are crazy! Don’t they know it is really dangerous?” Adults always agreed, and explained that children were amused by the scared faces tourists made. They did not understand. The truth is that also adults were amused, so they never truly reprimanded the children. They did of course not tell the tourists that. But they felt resentment towards their shallow hellos and goodbyes. They felt resentment to the bargaining foreigners who could not tell the difference between the good and bad silver. And yet they still bargained the same way. They felt contempt for these people who came and sat the whole day smoking jars, eating, laughing and making lots of noise till much later than acceptable. What she hated the most was when these young rich kids bargained by saying they had no money because they were students! When she knew that being a student was the dream of so many around her. No that is not what she hated most. What she hated most was that her own brother, a Brahmin, a pure person, now defended them. He even learned their language. He now lied to their parents and smoked, and drank and had accepted the invitation of an Israeli to participate in a barbecue. A barbecue! She thought many times before about telling her father. She should have done when it first happened. When her brother first had the idea to transform the guesthouse into one that catered for Israelis.

“Why Israelis?” Her father had asked. And her brother explained that they came in groups, and they told each other about it. It would not take more than satisfying one of them and all of their friends, and friends of their friends, and friends of their friends’ friends would come. “It is good business papa”. Her father was suspicious at first. Mixing so closely with foreigners could not possibly be good. But his son had mentioned something that put ideologies and fears aside: money.

And so it was that her father allowed him to take care of it all alone. It went little by little. He had to first learn to do the food that they eat in their country. And then they had to just find a way to allow them to make as much noise as they wished, and to smoke anything they wanted. It seemed so far away now. How was it that her old house had become what it was now. She should have said something then, but she was also curious about these girls who sat with boys smoking and laughing. They touched each other in public. She could only see them sometimes when she came to deliver something. She should have told her father then, but she did not know it would go so fast and now it was too late. She could not even recognize her brother anymore. He was now so distant. He never spoke to her that much but he was still part of the family. Not now, now he sat with them and laughed their crazy laughter. She knew it was not real laughter. It was laughter to distract. Laughter that worked for him as the bombs now worked for her.

She suddenly realized it had happened again. She had repeated the whole circle in her mind of how it was that her life was destroyed and this time she did not even hear any firecrackers. She wanted to cry, to scream, to run away. To swirl time backwards and run into her father’s office and scream, “Do not let Pratheek do this Papa! Lets just cater for Indians!”

And every time she swirled time backwards she could see one more detail of how it was that now she stood where she stood.

One more possible exit that she did not take because she was always afraid. On the first exit out her brother would have been disappointed, on the next possible gate out he would have been upset and now she regretted not having taken the first exit out. Then the next one would make him angry, and then the next furious. And then it did not matter anymore because her brother was trapped, he was gone. Now any exit she took would just cause pain to her father. If he ever were to find out his own older son now ate meat! MEAT? He would feel the same pain she did now. He had no health for this. So she helped her brother out taking the road to his own entrapment.

The wind dislocated her violently. It exploded so close to her that she was pushed aside. Was it the explosion or her own weakness that made her fall to the ground? She did not know. A friendly blond girl dressed in colourful dirty clothes, with dreads in her hair shouted at the children.

“Are you crazy, you almost hit her!”

The girl looked at her preoccupied. Enquiring whether she was ok.

She hated the girl she had never seen.

“Let them explode their firecrackers. Let them hit my leg. I am like them. I understand them, you don’t. Maybe then I can forget that look. That one look”.

She said nothing. She looked down. She would not thank her, she would not smile. She hated her, and all that she represented. She did not need her help. She did not need to be saved from the firecrackers the children threw around by a foreigner! She wanted to tell her that. She wanted to shout at her all the trapped anger she had inside. But she did not. Her greatest subversive act was to look down and remain silent.

Maybe it would have been better if she had not known. Maybe if she had not gone that day to deliver an unimportant message she would not have understood so well why he was so distant. Maybe if she did not know she could have had imagined that that was how it was supposed to be. But she had seen it, and the knowledge of it did not allow her to be able to change anything.

She wanted to scream at him. She wanted to run away from her own self. To vomit herself out and let the body lay there on the floor. Even if she could not understand what would be left. Was the pain in her body or in her soul? How could it be that it was both, and even vomiting herself out would not solve it. That is what it was, she was trapped, and she trapped him too.

She remembered how lucky she felt on the day when her parents announced that her arranged marriage was to Mohan the boy she had secretly loved her whole life. She imagined from that day onwards every single ceremony of the wedding. She imagined how she would walk around the fire, every circle making a promise that was more and more profound. She daydreamed about the saris, and the Henna and the exchange of gifts and where she would put her hand in the wall. How it would be marked that his family home was now hers. She knew she was probably the luckiest girl in the whole of India. For the whole time she was away helping her grandmother in the farm she thanked the gods every single day.

She was so happy that she had even forgotten how distant her brother had become. So happy that she thought it was a good idea for Mohan to work in the guesthouse too. Retrospectively she realized that it had in fact not been that clear to her all that she saw now. Those gates out there were not clear then. In fact they were not even visible. She might have been even happy that her brother was becoming more open, and so learned. How could she have been so stupid? How could it be that things become only so clear when you look back at them? Maybe it was a punishment for being so distracted with her own luck.

It did not matter she was too tired now to even scream. Too tired to tell the blond girl anything. She felt no strength to even stand up. She secretly wished those were real bombs. She just wanted her mind to stop. But it did not, her mind did not abandon her, and within herself she had to once again, in spite of her own desire, walk back the streets to deliver that unnecessary message in the guesthouse.

She walked again through the streets inside of her. She remembers the joy that now seemed so stupid. She remembers the thankfulness to the wind for cooling off her skin a bit on that beautiful day. She is walking as paused and peacefully as she could possibly walk, when her own body wants to run there. Her posture is flawless. Her hair has just been oiled, her sari is perfectly in place. She climbs the stairs gently, and walks towards the restaurant of the guesthouse. She can hear Mohan’s voice. Her heart beats stronger. She gently slides into the room.

She feels beautiful as she has never felt before. She cannot see anything else but him. Nothing else exists. He does not see her. How long does it take? She looks at him, and feeling invisible things start to materialize around her. Little by little she starts to hear other voices, and see other bodies. She can see now he is sitting with them. He is laughing with them. Why can’t he see her? He looks so happy.  She admires his joy. She observes when he suddenly becomes quiet. Why is he not seeing her yet? He is looking in her direction but yet he does not see her. His look changes, it communicates something in silence to someone. It is a secret look, she has never seen it before. It is a knowing look. It is an intimate look. It is in her direction yet it is not for her. His gaze flies through her and behind. She suddenly becomes petrified. Her whole body knows it but she still does not believe it. She gently and fearfully follows his gaze. What is he seeing? She follows it meticulously inch by inch, and as in an already announced tragedy she slightly turns her head to suddenly find a foreign woman. The foreign woman does <b>not</b> look down, as she comes from another world living by different rules the foreigner looks inside of him. She knows in every cell of her body that <b>that woman</b> had taken him away from her. He will still walk around the fire with her, but he will never really be there.

After being in Venezuela for more than a month I guess we can say a lot of different things.

We have seen a country that is divided. People who absolutely despise Chavez’s Plan and those who will always defend him and whoever follows his project.

Santa Elena is by the Brazilian border, so the common things with borders happen. Smuggling ( here specially fuel), tourism and all kinds illegal or bordering illegal activities. Because it is so close to Brazil everything is more expensive than in the rest of the places we have been to.

When I first came to Puerto Ordaz I did not particularly like it. It is true I barely spent anytime there. Then I crossed the country for about 16 hours to be able to reach Choroni, and more specifically Puerto Colombia.

Puerto Colombia is by the sea. We have spent about three weeks there. And as expected from a small place by the sea, life was calm and most of the people liked their lives and the government.

From there we saw the U.S declaring that Venezuela was a threat to them, Maduro starting to rule by decree and even children being asked in school to write to Obama saying “Yankees go home!”. We saw people despise the act and also some who defended Maduro’s request.

We heard about all missions implemented by Chavez ranging from a literacy project first to teach the elderly and then the children. The project of pocket constitutions. Private computers to all children attending school and free internet in all schools. Projects to rent money for micro-projects. Legislation to protect small fishermen and many other things. We verified there were many channels, and internet did not look censored. We felt people spoke freely in the streets since many people screamed out loud about their hatred towards the government, the lack of food, the destruction of the economy, the longs cues to buy food etc.

We were impressed to learn that while the minimum wage was 5,500 bolivares ( about 21 dollars) monthly, there were hotels charging 4,500 a night in an average weekend and charging more than 10 thousand a day for the “semana santa” (easter holidays). We were amazed to see they were filled up by Venezuelans who came for weekends and had made reservations for that week.

In Brazil easter is celebrated from next friday to sunday. But here it started yesterday and will last till the following Sunday. Considering Choroni is small, would be full, and there would probably have lots of traffic jams we decided to leave on Thursday.

It was rather miraculous that we were able to reach Maracay and get a bus to Puerto Ordaz that same day. After 16 hours travelling we were hoping to take a bus on friday to reach Santa Elena today. However, we were told all buses were sold out for that night and that we should come the next day at 5 in the morning to check for buses for that day, considering no one can buy tickets in advance now in Venezuela .

Being unable to find a ticket, we reserved a cab for the following day. The driver’s car broke down and so we went to the station at 10, only to find out that the buses were not running today. Being advised to check again every single day. It is holidays they explained “they might not be running”.

Staying longer made us learn many things. We visited the 200 hectares beautiful park la llovizna where there are huge waterfalls. In fact, we were told, that the river Caroni, one of the rivers in Puerto Ordaz, provides electricity to the majority of the country and even to some parts of Brazil and Colombia.

There is nothing like staying in a big city to realise how much this country has lost. While in little towns people might not see it so clearly here it is screaming at your face. There are some sentences we hear here which are priceless. Our cab driver told us yesterday.

“It is all falling into pieces. We are floating. Do you think I am really a taxi driver? I put a sticker in my car and I drive. That man there is selling what he does not need. There are no jobs. The new laws make it impossible for anyone to hire anyone, one could never fire them even if they did not come to work. So we do anything to float.”

Yet there are malls where the prices are completely un-payble for the average Venezuelan. There are McDonalds, Tommy, Adidas, Burger King, Tinberland, Guess, Victoria Secret etc.

There are hotels that can cost up to 15 thousand bolivares and Venezuelans that stay there.

Ad of course there are “colas” (lines) to buy food. Since the government stipulates prices for some specific items. Those are immediately bought and sold in the black market. So when they are in the supermarket people run there to buy them.

Doctors are free to all, but medicine is not there.

Those who are pro Chavez accuse the market and the US for creating this situation. They consider all that is happening to be part of an economic warfare.

Those who hate Chavez’s project blame the destruction of the industry, the total dependency of oil and the fact that this government has replaced most of the skilled people. While before in the state ran company there were experts on oil now the government has substituted those workers with people who are more aligned with the party but who are not necessarily knowledgeable about the industry.

“We have more oil than saudi Arabia. It is heavy oil and perhaps more expensive to extract, but still these are the greatest reserves in the world. Yet this incompetent and corrupt government has fired those who know how to get it.”

These debates will always be answered by Chavistas saying that “lowering oil that much is part of the economic war.”

People are divided. Venezuela imports 70 %of its food from abroad. They are rich in minerals and oil and the reason why the economy is collapsed is always debated by the different sides. I guess they might all agree in one thing: the situation is dire. The reason for that however varies according to who you ask. It has nothing to do with lack of information but rather with people’s different political views.

I am always amazed when I see these who float to survive. I am amazed because whatever side they belong to every single person I have met here was helpful.

Though they might know very clearly that we are privileged to be able to be travelling for so long, they help the best way they can.

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The first day we walked about ten km. We woke up early but took a long time to leave since Josué decided to make us pancakes. By that time we convinced him to get someone to carry some of the food. Who could possibly carry all those glass bottles of marmalade, plus tents, food etc 🙂

And so we started to walk. We were amazed because around us all was burnt. There were no plantations, nor cattle just burnt ground and fires burning what was left. I asked Josué why was everything burnt.

“It is our tradition.”

“Why, Josué.?”

“To plant Yuka (some kind of manioc)”

“I don, t think you have to cut trees to plant”

“It our indigenous tradition.”

“But Josue, one day there will be nothing left. The ground is becoming petrified and there will be no more rain. What will you do then?”

“Move to another site.”

We all realised there was no way of going further on that topic.

It took us days to understand Josue. He was a boy that was trapped in traditions of the past, lived and wished for a life of the modern world. Above all he also had huge mood swings. He would go from singing Hakuna Matata to total silence.

Maria and I were real therapists trying to always bring him back to a good mood. It usually did not take more than saying Hakuna Matata.

I miss Josue. He tried as much as he could to help us. I guess he was lonely. Trapped in a divided existence. So any concern we showed for his private life would change it all. Like most of us he had huge dreams, no total vision of the whole picture and a form of loneliness.

The second day we walked about 10 km. The ground was always changing. We crossed rivers and went up and down hills.

It was only on the third day that we reached the real Monte Roraima. As we were arriving we passed trees, rivers, and then suddenly we were right in front of that huge Monte. I looked the wall of rocks in front of us and just wondered how could we possibly go up without climbing gear.

Josué who had walked way faster with all this load on his back waited for us.

“You must touch the rock and ask for permission to climb Monte Roraima.”

And so we did. I laid my hands and head on the rock and asked permission and protection for the very few o us who were going up that mountain that day.

Till I reached the third day I thought most people who are healthy and like walking could do it. On the third day however it became clear I knew very few people who would want or would be able to do it.

We started our way up. There was fog, rain, and the water from “la lagrima” (the teardrop fall) falling above us.

The ground changed. We could see granite, crystals and so many other kinds of rocks I don’t know the names of. There were red and blue berries. The blue, Josue warned us should never be eaten.

Our Argentinian friends might have climbed it in less than 3 hours. We took about four. And then we were there. We could barely see anything. The fog was covering it all.

We found our “hotel”. A cave where we sat camp. And then we heard the word, that has been most used the whole time there.

“Despejado”

Which meant we should wait for the brief moments when the clouds had gone and the sky would be clear.

Maybe that is what we always wait in life… Clarity to see how things really are.