A Day in the Life: Witnessing Venezuela's Crisis
What Venezuelans are going through, as told by them.
There are a lot of words to describe what's going on in Venezuela. Crisis. Implosion. Mess. Falling apart.
There's the skyrocketing inflation, the lack of basic goods and medicine, the public health crisis. There's the energy crisis, with rolling blackouts and water shortages. There's widespread violence. The list goes on.
Could there be anything worse than seeing this happen to your country?
Though it's painful, Venezuelans on Medium have opened up about their everyday experiences. Here's a translation of excerpts from some of the most recent posts.
Aglaia Berlutti has been documenting her country's crisis through her everyday experiences, from getting woken up by gunfire, to asking friends to send migraine medication from abroad, to witnessing a lynching.
In a recent post, she chronicles her fruitless wait in line to get into the supermarket, chatting with a mother who had to take off from work to get groceries for her children. She pondered how things got to this point:
“I never thought I'd live to see a situation like this. I grew up in a flashy, superficial and frivolous country. A country with a fragile economy but one that could still be sustained. A country where you could find the best imports and traditional Venezuelan food at the supermarket. A country where I could study for two university degrees on a sporadic freelancer's salary. A country where with my little savings, I could buy a new car.”
Marianne Díaz H. observed the effect of food and pharmaceutical shortages.
“A week ago I ran out of drops for my glaucoma treatment. I searched all the pharmacies in the city; no version exists…I worry about changing treatment again: only three months ago the ophthalmologist prescribed me new medicine, because the old one disappeared from the shelves…
Yesterday someone broke into my car while it was parked. They stole bags of food. Not devices, not the battery, nor the car itself: bags of food.
…There is another world outside, a world that I can access increasingly less. What do people talk about when they're not thinking about where to get bread?”
Haymed Montaño, who lives in a small city in Sucre state, wrote about what it's like in the country's more rural areas.
“We are the last ones to receive resources (doctors, as well as food). We have a shameful hospital, a solitary bus station, no prison and plenty of police, an ornamental airport, trash in the street, a wasted beach, a putrid smell noticeable between the big beach and the market, a forgotten avenue, a tree without leaves…We have no shame. Yes, we have a violin; it's because we have no deodorant and if we stink it's because there is no soap, much less water…We spend money on motels to take home toilet paper and soap, to shower and have a nice time.”
Juan M. Izquierdo explained a recent day that should have been run-of-the-mill, but turned out to be chaotic.
“At 6:00 a.m. there was still no electricity, because on my block it was darker and hotter from 4:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. To get over this bitterness and start to get ready, we made coffee. Without sugar. We realized there wasn't any. At 7:45 a.m., about 90 people in our apartment complex, most of whom hadn't showered, waited an hour and a half for transportation to go to work. There wasn't transportation, either. At 8:30 a.m. I got to school and I noticed everyone outside their classrooms. There is no electricity. Go on home. The teacher left everything until Wednesday.”
In another post, Juan wrote:
“As citizens, we have been subjected to accepting measures and results from poorly conceived government actions. Corruption. Evil. Which brings us as a result the terrible moment we are living. Without being prisoners, we have no freedom to move freely even in our own country. We are not free to consume whatever we want, but what others choose for us. We are not free to enjoy the basic things, everyday things, the normal, a monument, the work of one of our artists, a film at the movies, stand-up at a theater (seriously, there's no electricity for that).”
Rubén Darío Peña wrote about his mom waking him up at 7:00 a.m. to go wait in line to get into the grocery line and his experience in the line.
“I started to take note of my surroundings: an abundance of senior citizens, mostly women; the presence of youths in uniform — shouldn't they be in school? — pregnant women and some children, oblivious to the situation, taking advantage of the space to run around and play.”
B wrote about an upsetting trip to the drug store.
“I went to the cashier to pay and saw, to my surprise, that they were selling sanitary napkins…I thought something like 'Wow, today is my lucky day.'
The ten-minute wait was eternal. I looked at the pads with excitement and despair…It was my turn. I asked the cashier for a package of pads, and she asked me for my ID card.
'My love, today's not the day for your card number.'
…I couldn't buy pads, nor can I buy toilet paper, deodorant or contraceptives, because they don't exist. You know what I’m using for deodorant? The remains glued to the inner walls of old containers. Not because I don't have money, but because I can't get and I am seriously allergic to — seriously — anything other than solid Lady Speed Stick.
…When I got home there was a blackout. It took three hours for the electricity to come back on. In the stairs I ran into the building manager, who told me to get water because it seems that's also going to go out.
I really want to cry, but I prefer to write this.”
Luis Carlos Díaz wrote about the shortage of prescription drugs. “No country on the continent is in a similar situation right now, even Haiti,” he notes.
“I've helped two people in convulsions on the street because without pills, they are time bombs ready to go off at random…So this year we will bury people. Burying people and lacking jobs and schools to care for the sick, because if one goes down, so does the family.”
Una Venezolana en Bs As, a Venezuelan living in Buenos Aires, wrote about observing her country in turmoil from abroad.
“Every day I read news articles and analyze everything that is happening and I realize that my fear is to arrive in a country that isn't mine, to be an immigrant in my own land, noting that nothing is or will be as it was before and the length of time I have in my head to live abroad is growing longer.”
