One of my life’s big dreams was just fulfilled, albeit fifty years late.

Five decades after being sure that I couldn’t possibly live one SECOND longer without a horse, I finally own one.

I should have named my new horse Manguera, which means hose in Spanish, since I got him by trading irrigation hoses for horse with my neighbor Lelo who needed to water his new corn field. But since “Manguera” doesn’t quite have a ring to it, I decided to call him Mistico.

Mistico was delivered to me by Yeiverly – age 7 months – riding regally atop this lovely black horse, led by her parents – Bebe and Yelimar, ages 17 and 18. Good choices for delivering dreams. These are two of the most dignified people I know.

Today’s internet buzzes with stories of young Venezuelans – actually two sets of them - each proclaiming to be nation’s Dream Deliverers.One set carried guns, tear gas and dresses in olive green. The other carries gas masks, Molotov cocktails and sometimes dresses in nothing. According to your politics, one set is defending or delivering dreams, while the other destroys them. Or vice versa.

But my dream has been delivered by Bebe and Yeli, bearing horse and baby, dressed in rubber boots and tattered jeans. 

My vote goes to them as Venezuela’s Dream Deliverers.

I first got to know this unique couple as they slung mud a few years ago. Not at each other, but at my bahareque (mud) home. Skilled in the ancient art of “mud-stucco” - they gave my home its final smooth layer of mud, adding a grace, a softness, and a harmony it had previously lacked.

I loved watching them work as a team. From dawn to dusk, they hauled and sifted tons (literally) of dirt, mixed it with dried horse manure, stomped it to a smooth sticky paste with their bare feet, then slung it forcefully against the walls. Finally, they smoothed the mud with knowing hands.

At 15 and 16,these young teens were amazingly strong, skilled, hardworking and shockingly free of sexual stereotypes. They were breath of fresh air, an innocent page of Little House on the Prairie coming to life, amidst a backdrop of a nation turning to ashes.

Both seemed to have been born on a horse, so we never had to search for our supply of horse manure! I loved watching them race one another bare-backed down to the river after a long day’s work, ready to jump into the cool waters flowing down from the mountains.

In Mistico’s first few weeks under my care, either Bebe or Yeli or both came daily. They taught me to rope and tie him, to lead him to the kind of grass he likes, add salt to his potato peels. They bathed and groomed him, they shod him and cured him of fleas and parasites. They built his little stable and taught me to call and hug and love him. In the early evenings we rode together down to the river, and we shared with an easiness that somehow comes with the slow gait of horses.

We talked about the rains awaited, the corn ripening, the challenges of surviving off Bebe’s salary in the potato fields – 50 cents a day. About their unsuccessful search for cream of rice for Yeverly, about skipping meals each day, about pulling together with their family of ten to make a soup of zucchini or squash to try to calm the hunger of the day. About wanting to wait for another child and about the total lack of birth control at public health centers. About scrounging harvested fields for left-over black beans or tiny potatoes. But especially, about their love of horses.

Each day as Bebe and Yeli came there was always something in their hands. Some of those scrounged potatoes. Some pepper seeds from their field. A plantain plant. A baby onoto tree. Their generosity , like that of many of my neighbors in my village, in the midst of raw hunger, is truly stunning.

Venezuela’s dreams will not be delivered by tear gas, guns, or Molotov cocktails. This nation, led down the destructive path of group addiction to oil and food imports by governments on the left and right, will not reclaim its dreams on these battlefields.

My vote for Venezuela’s Dream Deliverers is Yeli and Bebe. They know how to grow food. To build homes. To care for children and animals and the earth. To share with their neighbors. To support one another. To live free of stereotypes. To give their strength and passion and hard work and know-how to create a softer, gentler, and more harmonious Venezuela.

Thanks for delivering my dream deferred, muchachos bellos. How I hope that you can deliver it to this nation that I love.