In Venezuela, Hunger is the New Oil

I hadn’t noticed that I lost some fifteen pounds last winter until my pants starting slipping south as I rushed between chores on my little farm in Venezuela. Between planting bananas and yucca and yams, collecting my horse’s manure, grazing sheep and chickens, picking weeds and putting in seeds, I found myself constantly pausing mid-chore to hike up my jeans.

Over the past three years I had morphed from hobby gardener to novice farmer, joining the majority of Venezuelan in dedicating the bulk of my day to sourcing food. The lucky ones with land - like me - pound the ground to produce it, while the majority of this mostly urban nation pound the pavement in search of this ever-disappearing commodity. Meanwhile, all of us have all fine-tuned the art of bartering and scavenger hunting.

I considered myself lucky that I had dropped only fifteen pounds or so. My neighbor Juan Carlos says he is now hast lost some 60 pounds over these three years of crisis, somedays eating what he calls a baby’s portion of food, just to survive, when food is really scarce, passing the rest to his kids.

It’s the lost pounds of the kids that hurts the most. Even those in our little farming collective (who at least bring some healthy extra calories home each week) seem to be shrinking before my eyes, their limbs as thin as twigs. Still, their willowy strength on our Wednesday and Sunday farming days always surprises me.

Sometimes I find myself amazed to remember that it only a few short years ago feeding ourselves meant only a drive to he supermarket, followed by a few minutes at the gas stove to whip it into a meal.

Just driving own’s own car has feels like a thing of the past, something like flip-top cell phones. Batteries, motor oil, and tires just aren’t to be found. My neighbor uses his sedan as a chicken coop, and our lifeless jeep provides shade for our dogs to nap. My son’s abandoned Honda lends support to the recently planted fig tree.

Even if we could get the car to go, the supermarkets in our town have long ago closed shop. At this point, almost all of the nation’s food distribution is in the hands of the military, and our little town appears not to be on their favorite list.

Then there is the problem of cooking the food, once you do actually find it. Cooking gas is needle in the haystack. Sometimes - after days in line starting at 4 am - we get lucky. But we always need other options. Last December we gave our little electric burners away to my partner’s nephew who left the country for Peru, joining a stream of exiting Venezuelans that today has become a rushing river. The stove is not really missed, since these days electricity has become another hit-or-miss affair.

I’m glad that I have planted a lot of trees since their trimings make a decent fire. But, yikes, it takes a long time to cook this way, and makes a sooty mess of pots and pans. My young neighbor Carly taught me to rub blue soap and oil on the outside of the pan before putting it on the fire, but first all soap disappeared from stores shelves, then the oil, then the stores themselves.

Last February I lay aside my sooty pans and adopted country, scrounged up an old belt from the bottom of my drawer, and boarded a flight to Washington, to visit my family.

My favorite hangout soon became the local Trader Joe’s.There is just something so incredibly comforting walking around all these aisles bursting with tasty food and filled with people calmly filling their carts with it. Not a single person seems desperate. I imagine strolling the aisles with Carly. Thanks to this new hobby, I have easily regained the vanished pounds in these three months, and am ready to head home, to Venezuela.

I will be returning just in time for the presidential elections. You might think that with food so scarce, wages averaging less than $5 a month and inflation breaking world records, it would be a slam-dunk for any candidate opposing the current government to win.

But remember what the slam-dunk election mindset brought us recently?

While Venezuela might be short on Russian trolls, Fox News or James Comey, we do have one thing that trumps all. Hunger. Hunger is the Ace of Spades in the hands of all the major players in this poker game for control of Venezuela.

Our hunger just may be what allows the government to stay in power. Their small subsidized bags of food keep us dancing on a string, to say nothing of giving a vote. Our hunger gives the political opposition a pass. They need not even bother to organize an effective political campaign, relying instead on our lost pounds to justify any method for regime change. Our hunger even provides the Trump Adminiation with a faux moral flag, their “concern” for our lost pounds poorly cloaking lust for a strategic political foothold and all that lovely oil.

I used to think that Venezuela’s prize commodity was oil. We do, after all, have the world’s largest supply under our soil. But as I cram my suitcase with oatmeal, honey and peanut butter, all the while wondering in what condition I will find Carly, Mamari, the Morocha, Vivi, Sebastian and all the others, I realize, that has now changed.

In Venezuela, hunger is the new oil.