Our
little mountain village seems built especially for this plague of
darkness and silence. When phone lines go down with the electricity,
we only need to shout a message over the hills and it will
arrive. Ely is going to spend the night here, tell her
mom! I holler into the darkness, sure someone will pass it
on to Elida, a half kilometer away. Five minutes later the return
message is relayed: Elida says ok.
The
full moon, though, is my finest ally. It lights my path as I spend
hours each night watering our fields and orchards and gardens. As
we enter a year of darkness, dominoes has evolved as the prime
evening recreation and sitting around the fire has replaced
telenovelas as a way of closing the day together as a family.
All this
is the poetic part. But there is no lovely verse for my goddaughter
Enderly who arrives at the hospital in her mother’s arms to find its nebulizer – the lifeline for her chronic asthmatic attacks - shut down with the electricity. Or the panic Dinoskar knows that at any minute the respirator that keeps the lungs of her 8-month old nephew pumping may shut down.
Gradually,
though, we have all become a bit like Coco. Adapting to the darkness
that that shrouds much of Venezuela daily. At the beginning of the year, with each
power outage, people banged pots and pans. Or took the streets. That rarely happens now, even as the rest of Latin America seems to be
rising up collectively. Morocho of the Calle La Paz is testimony to that.
An
engineering student, Moro lies in jail tonight trying to keep his convulsions at bay. As a student protest came to a close
last week, a riot policeman grabbed his cell phone, telling him: it’s
mine now. Moro tried to grab the
phone back, was beaten, forced to swallow deodorant, causing convulsions. Accused now of terrorism, he is slated to be sent to overcrowded Uribana
prison. Protest is not an option here in Venezuela.
The government provided numerous explanations for our power outages when they began. It was Donald Trump’s personal henchmen sitting in towers in St.
Louis and Chicago, strategically plunging large
portions of Venezuela into darkness. Then it was a random guy – now in
jail - whose bullet was supposedly retrieved from the river and was said to cause a five day, nation-wide power outage.
But, after some 100,000 power outages in the country, it’s
rather hard to keep spinning new stories. The truth that all Venezuelans know is that the outages
come from neglecting repairs to the public electrical system caused,
yes - in part - by brutal US economic
sanctions that keep repair parts from reaching Venezuelan shores. And
- in part - by the massive mismanagement of the government coupled
with endemic corruption.
But adaptation and resilience is what we do daily here in Venezuela. And we do it well.
Because
in truth, we are not only surviving. Poco a poco, we are thriving. That, perhaps, is the greatest measure of our resistance. Increasing, there are twinkles and rays and flashes that are lighting
up our dark night.
I
am grateful for the moon that guides my steps and for the human
lights that illuminate my soul on this journey. For the light of Bebe as he stomps
mud late into the night, even after an exhausting day in the fields,
to build a sturdy wattle and daub home for this small daughter.
For
the daily flow of food over the fence from my neighbor Jenny. For the wisdom of
Cristian who corrals my chickens on evenings when I am away, and
patiently teaches me in the ways of my brood. We help each other
daily to survive, to celebrate, to thrive.
Little
by little, a subtle dawn is breaking in Venezuela. In comes
from the resilience of those who stayed and the hard work of those
who left (over 5 million) and who send money home.And from the
generosity of Latin American countries who have taken in
Venezuelan migrants, by the millions, just as Venezuela
took them in for decades. They have thrown open their doors just as
the US has closed theirs.
It
is a dawn that spites the dark machinations of many within and without Venezuela whose eyes are only on the prize of oil and gold, at any price, including the destruction of a nation.
But,
theirs is not be the final word. As I water my kale and corn by the
moon, Coco is singing a gaita now, to the beat of Ledy's drums, and
the wind carries it and wraps me in its rhythm and verse. Venezuela
estrella vas galopante por grandes caminos. Vamos adelante,
siempre pa’lante…. (Venezuela star you are galloping on
great paths. We go forward, always forward.
