June 2008

Up until this point, everything written in this blog was recorded shortly after it happened: fresh in my mind and for the most part accurate. But sometimes memories are left to fend for themselves. The following is an account of the second half of my life in 2008, as I remember it one year later.

It was the half-way point of my Rotary Ambassadorial year; a fine time, I figured, to finally give a presentation to my host Rotary Club. I had presented to other Rotary clubs around Caracas and student groups at my university – experimenting with different material to see what worked best. Talking about the United States to a group of Venezuelan Rotarians from Caracas tended to put them asleep. Most Rotarians knew as much about US culture and society as they wanted. Some likely knew more than I did. Treading the controversial waters of Venezuelan politics certainly didn’t cause any shuteye, but it did make me look naïve in the eyes of my audience. Offering my outsider’s “balanced view” of the Venezuelan political situation to a roomful of intransigent partisans I just met, ended up not being the most effective method in challenged the culture of polarization I’d been finding to be so destructive. So, still struggling to discover my voice—that is, to say something useful, meaningful and sincere—I decided to simply speak about everything I loved about Venezuela. Around 40% of Venezuelans are very dissatisfied with the direction their country is headed and tend to sometimes forget what is good about it. In a sense, I saw it as my task to remind them. It turned out to be the right approach. I spoke of the kindness and warmth of the people, the diversity and beautify of the land, and the richness and energy of the culture. I said that I felt more at home in Venezuela than any other country I had ever visited. One woman in the audience was particularly moved by my words. She said that my perspective reignited an optimism that the current political situation had extinguished. I had reminded her how wonderful her country really is and this realization sent chills through her body and brought tears to her eyes. As tears are often contagious, Rotarians around the table began to cry as well. The more emotional they became, the more they wanted me to share my message with others. One went as far to suggest that I give my “Venezuela the Beautiful” presentation on the national opposition television channel, Globovision. He assured me that he would start making the connections that afternoon.

I left Tarzilandia (http://www.tarzilandia.com/index.htm) (the elegant and expensive German restaurant nestled at the foot of El Avila) with a smile on my face and a bounce in my step, overly pleased with the presentation I had just delivered (and the surprisingly poignant response) and childishly excited about the next adventure. I was full of that blissful feeling that comes over us when everything in life is perfect and nothing seems impossible. A car-full of friends were waiting for me at Plaza Altamira. I joined them and we left for Choroní with the music up, windows down, breeze in our face, the back-seat packed, and the open road ahead. It was Monday afternoon, the eve of the festival of San Juan, and I was on my way to Chuao with excellent people and a healthy supply of cold beer. Life couldn’t have been any better.

We arrived in Choroní as the sun was setting and quickly found a boat to take us to Chuao, a small, secluded fishing village on the northern coast. There are two ways to reach Chuao: by boat or on foot. The latter involves a two-day hike over the mountains and through a thick and humid cloud forest. The boat ride can be torture on the toosh, but is over much quicker. Once our craft was full, the motor roared and we shot through the darkness, hopping the white caps, and bouncing over the uneven contours of sea. My legs gripped the bench to keep from being tousled out of my seat, as a cowboy’s legs hug a horse in the heat of a rodeo. Over the side of the boat hundreds of tiny bright lights speckled the water’s surface. They reminded me of a lawn full of fireflies on a midsummer night in Carroll County, or a black Minnesota sky dotted with stars.

Our boat pulled up to shore and the passengers made off into the darkness. After an hour walk through world famous cacao plantations (where some of the world’s finest cacao bean are grown) we stumbled into the humble village of Chuao, panting, our shirts splotched with sweat. The festival, in celebration of the birth of John the Baptist, had already begun and mass was being held in a church just off the plaza. By two o’clock, we had joined a candle light procession winding its way through wide and car-less streets, pausing at certain houses to pray in front of ornate altars – hundreds of candles laid before iconic figures of St. John – and take communion in the form of club crackers and creamy hot chocolate approaching the consistency of pudding. Music drove away the sleepy spell of night. Young children peered from second story windows and ran among the moving grove of legs, sharing in the energy of the celebration.

Where there is music in Venezuela, there is dancing. All of a sudden, for no obvious reason, the procession would halt, a circular space opened in the center of the crowd, and a man and a woman entered the room to dance. A hurried rhythm flowed from the drums, and the ground was beaten down by pattering feet that easily kept pace. The couple gracefully danced circles around each other, but without touching. The man, creating a canopy over the woman with his arms, the woman rapidly rolling her hips to the music. It’s hard to describe the energy at that moment, the feeling of being in the midst of a very genuine and very powerful tradition, entranced by the repetitive beats of the drums, captured by the beauty of the dance, grateful to be in the presence of a joyous people, exploring new ways of worship that bordered on surreal.

As sunrise came the music faded and people retreated to their beds. We bathed in the river that ran behind our hostel that morning, letting the current whisk away the sweat from the night before and then walked back through the cocoa forest to rest up on the beach before making the trip back to Caracas.

The bus ride back to Maracay is typical of the Choroní experience. The colorfully painted bluebird school bus was packed, so I found a seat in the back stair well. Regatón blared from pounding speakers and a bottle of wine was being passed around rear. When someone handed it to me, I took a swig and passed it onto the next stranger. There is something mystical about this bus ride. On one hand, I felt very close to death, sitting in the stairwell of a bus speeding along narrow mountain roads in the rain and the blackness of night. On the other hand, I found comfort in the noise, the laughter, the community of passengers, and their carefree spirit and lack of fear. The blackness masked the dangerously unguarded shoulders visible during the day and I ended up having as much confidence in the driver, founded or not, than every other person on the bus. Whenever we entrust our safety to others, we convince ourselves that the person knows what they’re doing.

In Maracay a seat opened up, so I emerged from my stairwell and found myself next to a nice Venezuelan lady – and after a short conversation I have long forgot, I received an invitation to her house that evening. I refused her hospitality on grounds that I had class the next day at 9am, but looking back now wonder if I would have learned more had I taken her up on her offer.

While I was being showered with invitations to go home with Venezuelan girls, my friend Dave, who had staked out a spot in the front of the bus, was not so fortunate. For the previous two hours he had been standing in the aisle as our bus rounded hairpin turns and finagled tedious switchbacks all the while jostling everyone’s center of gravity, causing nausea among the more sensitive and those with a full stomach. Dave happened to be standing in front of a man with a full stomach and an empty bag of carryout from McDonalds. Feeling something moist that smelled a bit like catsup flung onto his shirt he swiped his finger through it and…as unfortunately expected, it was vomit. Dave turned around and said“Come on man, you could at least have given me a heads up.”