Sometimes, my bookings at international schools have made for pretty crazy schedules. Once, I had to fly to a school in Venezuela. From there to Spain to join Kees on his Camino hike and after that we both traveled to Belgium to speak at a librarians conference, followed by a trip to Zambia. It was a full two months of travels. So I am glad I discovered No-Jet-Lag pills. They really work for me. They are tiny, homeopathic tablets, no chemicals. You take one every two hours on a flight and - low and behold - I have not been bothered by jetlag since. They do not make you sleepy, but somehow help you overcome time changes…
The other important thing of travel is to have the right luggage. For me that is a 40 liter Osprey pack with a detachable daypack and on wheels. It has enough compartments, allows me to just take the day pack to school and the whole thing fits in the overhead compartment so I never check baggage.
For my trip to Venezuela, I’m leaving on a floatplane. Climbing into the little floatplane, that holds 4 other people, I start my amazing race. Salt Spring Air is fabulous. Halfway across the water to Vancouver, the pilot spotted a tall ship. He circled it low so that we could get a good look of the wooden decks, the masts, the sails.
The next flight took me to L.A. and from there I was on a midnight flight to Miami. The 4th and final flight took me to Barcelona, Venezuela. It was cool to fly over the Atlantic and then the Caribbean - seeing the Bahamas, Cuba and Haiti/Dominican Republic. I'd never been to South American so am learning more geography as I go. For instance, I didn't know that Costa Rica and Venezuela are basically at the same longitude rather than north/south of each other.
It is a balmy 34ºC in Venezuela and quite humid. I'm staying with a wonderful teacher/librarian who feels like an old friend. I booked a few extra days to get used to climate and time zones so it feels like a holiday. On the day I arrive there is a ‘Virgin del Valle Festival’, a religious holiday.
Her amazing library assistant comes over to cook a traditional Venezuelan breakfast for us: scrambled eggs with onions and tomatoes, with arepas (Ah-ray-pass) - round bread made from corn flour and baked slowly on a special flat baking sheet. We have sliced avocados, fried plantains and freshly squeezed orange juice with it. Pretty awesome, what a welcome!
Salud!
Then we spend some time in and by the pool under the palm trees (while from home I get emails about the first snow fall in Canada).
We walked to the beach where the festival was in full swing, with lots of people, music and stalls with food. At the first stall we sipped the most perfect pina coladas I've ever had.
We sample warm tequeños, deep-fried breadsticks with melted, white cheese inside. Yummy. And of course we had to take home tres leches cake and torte de chocolate to eat on the balcony in the warm breeze after our bean soup and wine. I like Venezuela!
I am learning many interesting things about this unusual country, officially called 'the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela’.
The currency is the Venezuelan bolívar (popularly called “b’s”). How many you get for a dollar depend on wether or not you buy them at the black market.
People are very friendly and outgoing. I always love being at an international school and listening to teachers who have lived and worked in so many different countries. They teach children who speak 3 or 4 languages, even in First Grade.
Every morning we go to school by taxi. The school has verandas and a large green courtyard. I do presentations all day for students, parents and teachers. The kids are so lovely and excited.
On the way through the city it feels like the Philippines: half finished concrete buildings, lots of potholes, sidewalks that end abruptly. Palm trees. Stalls selling bananas or coca cola. But Venezuela might be one of the most difficult countries to live in. There is economic and political chaos, not enough staples for daily life, security leaves a lot to be desired and corruption thrives.
One night we got picked up in a huge SUV. One teacher said to the driver "Tell her how much it costs to fill this thing up with gas!" I was thinking, 'Hhhmm... 100, 150 dollars in the US..' when the driver smiled and said, "Oh... about 20 cents." I wondered what kind of joke this was. But no, seriously, gas is practically free in Venezuela. The other person said he just paid a dollar for 75 gallons.... How can this be? Well, apparently it is one of the few perks that the government provides for the people. They produce gasoline here and provide it for next to nothing. In North America we think that this is an amazing, lucky perk for the people here and that their government is wise to provide it instead of sell it overseas. Here, however, people tell me that they would be happy to pay more for gasoline if that meant that roads would be fixed and other services provide. But, they say, if more is charged for gas we're not so sure the extra money actually goes to roads. It likely ends up in pockets.
I was told that, whenever people here want to protest something - high costs, or lack of products, the many power outages or political ideas - they gather in the streets and bang on pots and pans. Often a tweet will get more people together at a specific time and a pot-banging crowd gathers in no time.
Products can be very cheap here. I bought 2 cinnamons buns for breakfast, a 1.5 liter bottle of freshly squeezed orange juice and 2 pastries. Total cost was less than 4 dollars. But there is also a huge lack of some necessities.
The teacher who hosts me asked if I could bring a bottle of shampoo, because there is no shampoo or soap anywhere. Some people grate big old bars of soap with a cheese grinder to make detergent.
The most hilarious story was that the librarian ordered my books from the States. She asked the bookseller to please pack the books in toilet paper rolls, rather than in useless packing paper, because there is a serious shortage of toilet paper here. The American bookseller was happy to oblige.
But when customs opened a box of books, in addition to books they found toilet paper. They quickly went through all boxes and labeled the rolls as contraband!
I wish my Venezuelan friends well and hope that the current humanitarian crisis will be overcome soon - that the kindness I encountered, together with the country’s natural beauty, will prevail and that life will become easier and safer for them very soon. The blue stripe in the flag of Venezuela stands for ‘courage, loyalty and justice’ - may those soon return and prevail for all people.
