Home Atlast

Hola a todos!

I arrived in San Francisco airport yesterday around 6:00 pm, safe and sound. It is surreal to be back, for my return home had always felt distant and abstract. After returning, one´s native land can offer as many surprises as the previously visited country. This realization is simply one facet of re-immersion. After I ponder over this, I should have more to say, and I hope to share with those of you in California in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, enjoy pictures from my last two weeks of travel. I made it to two strikingly different parts of the country: la Gran Sabana (link) and Coro (link). The former lies in the extreme southeast and the latter in the west.

Finally, thank you to all who followed my blog and sent me comments over the last ten months. I felt many benefits of producing the blog, for it allowed me to reflect, marvel and –occasionally– vent my observations and comments about my life in Venezuela. Writing it all down in regular articles provided more coherence to my dynamic set of experiences, which in itself lacked coherence and reason more often than not. I hope that I have made that apparent through my entries, and I hope that you have enjoyed reading my blog as much as I have enjoyed writing it.

Un abrazo,
Jeremy

Machismo and Soup

Defined as “strong or aggressive masculine pride,” machismo is mostly associated with unsavory or disrespectful male chauvinsm. Examples include cat calls and whistling to women, binge drinking, discrimination by gender, domestic violence against women, and rape, to name a few. Unfortunately, the locals in Cumaná can attest to the occurrence of these examples among men –though certainly not all– inVenezuela. Yet I have also observed a curious and seemingly benign exhibition within the microcosm of machismo Venezolana, an activity well suited to the seafood-laden food culture in this sweaty corner of the Caribbean: male-dominated soup parties. Known as sancocho de pescado, the hearty stew is one unexpected manifestation of machismo.

Though many men claim to be all thumbs when it comes to cooking, they will jump at any opportunity to make sancocho. They take great pride in their ability to make a good soup, and the epitome of this phenomenon entails a six hour soup-making ordeal, during which men sit around a fire and drink shots of Cacique rum while they prepare and devour the sancocho. Then again, this is no ordinary fish soup, for its delicious flavor reflects local Caribbean and Andean ingredients. Most of the volume comes from a class of ingredients called the bituaya, consisting of yucca, pumpkin, a root vegetable called okumo blanco, and a small plantain called zumbi. The second component –and most flavorful– is called aliño, which consists of garlic, onion, and a small sweet pepper called aji dulce. Last but not least, the sancocho would be a fraud without the local catch of the day.

Despite the ferocious pride that some men express towards their sancocho, it is not exclusively male.

For example, my friend Ana –an English professor with whom I work– and her husband Jose Luís both make a delicious sancocho (I have tried the soups that each one makes). However, Jose Luís –and other men– express a more valiant attitude towards the sancocho. This could be explained by his heritage: he comes from a family of fisherman. It could be his connection to the catching of the fish itself: he always goes fishing when he visits his family on the weekends, bringing home the bounty for his soups. Or, he might be proud because sancocho is the only dish that he knows how to cook. Whatever the reason, he also makes a great teacher, which I realized last Thursday as he taught me the art of making soup. The meeting was part of the to-do list before my departure from Cumaná. To complement the occasion, Ana invited seven other English professors – and all of them women. Mostly Jose Luis and I were to be in the kitchen. Upon my entrance, Jose Luís handed me a beer and an apron. “We´re going to peel yucca,” he declared. At this announcement, Jose Luis passed me a knife, sat me down, and demonstrated the proper paring techniques for yucca and the other ingredients in the bituaya.

The whole process took about two hours before the sancocho had reached its point of perfection. At this point, large, deep bowls came out of the cupboard and were distributed to the (most female) guests full of soup. The pot was empty shortly thereafter. Watching the satisfaction of all, I felt confused because I had always considered machismo a bad thing. Yet I could deny neither my euphoria that accompanied my fervent, testosterone-drenched stupor, nor the guests´ praise towards the soup. This is a form of chavinism that I can appreciate: real men make fish soup.

Your Questions

A few months ago, I asked my blog readers to send me their questions about Venezuela. The questions that I received touched on topics like politics, religion, artisan crafts, higher education, to name a few. Zoom forward. A few ago, I had the pleasure of interviewing my friend and colleague Zenaida Cabello. Born and raised in Cumaná, Zenaida has been an English professor at the Universidad de Oriente since 1987. I presented the questions to Zenaida during this interview, and we had plenty to discuss during our forty-minute talk. I hope that you enjoy listening to it.

Download the podcast (for those with iTunes)
Download the mp3

Photos: Travels Near and Far

Hola amigos y familia,

Over the last month, I have tried to make the most of my remaining time in Venezuela, traveling more and more to areas near and far from Cumaná. Here are some photos from my recent travels:

Mérida: a mid-size city nestled in the andean region of Venezuela.

San Antonio del Golfo: a small picturesque fishing town about an hour outside of Cumana.

Mochima: a national park that consists of various islands in the state of Anzoátegui. Specifically, my friends and I went to a beach called Playa Manare.

Margarita: I made a visit to the famous Venezuelan island, known for its tax-free-zone status and beaches. While there, I swam a 5 km open water swimming competition with my swimming buddies.

Enjoy!

Two Vans

It was Friday afternoon, during peak traffic hours, and I had a three hour car ride from the airport in Barcelona, Venezuela, to Cumana. Faced by sweltering heat, I was to make the trip in a staple of Venezuelan public transportation: the buseta. This name belongs to a class of oversized vans that –crammed with passengers– travel local routes among cities and towns. Preceding the schlep, I had arrived in Barcelona by plane from Caracas, where I had attended a meeting on Thursday at the U.S. Embassy with other Fulbright English Teaching Assistants (ETAs) and the embassy staff. Following our meeting, an embassy contracted van took us to an evening jazz recital at the ambassador’s house. The meeting was successful, and it was a pleasure to enjoy the recital with the other ETAs. However, the subject that calls my attention most is neither the meeting nor the recital. Rather, I am fascinated by the contrast between the embassy van and the buseta, for their dichotomy reveals the extremes that I have encountered in my experience in a provincial region of Venezuela yet under the auspices of the U.S. government.

It would be a grave understatement to call the buseta “secondhand” given its many defects. The windshield was cracked, the speedometer was broken, and the air conditioning did not work. Fortunately, the absence of the buseta´s rear door aided air circulation in the car; the gaping hole in the vehicle´s side abated the merciless heat. My favorite feature would be the splintered ply wood panel that covered the left side, contrasting the dull, unfinished paint job of the van´s shell. Though U.S. made and built during the mid-1980s, the vehicle had shed its North American identity as salsa music blasted from oversized speakers. My buseta was loaded with its own sabor.

Despite these critical observations, I am not picky when it comes to public transportation, even if it means braving a three hour ride to my destination in a buseta. And I was simply on my way back to my clean yet nondescript home in Cumaná, a small city that has more attributes of a large town than a metropolitan city. It is unassuming and low-key, for the most part.

The aesthetic qualities and destination of the embassy van was a 180° flip. The vehicle’s immaculate, white exterior reflected the neon lights of Caracas as Cesar, the driver, picked the ETAs up at the hotel. It was about 6:30 in the evening when we moved from the air-conditioned hotel lobby to the air conditioned van; there was not a bead of sweat on my brow as I opened the door and hopped into my well-upholstered seat. The door closed, and Cesar drove us through Caracas traffic. However, the fully enclosed vehicle muffled the din of the city as Cesar refrained from playing salsa music at a blaring volume. Our artificial sanctuary-on-wheels headed to the jazz recital.

The destination of the embassy van was the opposite of nondescript: we were to enjoy an evening of jazz in the home of the U.S. ambassador to Venezuela*. The large house lies in an exclusive neighborhood on the slope of a mountain that overlooks Caracas. The fine backdrop complemented the even finer hors d'oeuvres, whiskey, rum and wine served to the embassy employees in attendance. No one constituted royalty, yet this event was aristocratic relative to most social affairs that I had attended in Venezuela. The jazz saxophonist Pablo Gil played his set, and by 9:30 we were heading towards the white embassy van to go back to our hotel. I enjoyed the whole ordeal yet felt surprised that the event was sponsored by the U.S. government.

I ask myself: figuratively speaking, do I prefer the buseta or the embassy van? The most gratifying choice is not obvious to me. The buseta was cramped and not aesthetically pleasing, yet it felt dynamic and exciting; the soundtrack conjured up a desire to dance to the rhythms in my seat. The embassy van was clean, comfortable and free of inconveniences. On the downside, the ride raised neither my heartbeat nor my adrenaline. The buseta took me to Cumaná, the low-key Venezuelan city where I strictly rub elbows with Venezuelans. The embassy van took me to the crème de la crème of the capital where I rubbed elbows with my compatriots. The dichotomy distilled: down-to-earth, corybantic, 100% Venezuela versus U.S. privilege, transplanted to the Caribbean and doused in the finest of Venezuelan rum. Who am I kidding? I want both.

*Note: Technically the U.S. ambassador to Venezuela was designated persona non grata by President Hugo Chávez. In place of the ambassador, the chargé d'affaires carries out the ambassador’s duties.

La Travesía

“Do you see it? It looks like café marrón (“brown coffee”), like mud,” Señor Jesus said to me as we starred into the water of the Orinoco River. Our bus had arrived at the river’s shore minutes ago from Cumaná, where I swim at the local pool with Señor Jesus and a handful of other university professors and students. But now we were waiting for the ferry to take us across to the other side of Venezuela’s longest river. It was a Friday afternoon, and we came to compete in a 3.1 km swim across the river scheduled for Sunday. Studying the characteristics of the water, as well as the town of San Felix on the opposing shore, I began to comprehend our group’s concrete purpose after having planned this trip for months. Yet my thoughts that weekend were to encompass not only the race and the Orinoco River’s innate qualities, for the competition spurred me to also reflect on my experience during the last seven months swimming in Cumaná at the local pool.

Swimmers –over 900 in all– converge upon the small city of San Felix annually to compete in this race, and all of them can easily tell you the river’s qualities. Señor Jesus´s comment only begins to convey its essence. For instance, the competition’s route really goes through two rivers: the Orinoco and Caroní. These two rivers join upstream, yet they run parallel and do not mix despite “joining”. During the competition, the swimmers first cross the Orinoco, turbid and loaded with sediments from upstream. The water is warm, and the current is the weaker of the two. After crossing the unmistakable Orinoco side, swimmers find themselves in the path of the Caroní two-thirds into the race. They quickly feel the difference. The water is cooler, and its hue is black (not brown like the Orinoco). Appearance aside, the Caroní’s stronger current proves a greater challenge; swimmers must swim faster and face upstream to make it to the finish line. The two rivers even taste different.

Considering the conditions of the water, I could not help but think about my training at the pool in Cumaná, which I can relate to my experience in Venezuela as well as a few salient reflections.

Since November, I have been swimming four or five days a week at the polideportivo, Cumaná’s public pool that provides an invaluable respite from the stresses that occasionally irk me. First and foremost, my daily workout at 6:30 am allows me to escape the intense tropical heat of eastern Venezuela. The unceasing 90º-plus climate has afflicted me since I arrived in Cumaná, yet an hour in the pool refreshes me and alleviates the incessant strength of the equatorial sun. But the heat is not the only challenge that I have encountered. Unlike any previous job, my work at the local university is highly irregular: teachers often cancel class, students occasionally hold strike, and administrators have closed the university due to happenings in national politics. Though pleasant, my work does not provide as much stability as I would like. Regardless of the university schedule, the pool at the polideportivo stays open, adding some regularity to my schedule. Gracias a dios.

My experience at the pool highlights a few of the difficulties and virtues of life in Venezuela as well. For example, the pool closes occasionally for one sole reason: a shortage of chlorine. Then again, supply shortages occur not only at the polideportivo but in many spheres of daily life (i.e. a paucity of rice and eggs at the supermarket, limited teaching supplies at the university, power outages in residential areas). An empty stock of chlorine at the pool typifies this reality. But the pool represents one undeniable virtue: the warmth and humor of the people. Each day I swim with the most delightful and motley group of swimmers, usually Señor Jesus (a slightly crotchety, retired chemistry professor) and Charli (a twenty-five year old computer science student). A slightly machista yet caring man, Señor Jesus has taught me most of the Venezuelan obscenities that I know, while Charli happens to be an avid evangelical churchgoer. We are a ragtag band. Señor Jesus often cracks perverse jokes as we rest between swimming sets, causing Charli to cringe and the other swimmers to burst into laughter. The temperaments of my two closest swimming buddies often clash, yet that does not preclude our usual post-swim cup of coffee. Nor does it keep us from traveling together to swim across the Orinoco River; Señor Jesus, Charli, and I became de facto partners-in-crime from the start.

Thus it was no surprise that the three of us were running late before the competition on Sunday. All swimmers needed to check-in by 5:30 am inside the San Felix City Hall. We arrived at 6:00 am. The city hall was a mob scene upon our entrance, complemented with men and women of all ages and sizes in their swimsuits. Speedos under our clothes, we quickly stripped down and checked-in as one of the event volunteers marked our respective assigned numbers on our arms and back. Soon after, a priest held a short service on the town hall’s outdoor balcony. Without a single rabbi in sight, I chose to stretch inconspicuously until the priest’s spiel came to a close. With his final words, nine hundred swimmers loaded up into the fleet of municipal buses that waited for us, and we headed off to the town’s nearby port.

At the port, we boarded a navy transport ship. The atmosphere was saturated with frenetic energy on the vessel as we waited for everyone to get aboard. I felt jittery yet said almost nothing. Charli and Señor Jesus conversed. Around 8:00, the last swimmers got onto the ship, and the captain blew the horn. The passengers –especially the rambunctious, younger ones– jumped up and down, cheering uncontrollably. All the while, Señor Jesus laid sprawled out on the ship’s deck, looking into the sunlight with his eyes closed, cool as a cucumber. He told me softly, “Stay down, Jeremy. We still have a while.” Legs crossed, I sat and concentrated on my breath. The ship brought us downstream to the course of the race, and we headed towards a beach across the river from San Felix. Nearing our destination, Señor Jesus told me to take a look. The river was filled with kayaks, private motorboats, jet skis, and navy patrol boats – all present as part of the event’s security set-up. A helicopter passed overhead, prompting the swimmers´ roar to double in volume. We approached the starting point, a beach cluttered with spectators and event volunteers. The ship’s landing ramp lowered, and we rushed onto the beach. After a short warm-up period, the volunteers told us to get back onto the beach. The men were to leave first, five minutes before the women. We crowded behind a rope that represented the starting line. A judge stood on a tall post before us, his flag raised. The masses watched intrepidly.

When the flag lowered, all hell broke loose as a flurry of swimmers departed. There were no lanes. Order did not exist. It was every man for himself. Swimmers moved left, right, and straight forward. Most flailed their arms wildly and kicked like mad; not paying attention meant a smack or kick in the face. Having lost track of Señor Jesus and Charli, I decided to stick with another swimmer in our group, Ramón, and we headed slightly up-stream in order to avoid the masses that veered with the river’s current. Soon, Ramón and I were swimming nearly alone; most of the other swimmers had scattered.

The wild frenzy mellowed down into a brisk yet meditative journey. Participating in my first open-water competition ever, I accustomed to this earthen, unrefined arena. My hands ran through the chocolate brown water, and my brain reviewed one thought at a time: follow Ramón, watch the opposing shore, swim slightly up-stream. Two thousand yards later, the water changed from chocolate to ebony, and the pressure of the current intensified. I was in the waters of the Caroní, the race’s most taxing section. Ramón had gone farther and farther ahead by this point. As he moved out of my sight, it was time to follow my own instincts. I was clearly above stream from the finishing point, but the current was rapidly pushing me down. I picked up the pace and directed myself farther up-stream. The finishing line in San Felix came into sight. Nearing the end, other swimmers entered into my peripheral vision. No one familiar. I crossed the finish line, and my exhaustion caught up with me at that very moment.

My brain simply stopped working. As I stood, dumbfounded, an event volunteer handed me a plastic card that indicated my standing in the competition. Someone else pushed me along to the table representing my category (men, ages 19-24). I breathed heavily and expressed a few of Señor Jesus´s regular obscenities, trying to overcome my lightheadedness. The sun shone brightly, and I sauntered around the beach even though the sand burned my feet. I received my free energy drink and packet of fruit from a table and recovered my breath. The crowd of elated yet ready-to-drop participants grew and grew. I dawdled back towards the finish line and congratulated others from our group. Now meandering with Charli, I caught sight of Señor Jesus´s back. He was at the water’s edge watching the final swimmers glide through the Caroní. “Señor Jesus!” I called. He turned around and stood up. Munching on an apple, he had stuck a banana into his Speedo as if he were a gunslinger with a pistol stuck into his pants. Charli shook his head at the undeniable double meaning of the banana. Señor Jesus grabbed us to shake our hands and commenced the congratulations. We basked in the late morning sun, elated and exhausted