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[img[images/departure.jpg]]This will be the closing post for this diary as I have finally managed to leave Venezuela. How I managed to do that is a whole little story in itself.
I don't know how many other British citizens were also stuck in Venezuela, but I imagine there were not many of us. In any case the British embassy in Caracas didn't organise its own repatriation flights, but occasionally offered me a place on a flight organised by another embassy. However, in most cases I was offered those flights with such short notice that I couldn't organise any way of getting to Caracas to take the flight.
On July 14th a Venezuelan friend of Portuguese origin sent me a copy of a letter she had received from the Portuguese Embassy offering her a repatriation flight on the 31st. I wrote them an email immediately explaining that I had residency in Spain and would be interested in that flight. I also contacted a travel agent in Mérida who had offered me transport to Caracas previously without the necessity of a [[COVID test|A kafkaesque way of testing people for COVID]] to see if there were still places available. Going in their minibus would be perfect as it was due to leave on Tuesday of the week when the flight was due out of Caracas on the Friday. That would give me a day to travel to Caracas and a couple of days extra in case of difficulties on the way, to rest in Caracas and say goodbye to friends in Caracas. My friend from the travel agent wrote back immediately to say she had booked me on the minibus. I told her I didn't know if I would really be going as I hadn't got a ticket on the flight yet but she said not to worry I'd got the option until Friday.
When the Portuguese Embassy eventually wrote back, it was to tell me that the flight was full, but that I could send my details for any future flight they might organize. When they replied again they said they would put me on the waiting list for the flight on the 31st. I decided not to place many hopes on that coming up and to just get on with my life, making other plans for the next couple of weeks.
Ten days before the flight was due to leave "Atlas travel agency" in Caracas suddenly got in touch with me to explain how to pay for the flight. The email looked a bit as if it had been composed by an adolescent. The guy from Atlas phoned me up directly and started putting pressure on me to pay. When I told him I was in Mérida, needed to arrange transport to Caracas and that I'd only just that minute found out from him as the Portuguese Embassy had told me nothing, he eased off a bit. The whole thing seemed so unprofessional that I wondered if it was a scam. The only way they could have had so much information about me was if they had hacked the Portuguese Embassy's email, but these things happen. Through my local friend's travel agency and the British Embassy I was able to confirm that Atlas was //bone fide// and had worked with the Portuguese Embassy before.
I double checked that I still had a place on the minibus to Caracas and that I wouldn't need the [[COVID test|A kafkaesque way of testing people for COVID]] to travel with them and then paid for the flight and the bus.
The conditions for the flight were not exactly "humanitarian". It was far more expensive than a normal flight. The luggage allowance was less than usual and they specified that in the airport it would not be possible to pay for excess weight, so any excess luggage would have to be left behind. When I asked about vegetarian food I was told that would be impossible. As I was not prepared to spend an 8 hour flight without eating, that meant some of my skimpy hand luggage allowance would have to be food. The flight would depart at 5.30pm but I was required to be in the airport at ''10am'' to check in and the Atlas guy recommended that I got there even earlier. Caracas airport is not my idea of a fun place to spend an entire day. There would be no ticket issued - my name would simply be on the list of passengers. I knew that to get to airport I would need some kind of proof of the flight to get through the police check points, but every time I wrote to Atlas he either avoided the question, came up with an excuse or told me I'd need a //salvoconducto// rather than a ticket, which the British Embassy told me was not true. As this went on I began to wonder once again if this might be a scam. The Portuguese Embassy never replied to any more of my emails, but the British Consulate was able to independently verify that I did have a place on the flight. After a week of this I came to the conclusion that he was trying to avoid tax or something and I faked my own travel document using the Atlas logo. (After I'd cleaned it up a bit so it looked more professional!)
The only thing that was left to do was to get a flight from Lisbon to Spain, but as I'd already checked that there were several options available, I took a day's break from all of this to visit a natural thermal spring near Mérida with some friends and relax a bit.
The next day, a Saturday, first thing in the morning I got a message from my local travel agency to say that they had just discovered that I would need the [[COVID test|A kafkaesque way of testing people for COVID]] after all to get to Caracas. Suddenly the whole trip was in jeopardy. I knew it was very difficult to find anywhere to do the test and especially at weekends it was going to be almost impossible. Immediately I went to several different health centres to see if they had the test available. They told me there were no tests in Mérida. I'd heard that in the main hospital there were tests available, but only for patients with symptoms. As everything in Venezuela works with //[[chanchullos|A kafkaesque way of testing people for COVID]]// I decided to contact a friend who worked for a non profit organization that provides the hospital with resources to see if she could help me get a test.
When I phoned my friend Iderni was in a meeting with some doctors and she told me that it was pretty unlikely I'd be able to get the test at the hospital, but she'd see what she could do. Almost immediately she phoned me back. One of the doctors in the meeting was friends with the director of one of the public clinics in Mérida, where she knew that they had tests available and would be able to help us get the test. I drove over to pick up my friend and go to the clinic with her.
Iderni is a very remarkable person with an incredible energy, drive and intelligence. It is astounding how she keeps her non profit organization going in the current circumstances in Mérida. Her meeting was finishing when I arrived and we jumped into the car to go straight to the clinic. When we got there the massive gates were closed and the security man was not around to open them. However, the padlock was not closed either, so Iderni pushed open the gates and telling me to wait outside disappeared into the clinic precincts.
After a while she beckoned me in. She'd talked with the duty doctor, mentioned the name of the director and said she would supply the clinic with free soap and antibacterials but one of their patrons (me) needed the test. Deal done. All the public hospitals & clinics are desperate for essential supplies so she was doing two good turns at one go. Better than offering them dollars and contributing to the culture of corruption.
When I sent the photo of my negative test result to the travel agent that was arranging the minibus I thought that I would be the last passenger to sort it out, but the reply I got was "How did you do that? The driver & two other passengers haven't got theirs yet." Oh no! If the driver hasn't got his, how can we possibly be going to Caracas on Tuesday? But I had already been working on plan B and plan C.
To cut a long story short it wasn't until 5pm on Monday afternoon that I finally knew that I would be leaving at 5am on Tuesday. I didn't sleep much that night getting everything ready.
The car to Caracas was driven by a government employee and the three passengers on board were told that we would need no documents whatsoever: no COVID test, no //salvoconducto//, nothing. I wasn't sure how this was going to work, but at least I had my COVID test, a letter from the British Embassy and a couple of days to spare.
As we set off at before dawn at 5am, the first //alcabalas// that we went through crossing the Andes were all unmanned, so there was no problem there. Once we got to the first mayor city on the plains, Barinas, we came to the first alcabala where there was a queue of cars. The police pulled us over and wanted to look at a luggage but it was very quick and I didn't see the exchange between our driver and the police.
From there until Caracas there were dozens of alcabalas on our route. At one after another the policeman or soldier on duty asked us where we were coming from and going to and as he replied our driver showed his government employee ID and called them "//hermano//" or brother. Every single one waved us through immediately with the kind of gesture that might be used for royalty. I go the impression that if they'd asked us what we had in the back and the driver had said "two corpses" they would have waved us through with the same gesture. It certainly made our journey easy, but at the same time I couldn't help feeling a bit sickened by this. Most of Venezuela was subject to one of the most stringent lockdowns in the world, I'd spent 5 months trying to get out of Mérida, but just working for the government was enough to do whatever you wanted. I should have asked him what exactly his job was, but I don't think it was anything important. The car wasn't even his. The police barely glanced at his government pass before waving us through. Thanks to his privilege he could charge us $500 for the journey to Caracas.
The trip took just under 12 hours. Entering into Caracas there were alcabalas everywhere. Marielena, my friend in Caracas, told me she wouldn't be able to pick me up from anywhere because she couldn't drive out of the immediate area where she lived. When I finally found myself at her house, it felt like a dream. Could this really be true?
I had two days at Marielena's house to prepare myself for the flight. My next worry was how to get to the airport. I knew there would be alcabalas on the way there. Was the British Embassy right that their own certificate and my (faked) ticket be enough? Or might I really need a //salvoconducto// as Atlas seemed to think? No way was I going to spend an entire day in some military office trying to get a //salvoconducto//. From the experience I had travelling from Mérida I thought the best option would finding another government employee to drive me.
Dawn in Caracas before leaving
[img[images/dawnCaracas.jpg]]In the end the person I contracted to take me to the airport wasn't from the government but had a //salvoconducto// for being a health worker. She came to pick me up at 7am, even though I was supposed to be at the airport at 10am. I wanted to be sure we had plenty to time to get through the //alcabalas//. I had some low denomination dollar banknotes ready just in case the police needed persuading to let us through. At each //alcabala// she showed her //salvoconducto// and said "health service" and we were waved through.
She told me that her daughter is a dentist, that they had set up a surgery in Caracas but it had got so difficult that her daughter had moved to Columbia where things were going well for her. I asked if I could see her //salvoconducto//. It was basically just a piece of headed paper from their surgery saying that she worked there with their own stamp at the bottom. It hadn't been signed by the military or anything. I realized that, to get round Caracas at least, it wasn't necessarily that difficult. Any old bit of paper that looked official enough would do.
When I joined the queue in the airport at 8am there were already several hundred people in front of me. It was going to be a big aeroplane. The queue didn't move much. A bit before 10am the guy from Atlas started working his way down the queue asking our names, ticking us off on the passenger list and gave us a number that we would need at the check in desk. He also gave everyone a form to fill in, but later on it turned out to be the wrong form. He was astonishingly ill informed.
The queue moved forward a bit and stopped. Inched forwards a bit more and stopped. At about 11.30 the first passengers began to emerge from the check in and head towards airport security. By 12 o'clock I'd reached a desk manned by Portuguese Embassy staff where they asked for the number I'd been given previously and my passport. That led to another queue to another desk manned by Portuguese Embassy staff where they asked for the number I'd been given previously and my passport. That led to another queue to another desk manned by soldier who asked for my passport. That led to another queue at another desk manned by an official who asked for my passport and then wanted to see proof of my residency in Spain. When asked why I only had photocopies of my residency documents and where were the originals, I said they were in Spain. The official lost interest quite quickly and told me to go to queue number 5 to check in our luggage. The 5 queues seemed to be based on the type of residency we had in Europe.
I got to within 2 metres of checking in my bag when that queue froze up completely. Rather than putting the luggage directly onto the conveyor belt down to the basement they had been piling up the cases behind the counter and now there were hundreds of bags piled up with no room for any more. It was time for the anti-drug military police to spring into action... that consisted in them shouting at each other a lot as they appeared to be working out how to switch the conveyor belt on. After a while they turned it on but it made a terrible noise so they switched it off again to open a security door that was blocking it. Then there was quite a lot more shouting up and down from the basement. Some of the anti-drug brigade were standing around waiting to be told to do something, others were running about and contributing to the shouting. A wonderful example of what happens when the army takes over running things.
Eventually conveyor belt started and kept running for longish periods, although it would occasionally go off again. One by one the military police put each bag through an x-ray machine and if they approved of what they could see inside, allowed it down the conveyor belt. If they saw something they didn't like on the screen, the bag was separated off and and the passenger called behind a barrier where they would have to watch a soldier going through all their luggage. A dialogue cunningly designed to catch drug smugglers would accompany the search...
"What is this?"
"Dirty underpants."
"And these?"
"Books."
This whole business took hours.
You may wonder why the anti-drug brigade was so keen that nobody should take any drugs out of Venezuela. Most countries are more concerned about people importing drugs rather exporting them. As I understand it, after the militarisation of the petrochemical industry in Venezuela, all the oil refineries stopped working and the production of crude oil went back to the levels it was at in the 1950s. So despite Venezuela having more crude oil reserves than any other OPEC country, it no longer receives much income from that source. The principal source of state income is now from cocaine: the government and the army are up to theirs ears in the cocaine business. So I guess they don't like the idea of anyone else getting in on their business.
When the massive pile of luggage was finally processed in that way and the conveyor belt was switched off, then our 5 queues started to move again. It was lucky that I had brought lots of food with me. I had to eat my lunch sitting on my suitcase waiting there.
Our luggage was now turned into another massive pile behind the desk, but we still weren't free to go to the departure lounge as we had to stand about waiting for the the anti-drug brigade to start the whole process again. I needed to wait and watch to see if my suitcase went down the conveyor belt or if my dirty underpants would need to be inspected. It was with a huge sense of relief that at 4pm I saw my bag disappear down into the basement and I could go through airport security and passport control. There were at least another hundred passengers behind me.
By 4.30pm I had gone through the normal airport security and passport control to the departure lounge and for the first time since 8am was able to sit down in a chair. The flight had been due to leave at 5.30pm but it was obvious that we were not going to leave on time. Some passengers had all ready started forming a queue at the departure gate, but no way was I going to spend more tine standing in the queue. There was a vague possibility that they could have made a mistake with the hand written boarding passes and have allocated two passengers to the same seat, but I decided to risk it.
Sunset at the airport before boarding
[img[images/sunsetCaracas.jpg]]Of course the crack team from the anti-drug brigade wanted to make sure we hadn't sneaked anything into our hand luggage after going through airport security, so the queue had first of all pass through their hands once more in order to x-ray all the hand luggage once again. They weren't taking any notice of the beeping security arch, so when it came to my turn I didn't bother taking my mobile phone out of my pocket or anything like that. It had been a very long day for them too. The strangest thing was that the national guard had formed a cordon all around the aeroplane as if it had been hijacked or something like that. The paranoia about someone slipping a bit of cocaine out of the country had reached new levels that I had never seen before.
Finally at 8.30pm the plane started to move. The whole boarding procedure had taken me about 12 hours, but I didn't care... I was on my way back to Europe.
The plane surrounded by the anti-drug brigade whilst boarding. Click [[here|images/plane_surrounded_by_miltary.jpg]] to enlarge
[img[images/plane_surrounded_by_miltary.jpg]]
[img[images/chanchullos.jpg]]In previous posts I mentioned some of the [[ways of managing the lock-down that are ineffective or contra-productive|The response to the virus by the Venezuelan Government]] and also what I imagined [[might happen with testing for COVID|Testing for the virus in Venezuela]] in Venezuela. Now that testing is available I can comment on all that a bit more.
As the lock-down has been firmly established in Venezuela for so long we have now entered into the phase of the //''chanchullos''//. This word doesn't quite have an equivalent in English: the best translations I have found are "wangles" or "shenanigans". //Chanchullos// are a big part of life in Venezuela. They are the way you get round overwhelming bureaucracy or ill thought-out laws and get things done. When you find yourself in an impossible situation you need to find someone who has the right contacts in the government or the company that you are dealing with and they will be able to make the impossible happen. Thanks to these //chanchullos// in Venezuela, although things which are normal elsewhere are impossible, here the impossible is possible.
Occasionally the British Embassy has informed me of a possible flight out of Venezuela organised by another embassy, but until now I [[haven't found any way of getting to Caracas|Nowhere to go]] to take these flights. Last week a flight became available to fly to Cancun in México next Friday (this flight itself seems to be a //chanchullo// by a Venezuelan airline and in the end isn't going to happen, or maybe yes, or who knows...) This time I was able to find several different companies or individuals who offer road transport to Caracas. They can get me through the military checkpoints without a travel permit and the journey can cost between $75 and $1100 depending who you talk to. At normal times it would cost about $50 to fly from here to Caracas and by bus would be very cheap. One travel agent talked about a possible "charter flight" to Caracas. So there are now plenty of //chanchullos// to choose from, but always with a certain degree of uncertainty and confusion.
The journey to Caracas is very long, at least 12hrs drive, so obviously being cooped up in a car or minibus with other unknown people would provide ideal conditions to propagate the COVID-19 virus. So several of the companies require their passengers have have the "rapid" COVID-19 test with a negative result. That seems reasonable to me. However, I found out that this type of test gives a high percentage of false positives ([[see WHO advice|https://www.who.int/news-room/commentaries/detail/advice-on-the-use-of-point-of-care-immunodiagnostic-tests-for-covid-19]]). Moreover, the government rules are that if you test positive you are immediately required to go into isolation for a fortnight. The only way to know if you really have the virus is with another test, but the [[only place they do those is in Caracas|Why there is no laboratory for testing for COVID in Mérida]]. They'll only give you that test if you show symptoms. As there is no regular transport to Caracas, even if you have that test it would take a fortnight to get the results...
All that means is that by trying to verify that I am not infected (but asymptomatic) for the safety of other people I could easily end up not being able to travel whilst being completely heathy. So that gives me a very strong incentive to avoid taking the test at any cost. I guess there are some //chanchullos// for getting round all this.
[img[images/logo1.png]]''Five months stuck in Venezuela''. From March to July 2020 I found myself stuck in Venezuela when [[the entire country went into lockdown|The response to the virus by the Venezuelan Government]]. This is a notebook or diary about those 5 months I spent in Venezuela. It is written using TiddlyWiki which gives it a non-lineal structure unlike a classic blog. You can view the contents by date or in alphabetical order or by subject tag and even search the contents instantly.
Here's a bit of background to explain what I was doing in Venezuela at the time.
In 2015 I went to the Buddhist Centre in [[Mérida]] (Venezuela) to help out for a year as the country entered [[a serious economic crisis|The economic crisis in Venezuela]]. As things turned out I have needed to stay much longer than that and I effectively became the centre director. However, I knew that taking the lead in such challenging circumstances, sooner or later I would need to have a break and concentrate on my own spiritual practice. Bit by bit I have tried to create conditions so that the Buddhist Centre could thrive without me. Over a year ago I announced that I would be taking an extended period away from April 2020 to do, amongst other things, a two month retreat. I'd spent a whole year looking forward to this break, but at the beginning of 2020 the COVID-19 virus began to dominate the news and when I had less than a month before my departure date, [[the entire country went into lockdown|The response to the virus by the Venezuelan Government]], leaving me trapped in Venezuela. I knew there must be many people in similar situations all over the world and often in far worse circumstances, however, talking with my friend [[Subhuti]] he felt that my situation was especially interesting and he encouraged me to write about things as they developed.
Here you have different indexes to all the contents of this TiddlyWiki diary
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//Alcabalas// are police or military check points. You almost always find them entering and leaving most towns and cities in Venezuela. They are also at regular intervals along the mayor roads. Sometimes they are called "roadside assistance" units, but don't think you'll ever get any assistance there. Alcabalas are just part of life in Venezuela. You always have to slow down, wind down the window of your car and look to see if they want you to pull over. Sometimes they'll just wave you though. Sometimes they ask to see your ID and car documents. Sometimes they'll want you to pull over and go through your luggage. Sometimes they'll ask you for money.
With the COVID lockdown the number of //alcabalas// was increased, they all became much more active to restrict free movement between one place and another. To cross the state boundaries you'd need to have a //salvoconducto//. When I thought of driving myself to Caracas my friends told me not to as the stories about extortion in the alcabalas were not good.
Here you have different indexes to all the contents of this TiddlyWiki diary
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All Tiddlers in order of ''modification''. Equivalent to default timeline. Really for Vajranatha's own use. Readers may be more interested in the menus in the two sidebars which list the contents in a more useful way. Or this lists everything in more useful ways - [[All Content]].
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Please see [[this fund-raising initiative|https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/meridacovid?utm_id=107&utm_term=WZD69jB2j&fbclid=IwAR2vB9D1I-NTOnPf6NMnmuYFAKcyHrHff7W3UlLIha3_uA9Djv8QVOKbdm4]] to support the main hospital in Mérida which is lacking in basic resources and will not be able to respond to the pandemic without outside help. The appeal is run by the community at the Buddhist Centre in Mérida. See also the other posts about [[the response to the pandemic in Venezuela|COVID-19]]
[img[images/virus.jpg]]
I'm not going to write about the virus itself here, but in the tagged entries above I write about how people respond to it here in Venezuela compared to other places.
[[About this digital notebook]] [[A "humanitarian" flight out]]
[img[images/Manju200.jpg]]In Buddhism, the wisdom aspect of Enlightenment can be represented by Manjugosha, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom. In the left hand he holds a book, which is considered to be a text from the Perfection of Wisdom teachings. The book is a fairly obvious symbol of wisdom, but in his right hand he is brandishing a sword that is enveloped in flames. There are various ways of explaining the symbolism of the sword: for example it is sometimes said that wisdom cuts through ignorance.
However,the sword definitely has connotations of combat and a couple of times when I have entered the imaginal realm where I can meet with Manjugosha I have found myself fighting him. It is not unusual for me to have mildly violent fantasies if my mind is wandering, although I can't square that with my practice of Buddhism very easily. But once or twice Manjugosha has suddenly presented himself and blocked me with his sword. The first time this happened I realised that as Manjugosha is perfectly attuned to reality, he is unbeatable. If he blocks me with his sword, he blocks me completely and to struggle against him would be completely useless. His blocking is absolutely effortless. No force I could muster up against him could have the slightest effect. I also realised that being blocked by Manjugosha was, in fact, infinitely more pleasurable than being able to allow any fantasy of mine to run its course.
In my current situation I sometimes feel Manjugosha hovering about me. What is going on in the world is completely out of my control. Reality is much bigger than me and I cannot fight against it. No plans or fantasies that I might have about how I would like the future to be can have the slightest impact on a world that is paralysed by COVID-19. My little ego can do nothing about it. Can I take this situation as being the equivalent to being blocked my Manjugosha's sword?
[img[images/face-mask.jpg]]The other day in a shop I met this guy who had made his own full face mask from a water bottle. The Venezuelan genius for invention strikes again! Surely something this simple could help doctors in any country where there is a shortage of medical equipment?
[[See more about face masks here|Panic Buying, Toilet Paper and "Tapabocas"]]
[img[images/internet.jpg]]All over the world anybody that can has shifted their activities online. 2020 has been the //year of Zoom//. Most other Buddhist centres are now streaming their classes and holding most of their activities via Zoom or facebook etc.
Here we have been trying offer something online too. However, whatever we do has to take into account the reality of what the internet is like for us. Since the [[crisis|The economic crisis in Venezuela]] started the state of internet and all telecommunications in Venezuela has been getting worse and worse. Over the last couple of months the upload speeds on our ADSL connection have been getting close to zero. Sometimes I try to send a whatsapp message of a few words and it will take several minutes to send. The entire city can go offline for a few days. Mobile phone coverage can just disappear. And there can be long power cuts which knock out any attempts to get online.
The photos I took for this post show the pole on the opposite side of the street from which the phone and electricity cables come into our house. I think it symbolises the state of our telecommunications perfectly. So you can understand how this has come about, take my mobile phone company, for example. My monthly plan just cost 10,000Bs to renew. (That plan includes 500 minutes of calls, 500 sms texts and 500 megas of data.) At today's exchange rate that is just over $0.10. How could they possibly pay to maintain their system? What would be the cost of replacing faulty components on a cell phone tower? They would all be imported a dollar prices. The system is barely holding together. Without the [[Venezuelan genius for improvising|Full Face Mask]] I'm sure it would have fallen apart already.
[img[images/internet2.jpg]]To get our activities online we've had to work out what is ''doable'', both in terms of what is realistic for us to upload and for others to download. Live streaming is not a useful option. We cannot ever be sure that on a certain day at a certain time we'll be able to connect. We've been putting pre-recorded talks on youtube, but with such low upload speeds we can't upload them from here. We found out that a neighbour has internet with a cable TV company that has better upload speeds. So we record the video here, edit it, copy the final version onto an old mobile phone, set up the upload the youtube app and then take it to her place and leave it uploading for as many hours is necessary. As well as the video we also offer an audio only version for people whose internet is so bad they just can't watch a video.
I'd like to do a weekly study group. We're thinking that the way we could do that is send out the study text by email so everyone can read it, then at a pre-arranged time use a special whatsapp group to send voice or text messages to explore the text almost in real time. If would be back luck if the ADSL and mobile date both dropped out at the same time, but that could happen.
Outside Venezuela I read many people expressing appreciation for all the different activities that have become available, although it also seems that people are beginning to suffer from //Zoom fatigue//. In my own case it has been 5 years that I have been out here, trying to keep in touch with my wider community online though meetings, video calls and messages. Sometimes this has been frustrating because of the instability of the internet, although at times it has worked fine. But apart from the current level of difficulty of getting online, my own //Zoom fatigue// set in some time ago. Often communicating with other people online, instead of helping me feel more connected, makes me feel more isolated. There is such a gulf between us - in terms of time differences, material circumstances and physical distance - that seeing a few pixels on a screen and the sound in an earpiece just makes me more aware that we are whole worlds apart. Don't stop trying to get in touch though!
[img[images/cocinando-con-lena.jpg]]About a year and a half ago there was a five day power cut that effected the whole of Venezuela. So every time there is a power cut I ask myself is this just a short one, or will it be another big one?
The other day the power went off when I was cooking my breakfast. As we haven't been able to get gas for about 3 years I have a little camping stove ready to take over from the little electric rings that we have been using since the gas ran out. It is one of those multifuel stoves that works with petrol. (As petrol has always been absurdly cheap here and Venezuela is an OPEC country with vast oil reserves, I never imagined we'd have the petrol shortages that we have been having over the last year or two. It was impossible to imagine that, of all things, Venezuela would be importing ''petrol'' because they'd allowed the refineries to stop working.)
Being as I'd got the stove going I decided to put some black beans on to cook for lunch too. Just as well, because by lunchtime there was no sign of the electricity coming back on. In many parts of Mérida there are prolonged power cuts. Often 6 hours off, then 3 hours on. This is to save electricity because there is no longer the generating capacity to supply the whole country. However, we're very lucky in this house because the electric company's office is just 2 blocks down the same street & we must be on the same circuit as them. They don't cut themselves off on purpose. That means that when we have no power (which is becoming more and more frequent) it is because there is a fault.
Unfortunately the petrol stove began to burn more & more weakly and started to go out. I cleaned the burner jet, got out the maintenance manual and checked everything but I couldn't shift the cable in the fuel line to clean that, so the beans were only half cooked and we ended up eating cold leftovers from the fridge.
At that point I began to really worry if this was the big one. Now we had no means of cooking at all. One of the guys from the house got in good supply of firewood from the park so we could build an open fire for cooking in the patio at the back of the house and we started to prepare ourselves for a long blackout. Fortunately the power came back on at about 5pm and we were able to have a warm supper using the electric stove. At some point a big power cut is bound to happen. I read online that in Tachira, the next state along from Mérida, they had 23 hours without power the same day that this happened to us. They have also had several days without water.
Here the water supply is a erratic too. For many years, when it rains overnight, the next morning the water is cut off so they can clean out the filters in the water supply station. All of Mérida's water comes from a river, so the rain makes the supply muddy. So our house has large water containers in the bathrooms, the biggest saucepan by the side of the kitchen sink so we always have water handy for washing up and a big tank on the roof, which in theory would supply the whole house, but it doesn't really work, but at least the is a tap just below it which always has water that we can use to fill up buckets.
In recent months, however, the water has been cut off several times a day for a couple of hours at a time. I don't know why. Possibly the water supply station is under resourced and, due to lack of maintenance, no longer has the capacity to supply the whole city at a time. They are probably just supplying one section of the city at a time. This is very common in other parts of Venezuela, but has never been like that in Mérida before, because we are in the Andes with abundant water.
So, there are problems with the electricity and water supply, the [[food supply chain is precarious|The economic crisis in Venezuela]], [[telecommunications are unreliable|Getting Online]], the health service is barely holding together, there is [[no publicly available petrol|Petrol Shortage]] and we have not been able to buy gas for 3 years. I'm aware that I'm very privileged in that I don't have to depend on the local economy and that many people are really struggling to have sufficient food & medicines. Just when one thinks it can't get any worse, something else goes wrong. Somehow life goes on. There isn't the option to stop. There isn't a point when you can say "things have fallen apart now". Human life goes on in the wreckage of society. Nobody can ever imagine how bad things might get. At least we aren't living in a war zone with bombs dropping out of the sky.
[img[images/gasolinera300.jpg]]Two days ago I managed fill up with petrol. It was the second time this year. Each time I try to do it the procedure is different so this is only to give you an idea how complicated it is, rather than giving you instructions that might still work in a fortnight's time. Fortunately my friend Wilman lives just round the corner from a gas station, knows lots of people and usually manages to work out a way get petrol. He always gives me a helping hand. This is what we had to do...
Currently you are allowed to fill up according to the last number on your registration plate. Both Wilman and I have the same day, his car ends in 5 and mine in 6. On Monday he told me that this week our day was going to be Friday and that fuel has been arriving at the stations near his house. Not all gas stations get petrol every day, so if you don't know the right station you could be waiting in a queue and never get anything. Then you'd need to wait a week for your number to come up again. On Wednesday I started getting myself ready by syphoning the remaining petrol out of my car's tank into storage containers. I want to save up about 2 tanks worth of fuel so that, if necessary, I could drive to Caracas. On Thursday I phoned Wilman to see what we needed to do.
He said he would get me a place in the queue. Currently that is very complicated. The first queues start to form at about 8pm the night before. Then the police come along and send everyone away. I guess that is a precaution against COVID-19. As soon as the police go away a new queue forms. Some time later the police come back and send everyone away again. This happens about 4 times until the police get tired and give up so that at about 10 or 11pm the final definitive queue forms. Wilman waited for a while before playing this game and managed to reserve a space for 2 cars with only 59 cars in front of us. There is a limit as to how many cars can fill up each day because the fuel runs out & then they have to wait for a new tanker to arrive for the next day. After about number 120 in the queue you will just have to wait and see if there is enough petrol.
He told me I would need to arrive and claim the space he had reserved for me by 5am. I wondered if he was exaggerating and arrived a bit late, about 5.20am. But fairly shortly after our arrival two employees worked their way down the queue to us, issued us with number 60 and took note of our registration number. If I had not been there at that time I would not have been able to get petrol.
Then Wilman left me his car key in case of anything and went off for a well deserved shower. I'd come with another friend Jhosenn (for reasons that will become clear) and we had breakfast sitting in the car.
At about 7.30am there were the first signs that they were opening the gas station. Slowly the queue began to move up the avenue. About half a block from the station somebody official was asking to see the vehicle permit. I guess this was to check that our number plate was real and that we hadn't borrowed one with a 6 at the end.
A bit further on there were two people with digital finger print readers and several assistants. This was the reason I'd brought a Venezuelan friend with me. It is only possible to buy petrol if you have a //carnet de la patria//. This is a government issued card which gives you the right to free food and other services (which tends to be affiliated to the way you vote in elections). The last time I went to buy petrol another friend used his fingerprint and we were allowed 25 litres with no difficulty. This time the rules had changed. Jhosenn's fingerprint was rejected because he hadn't registered a car in the //patria// system. That wasn't necessary 2 weeks before when this system started. They asked, "Don't you know anyone else?" Wilman was in his car just behind us, but the system only allows one top up a day and a limit of 130 ltrs per month so he couldn't get petrol for us too. He phoned his girlfriend Andry to rush over and we hung about just outside the gas station hoping the military police wouldn't tell us to go away.
Finally Andry arrived and the system accepted her fingerprint to authorize us to buy 40 ltrs. Now we were allowed onto the gas station forecourt with only 4 or 5 cars ahead of us, armed with our queue number, the authorization ticket to buy the petrol and 200,000 Bolivars in cash (less than a dollar) to pay for the petrol. There was only space in the tank for 37 ltrs, but at that price it didn't really mater that I had paid extra.
One thing that strikes me about all this is the incredible waste of human man power. Every morning there are hundreds of people spending all those hours wasted waiting in queues. In addition to that I counted in the region of 30 people running the whole show: about 7 military police hanging around to maintain law and order, 4 or 5 people checking car number plates and controlling the queues, another 4 or 5 operating the /patria/ fingerprint machines and another 4 manning the petrol pumps themselves. And that was just at one gas station. I couldn't help commenting to Jhosenn that in Europe most petrol stations only have one person running the whole thing and there are even completely unmanned stations.
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[img[images/money.jpg]]Yesterday (23rd April) the government paid the old age pension that is due through the social security system. It was 250,000Bs. Today the value of the dollar on the street just hit 200,000Bs It is simply impossible to live on $1.25 a month. A loaf of bread costs 85,000Bs. A kilo of cheese over 400,000Bs.
As a result there are terrible queues everywhere as people try to convert their money into food before it loses its value. In some cities there has been looting as people get more desperate.
[[Read about hyperinflation in Venezuela over the last few years|The economic crisis in Venezuela]].
[img[images/merida.jpg]]Mérida is a small city in the Venezuelan Andes. When I first went to live there in the 1990s if was dominated by the life of the students and tourists who passed though there who made it a lively place. Historically, the Venezuelan writer Mariano Picon Salas had described it as "A university with a city inside".
The height of 1500m about sea level in the tropics gives Mérida a perfect climate. Rising from the city, the highest mountain in Venezuela, the Pico Bolivar, rises up to over 5000m. The world's longest cable car will take you up there when it is working.
The historic centre of the city is built on a //meseta// between two rivers and is dwarfed by the mountains that surround it. It is a spectacular location.
When I arrived back in Mérida in 2015 there was already no sign of the backpackers who used to be an important part of the life in the city. People wanting to have the "South American Experience" were already keeping away from Venezuela. Other the next 2 or 3 years the students and university students began disappearing, seeing other opportunities outside Venezuela. And slowly the general population began to decline as more and more people sought a life elsewhere. Even before the pandemic hit Venezuela, Mérida was starting to feel like a ghost town.
[img[images/no-entry.png]]Following on from what I wrote about [[spotting the views|Spotting Views]] that cause suffering I've come across another one. This is the idea that if only I could get to a certain place I would be free of the problems of the virus.
At the beginning of this week the British Embassy got in touch with me to say they could get me a seat on a special plane out of Caracas next week. I knew right away that the big problem would be getting to Caracas. There is no public transport by land or air. The embassy could get me a salvoconducto which would permit me to go to Caracas, but who would take me? They'd need their own salvoconducto to get back again. I thought the easiest thing to arrange would be to drive myself and leave the car at a friend's house. But the big issue was: where would I get petrol? The petrol stations have been closed ever since the lockdown started & I keep the car parked with half a tank of petrol for strict emergencies. The drive to Caracas would take 2 or 3 days & I'd need to refill at least once. I know someone in the first major town 4 hours away who knows someone who sells black market petrol, but I wouldn't have any guarantee that it would be available and that would still be just at the start of the trip. The journey itself would be horrible for lots of reasons, especially having to to go through frequent //alcabalas// or police check points where I would keep of having to produce my documents. And what would I do if I had a mechanical problem?
However, not only did I need to work out how I might get to Caracas, I also needed to work out where to go at the other end. The flight was going to Madrid, I have residency in Spain, but my flat is in Barcelona. Would the Spanish authorities allow me to travel to Barcelona? Or would I be able to get a connecting flight to the UK? Where would I stay there? I calculated that because of the strict lockdown in Spain, quite probably the infections there would be abating by the time I got there whereas in the UK they would probably still be increasing. I was able to verify that I would be allowed to travel to Barcelona. But then I got a message from the place I was expecting to stay in Barcelona and it was obvious he didn't want me there because of the quarantine. Was I planning to make an incredibly difficult journey to end up trapped in a tiny space with someone who didn't want me to be there?
Why was I willing to put myself to so much trouble? The idea of the journey to Caracas made me feel pretty stressed. Possibly I'd be exposing myself to more risk of infection than by staying put. Somewhere at the back of my mind is the idea that there is somewhere out there where I'd be free of all the problems of the virus... a little cottage in the mountains in Wales. It was just a question of getting there. But there isn't anywhere that is magically free of the virus and the attendant hassles. Any attempts to travel where going to be very difficult and would involve going though places that might be worse than where I am now. I just need to get on with accepting where I am now with its advantages and disadvantages.
[img[images/tapabocas200.jpg]]Hearing the world news from the perspective of being here in Venezuela one of the strangest things has been to read about people in other countries panic buying toilet paper and even getting into fights over the last rolls. For some strange reason in some places toilet paper is seen to be one of the most essential things to stock up on.
A few years back when the [[crisis|The economic crisis in Venezuela]] started in Venezuela there was a lot of scarcity of essential items and toilet paper became very difficult to get hold of. Very quickly I decided it wasn't worth queuing up to buy it and I started using soap and water like they do in India. A lot of other people seem to have responded in the same way here.
When it become apparent that we were going to go into lockdown, inevitably people began to stock up on essential items. In all the local shops people were buying much larger quantities of food than usual. I myself began to go round buying plenty of non perishable food. In one little supermarket where I could buy eggs there was a [[huge pile of toilet rolls|Toilet Rolls]]. Nobody was buying them. Many people have very little money, so if they were stocking up with essential items, they were not going to waste their merger savings on toilet paper.
Also, because we have become so used to having to queue to buy things, even though it is obvious that people are buying far larger quantities than normal, you could hardly describe it as a "panic". There is a state of calm in the queues.
It has been interesting to see the economic effects too. Inevitably prices have been going up, but the black market dollar price has been going down. I think this is because many people hold their saving in dollars rather than Bolivars to avoid the loss of value that hyperinflation brings. So the effect of many people selling their dollars has been to reduce demand and push the price down.
A few days before the lockdown I decided to try to buy facemasks and antibaterial gel. After visiting about 6 pharmacies it became obvious that there were non left in [[Mérida]]. Then the government announced that it was compulsory to wear //Tapabocas// on public transport. "How stupid", I thought to myself, "don't they realise there are none left?" I'd forgotten about Venezuelans' genius for improvisation.
People began to appear on the street with all kinds of different masks. Some people with dust protection masks, but many with home made masks. Many painted with their own designs. Anyone with a sewing machine has started producing them. The tapabocas have become almost a fashion accessory. Some people in the Buddhist centre too have started producing them. So different from the consumer societies were people are worrying about where they are going to come from. I don't know how useful they are for controlling the virus, but I see them as a kind of symbol that we are looking after ourselves.
Since I wrote this I met someone the other day who had created his own [[full face mask from a water bottle|Full Face Mask]]!
Content related to the petrol shortage in Venezuela is listed on the left.
[img[images/bhante.jpg]]Sangharakshita (1925 - 2018) is the founder of the Buddhist Order to which I belong. There is more information about him on his own web site https://www.sangharakshita.org/
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Trapped in Venezuela with ~COVID-19
http://venezuela.vajira.co.uk/
These Snippets (listed on the left) are short pieces of information that are secondary to the main items in this diary.
[img[images/eye200.jpg]]In Buddhism the concept of //ditthi// is of fundamental importance. //Ditthis// are views, ideas and opinions about the world which may or may not be conscious, but which determine the way we experience and relate to the world. Our views about things may be completely "wrong" in the sense that they have nothing to do with the reality of the world where we live. Or they may be "right" because they do help us to understand what is going on. Often they are very subtly wrong. You could almost say that correcting our //ditthis// one by one is a way of conceiving the path to Enlightenment. The Buddha is said to have "no views". He just sees things as they really are.
One characteristic of "wrong views" is that they cause suffering & dissatisfaction because our ideas about the world don't correspond with reality. In this situation that I find myself, I have noticed that the unhappiness I feel is very much related to ideas about the world which aren't right.
Here is one false view I have just discovered within myself of which I hadn't been aware before. This view could be expressed in words as //"any difficulties that I come across can be resolved with persistent effort and a credit card".//
As it became clearer that it was going to get difficult to leave Venezuela I began to put a lot of effort into setting up alternative travel arrangements... Lots of whatsapps to travel agents... Connecting to airlines' web sites... Looking at the online departure boards of Caracas airport to see which flights were still departing... Ignoring false information that people hand out so happily... Trying different destinations...
Once I'd worked out a viable option then I put the credit card to good use & got some tickets at prices that were not too unreasonable. My nightmare scenario was managing to get to Caracas airport and then not being able to get any further or get back here to [[Mérida]] - so I worked out a backup plan in case that happened too. The day after I had everything set up it started to look like the flight to Caracas might not go, so I thought about trying to get to another city and fly from there, but finally it reached the point that it was clear that I was not going to be able to travel.
{{box{''Life is King''
Hour after hour, day
After day we try
To grasp the Ungraspable, pinpoint
The Unpredictable. Flowers
Wither when touched, ice
Suddenly cracks beneath our feet. Vainly
We try to track birdflight through the sky trace
Dumb fish through deep water, try
To anticipate the earned smile the soft
Reward, even
Try to grasp our own lives. But Life
Slips through our fingers
Like snow. Life
Cannot belong to us. We
Belong to Life. Life
Is King.
}}}Any illusion that I had of being in control of my life then fell apart. I could do nothing. I would not be able to get very far outside the city limits without a //salvoconducto//. (Safe conduct, or letter of transit). If could find someone with contacts in the army, who knew who to bribe, maybe that was possible, but how would I be able to travel if [[no petrol was available|Petrol Shortage]]?
I'd reached the point where no amount of persistence and credit cards could make any difference any more. The world is a big, big place with a lot of people with much more power than I. Persistence and money are not enough for me to be in control. I am never in control. The virus has exposed a reality which was always there: I could see it as a spiritual teacher.
This is expressed so well in [[Sangharakshita]]'s poem Life is King.
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Subhuti is a senior member of the Triratna Buddhist Order. For many years he was Sangharakshita's secretary. He became the first chairman of the college of public preceptors when Sangharakshita handed on responsibility for the Order in 2000.
I met him in 1983 and since then he has been an important friend & spiritual guide.
There is more information about him on his own web site http://subhuti.info/ and [[his facebook page|https://www.facebook.com/DharmachariSubhuti/]].
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[img[images/covid19test.jpg]]To be able to control the virus it is obviously necessary to know who has it or not. So what can one do in a country where there are no testing kits available?
According to a doctor who lives locally, if someone has symptoms with could be due to COVID-19 all they can do is test them for a everything else that it could be and conclude that it must be COVID-19 by process of elimination. That, of course, takes quite a long time.
Venezuela has politically strong links with China. China obviously has a tremendous capacity to produce testing kits, surgical masks and respirators. They could send them to Venezuela. However, right now they are churning them out for the European market. Europeans will obviously pay with real money. Venezuela will pay by promising them more barrels of oil. They already owe one hell of a lot of oil to China. So there is no particular motive to send many kits. I expect they'll send a few as a gesture of good will, but at the end of the day they don't really care if a few thousand Venezuelans die.
When they do get here I expect they won't get much further than Caracas and the priority will be testing people from the government, the military etc. I doubt if they'll give much priority to doctors or nurses.
/***
|Name|TextAreaPlugin|
|Source|http://www.TiddlyTools.com/#TextAreaPlugin|
|Documentation|http://www.TiddlyTools.com/#TextAreaPluginInfo|
|Version|2.3.0|
|Author|Eric Shulman|
|License|http://www.TiddlyTools.com/#LegalStatements|
|~CoreVersion|2.1|
|Type|plugin|
|Description|Adds Find/Again keyboard search, autosize, and 'stretch bar' resize for textarea controls|
!!!!!Documentation
>see [[TextAreaPluginInfo]]
!!!!!Configuration
<<<
<<option chkTextAreaExtensions>> use control-f (find), control-g (find again) inside text area
<<option chkDisableAutoSelect>> place cursor at start of textarea instead of pre-selecting content
<<option chkResizeEditor>> modify shadow EditTemplate to add resizeable text area (and autosize command)
<<<
!!!!!Revisions
<<<
2011.10.28 2.3.0 added resizeHere macro to add stretch bar to current container (e.g., sidebar panels)
|please see [[TextAreaPluginInfo]] for additional revision details|
2006.01.22 1.0.0 Moved from temporary "System Tweaks" tiddler into 'real' TextAreaPlugin tiddler.
<<<
!!!!!Code
***/
//{{{
version.extensions.TextAreaPlugin= {major: 2, minor: 3, revision: 0, date: new Date(2011,10,28)};
if (config.options.chkTextAreaExtensions===undefined) config.options.chkTextAreaExtensions=true;
if (config.options.chkDisableAutoSelect===undefined) config.options.chkDisableAutoSelect=true;
if (config.options.chkResizeEditor===undefined) config.options.chkResizeEditor=true;
// automatically tweak shadow EditTemplate to add "autosizeEditor" toolbar command
if (config.options.chkResizeEditor)
config.shadowTiddlers.EditTemplate=config.shadowTiddlers.EditTemplate.replace(/deleteTiddler/,"deleteTiddler autosizeEditor");
// automatically tweak shadow EditTemplate to add "resizeEditor" macro
if (config.options.chkResizeEditor)
config.shadowTiddlers.EditTemplate+="<span macro='resizeEditor'></span>";
// Put focus in a specified tiddler field
Story.prototype.TextAreaExtensions_focusTiddler=Story.prototype.focusTiddler;
Story.prototype.focusTiddler = function(title,field)
{
this.TextAreaExtensions_focusTiddler.apply(this,arguments); // first call core
var e = this.getTiddlerField(title,field);
if (e && config.options.chkDisableAutoSelect) {
if (e.setSelectionRange) // FF
e.setSelectionRange(0,0);
else if (e.createTextRange) // IE
{ var r=e.createTextRange(); r.collapse(true); r.select(); }
}
if (e && config.options.chkTextAreaExtensions) addKeyDownHandlers(e);
}
//}}}
//{{{
function addKeyDownHandlers(e)
{
// exit if not textarea or element doesn't allow selections
if (e.tagName.toLowerCase()!="textarea"||!e.setSelectionRange||e.initialized) return;
// utility function: exits keydown handler and prevents browser from processing the keystroke
var processed=function(ev) {
ev.cancelBubble=true; // IE4+
try{event.keyCode=0;}catch(e){}; // IE5
if (window.event) ev.returnValue=false; // IE6
if (ev.preventDefault) ev.preventDefault(); // moz/opera/konqueror
if (ev.stopPropagation) ev.stopPropagation(); // all
return false;
}
// capture keydown in edit field
e.saved_onkeydown=e.onkeydown; // save current keydown handler (if any)
e.onkeydown=function(ev) { if (!ev) var ev=window.event;
var key=ev.keyCode;
if (!key) {
var char=event.which?event.which:event.charCode;
if (char==102) key=70;
if (char==103) key=71;
}
// process CTRL-F (find matching text) or CTRL-G (find next match)
if (ev.ctrlKey && (key==70||key==71)) {
// prompt for text to find
var defFind=e.findText?e.findText:e.value.substring(e.selectionStart,e.selectionEnd);
if (key==70||!e.findText||!e.findText.length) // ctrl-f or no saved search text
{ var f=prompt("find:", defFind); e.focus(); if (f) e.findText=f; }
if (!e.findText||!e.findText.length) return processed(ev); // if no search text, exit
// do case-insensitive match with 'wraparound'... if not found, alert and exit
var newstart=e.value.toLowerCase().indexOf(e.findText.toLowerCase(),e.selectionStart+1);
if (newstart==-1) newstart=e.value.toLowerCase().indexOf(e.findText.toLowerCase());
if (newstart==-1) { alert("'"+e.findText+"' not found"); e.focus(); return processed(ev); }
// set new selection, scroll it into view, and report line position in status bar
e.setSelectionRange(newstart,newstart+e.findText.length);
var linecount=e.value.split('\n').length;
var thisline=e.value.substr(0,e.selectionStart).split('\n').length;
e.scrollTop=Math.floor((thisline-1-e.rows/2)*e.scrollHeight/linecount);
window.status="line: "+thisline+"/"+linecount;
return processed(ev);
}
if (e.saved_onkeydown) // call previous keydown handler (if any)
e.saved_onkeydown(ev);
}
e.initialized=true;
}
//}}}
// // 'autosize' toolbar command
//{{{
config.commands.autosizeEditor = {
text: 'autosize',
tooltip: 'automatically adjust the editor height to fit the contents',
text_alt: '\u221Aautosize',
hideReadOnly: false,
handler: function(event,src,title) {
var here=story.findContainingTiddler(src); if (!here) return;
var ta=here.getElementsByTagName('textarea'); if (!ta) return;
for (i=0;i<ta.length;i++) {
// only autosize textareas actually used to edit tiddler fields
if (ta[i].getAttribute("edit")==undefined) continue;
ta[i].button=src;
if (!ta[i].maxed)
config.commands.autosizeEditor.on(ta[i]);
else
config.commands.autosizeEditor.off(ta[i],true);
}
return false;
},
on: function(e) {
if (e.maxed) return; // already autosizing!
if (e.savedheight==undefined)
e.savedheight=e.style.height;
if (e.savedkeyup==undefined) {
e.savedkeyup=e.onkeyup;
e.onkeyup=function(ev) {
if (!ev) var ev=window.event; var e=resolveTarget(ev);
e.style.height=e.scrollHeight+'px';
if (e.savedkeyup) e.savedkeyup();
}
}
// IE reports error: "not implemented" for onkeypress
if (!config.browser.isIE && e.savedkeypress==undefined) {
e.savedkeypress=e.onkeypress;
e.onkeypress=function(ev) {
if (!ev) var ev=window.event; var e=resolveTarget(ev);
if (ev.keyCode==33) { // PGUP
if (window.scrollByPages) window.scrollByPages(-1);
return false;
}
if (ev.keyCode==34) { // PGDN
if (window.scrollByPages) window.scrollByPages(1);
return false;
}
if (e.savedkeypress) e.savedkeypress();
}
}
e.style.height=e.scrollHeight+'px';
if (e.button) e.button.innerHTML=config.commands.autosizeEditor.text_alt;
e.maxed=true;
},
off: function(e,resetHeight) {
if (resetHeight) e.style.height=e.savedheight;
e.onkeyup=e.savedkeyup;
// IE reports error: "not implemented" for onkeypress
if (!config.browser.isIE) e.onkeypress=e.savedkeypress;
if (e.button) e.button.innerHTML=config.commands.autosizeEditor.text;
e.maxed=false;
}
};
config.macros.autosizeEditor={
handler: function(place,macroName,params,wikifier,paramString,tiddler) {
var here=story.findContainingTiddler(place); if (!here) return;
var ta=here.getElementsByTagName('textarea'); if (!ta) return;
for (i=0;i<ta.length;i++) {
// only autosize textareas actually used to edit tiddler fields
if (ta[i].getAttribute("edit")==undefined) continue;
config.commands.autosizeEditor.on(ta[i]);
}
return false;
}
}
//}}}
// // grab-and-stretch handle
//{{{
config.macros.resizeEditor = { // add stretch bar to editor textarea
handler: function(place,macroName,params,wikifier,paramString,tiddler) {
var here=story.findContainingTiddler(place); if (!here) return;
var ta=here.getElementsByTagName('textarea');
if (ta) for (i=0;i<ta.length;i++) {
// only resize tiddler editor textareas
if (ta[i].getAttribute("edit")==undefined) continue;
new window.TextAreaResizer(ta[i]);
}
}
}
config.macros.resizeTiddler = { // add stretch bar to tiddler viewer element
handler: function(place,macroName,params,wikifier,paramString,tiddler) {
var here=story.findContainingTiddler(place); if (!here) return;
var elems=here.getElementsByTagName('div');
if (elems) for (i=0;i<elems.length;i++) if (hasClass(elems[i],'viewer')) break;
if (i<elems.length) new window.TextAreaResizer(elems[i]);
}
}
config.macros.resizeFrame = { // add stretch bar to iframes
handler: function(place,macroName,params,wikifier,paramString,tiddler) {
var here=story.findContainingTiddler(place); if (!here) return;
var fr=here.getElementsByTagName('iframe');
if (fr) for (i=0;i<fr.length;i++) new window.TextAreaResizer(fr[i]);
}
}
config.macros.resizeListbox = { // add stretch bar to listbox controls
handler: function(place,macroName,params,wikifier,paramString,tiddler) {
var here=story.findContainingTiddler(place); if (!here) here=place;
var fr=here.getElementsByTagName('select');
if (fr) for (i=0;i<fr.length;i++) new window.TextAreaResizer(fr[i]);
}
}
config.macros.resizeHere = { // add stretch bar to containing element
handler: function(place,macroName,params,wikifier,paramString,tiddler) {
new window.TextAreaResizer(place);
}
}
// TextAreaResizer script by Jason Johnston (jj@lojjic.net)
// Created August 2003. Use freely, but give me credit.
// adds a handle below textareas that the user can drag with the mouse to resize the textarea.
// MODIFIED by ELS for use with TW
window.TextAreaResizer = function(elt) {
this.element = elt;
this.create();
}
window.TextAreaResizer.prototype = {
create : function() {
var elt = this.element;
var thisRef = this;
var h = this.handle = document.createElement("div");
h.style.height = "3px"; // was 4px... looked too fat!
h.style.overflow = "hidden"; // ELS: force IE to trim height to < 1em
var adjust=elt.nodeName=='textarea'?4:0; // 4 pixels for textarea border edge
// h.style.width=(elt.offsetWidth-adjust)+"px";
h.style.width="auto";
h.style.backgroundColor = "#999"; // ELS: standard mid-tone (dark) gray
h.style.cursor = "s-resize";
h.title = "Drag to resize text box";
h.onmousedown=function(evt){thisRef.dragStart(evt)};
elt.parentNode.insertBefore(h, elt.nextSibling);
},
dragStart : function(evt) {
if (!evt) var evt=window.event;
this.dragStop(evt); // ELS: stop any current drag processing first
var thisRef = this;
this.dragStartY = evt.clientY;
this.dragStartH = this.element.offsetHeight;
document.savedmousemove=document.onmousemove;
document.onmousemove=this.dragMoveHdlr=function(evt){thisRef.dragMove(evt)};
document.savedmouseup=document.onmouseup;
document.onmouseup=this.dragStopHdlr=function(evt){thisRef.dragStop(evt)};
},
dragMove : function(evt) {
if (!evt) var evt=window.event;
// ELS: make sure height is at least 10px
var h=this.dragStartH+evt.clientY-this.dragStartY;
if (h<10) h=10; this.element.style.height=h+"px";
// ELS: match handle to textarea width (which may have changed due to document scrollbars)
// var adjust=this.element.nodeName.toLowerCase()=='textarea'?4:0; // 4 pixels for textarea
// this.handle.style.width=(this.element.offsetWidth-adjust)+"px";
// ELS: when manually resizing, disable autoresizing (without restoring saved height)
if (this.element.maxed!=undefined && this.element.maxed)
config.commands.autosizeEditor.off(this.element,false);
},
dragStop : function(evt) {
if (!evt) var evt=window.event;
document.onmousemove=(document.savedmousemove!=undefined)?document.savedmousemove:null;
document.onmousemove=(document.savedmouseup!=undefined)?document.savedmouseup:null;
},
destroy : function() {
var elt = this.element;
elt.parentNode.removeChild(this.handle);
elt.style.height = "";
}
};
//}}}
[img[images/tulio.jpeg]]Thanks to all who contributed to Tulio's [[gofundme|https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-us-afford-my-dad039s-radiotherapy]] they've raised all the money they need! The appeal is now closed.
Tulio is a university teacher in Caracas. He has been diagnosed with prostrate cancer but cannot afford to pay for radiotherapy. ([[A university teacher's wages are worth nothing here|Why there is no laboratory for testing for COVID in Mérida]]).
[img[images/money.jpg]]When I came back to Venezuela in 2015 to re-establish myself here after about 15 years away there was a serious economic crisis already underway. Without going into politically contentious explanations of why that had happened I'd just like to describe some of the characteristics of this crisis.
Firstly there was well established hyper-inflation. When I arrived, the Venezuelan Bolivar had already been devalued previously and had been renamed the //Bolivar Fuerte// (the "strong" Bolivar), but it had already lost its value and most prices were calculated in thousands of Bolivars. I took the photo on the left in January 2018 when that pile of banknotes was worth about $0.15 US dollars. Later that year the Bolivar was devalued again where the one new //bolívar soberano// replaced 100,000Bs fuertes. However, prices continue going up every week so that at this time (mid April 2020) a loaf of bread is worth about 80.000Bs soberanos so it is nearly time for a new devaluation. Today I bought a bag of vegetables to get me through the weekend and I spent just under half a million Bolivars. The inflation tends to go through waves but annual inflation has tended to average out to about 1,000,000%.
Secondly, wages do not keep up with the inflation. It depends on your profession, but to give concrete example, both university professors and secondary school teachers currently receive a monthly wage which is in the region of $10. It is not possible to live on that amount of money. Their pensions have more or less the same value. This means that people who have dedicated their whole lives to study and education, very often with high ideals about passing on their knowledge to future generations, suddenly find themselves almost penniless towards the end of their working lives. [[In the last 5 few days since writing this things have got much worse|More Hyperinflation]].
Life became almost impossible for many people. To begin with many people were optimistic that things might change, but after a period with a lot of political violence, it became clearer & clearer that things were not going to get better soon. Within the months that followed millions of people left the country to seek their fortunes elsewhere. At one point there were an estimated 3000 people a day crossing the frontier into Columbia by foot. From there many tried to get to Ecuador, Peru, Argentina or Chile where the economy was better. In some countries Venezuelans became very unwelcome and had to face prejudice. This was very painful because during the time of the oil boom in Venezuela many foreigners had been welcome here, but those same countries began to close their doors to the flood of Venezuelans seeking to eke out a living somewhere else. I have many friends who are in very difficult circumstances overseas, living on the margins of society, but they still feel they are better off than they would be here.
Thirdly, when I arrived here in 2015 there were severe shortages of essential items: food, medicines, cleaning products etc. A rumour would go round that a certain shop had shampoo and a huge queue would form along the whole block. Sometimes I might fancy eating pasta, but after going to 5 or 6 shops I'd give up and eat something else instead. Especially huge queues (2 days long) would form outside shops that sold food at government controlled prices. Eventually the government gave up trying to control prices and since then dozens of little food shops have sprung up everywhere. Many people found the best way to make a bit of money was to make a trip to Colombia, where there was no scarcity and resell the food they bought there at a profit. Food is the one business that continues to thrive when money is short.
Since the virus lockdown started I have been expecting the shops to empty, but that doesn't seem to be happening. I'm not quite sure where the food is coming from at the moment. There must be massive stockpiles somewhere, because there is not a lot of local production and I imagine imports must be curtailed too.
The way the economy works in Venezuela is often very mysterious. Sometimes market forces work like in other countries. A new bakery opened up near my house that made very nice bread at a reasonable price, so I stopped going to the old ones. But bit by bit they put up their prices far more than the prevailing inflation and the price of their bread became quite expensive even in dollar terms. So I stopped buying it. A few weeks later I couldn't find an alternative anywhere & I reluctantly decided to go there again. Their prices had actually gone ''down''. Obviously other customers had also voted with their feet and they had to come to their senses about what people would be prepared to pay. But on another occasion the price of //panela// (raw sugar loaf) shot up by about 10 times in all the shops in the city. Shortly after I had to drive through a sugar producing area. There were loads of road side stalls with huge piles of //panelas//, but the sellers were sitting there with their arms folded obviously not selling anything. It looked like they had got together and had decided to push up the price and preferred not sell anything in defiance of the laws of supply and demand.
[img[images/george-floyd.jpg]]For me one of the advantages of living in Venezuela for an extended time has been to experience what it is like to live in what must be one of the least racist countries on the planet. I would have liked to have written a ''non racist country'', but I am conscious that would not be entirely true. What I'd like to write about here is the contrast between attitudes to skin colour here in Venezuela compared with my experience in Europe and the USA.
There is a huge contrast between the response to George Floyd's death in the UK, for example, and Venezuela. In the UK people feel the need to protest because the same problems are present in society as in the US, although with less probability of actually being murdered by the police. Here in Venezuela I cannot envisage any similar protests taking place. There no systematic repression or inequality towards people of African descent here. I've never heard of the police killing someone jut because they have darker skin. (That is not to say there are no murders committed by the police - quite the contrary - they can act with complete impunity - but there is no tendency for the victims to have a different skin colour to the perpetrators.) If there is still any systematic discrimination on racial grounds in Venezuela it is towards some of the indigenous people who still live their traditional lifestyle. In addition to that there is still some "hidden racism" (//Racismo oculto//) in general society. See [[this book|https://books.google.co.ve/books?id=0JATAQAAIAAJ]]
One of the causes of this unusually non racist society I believe to the almost complete racial mixing that has occurred here. If your own brothers and sisters and cousins look very different from you so that you grow up in a family where one person looks to be of African origin, another European and another indigenous - and all possible mixtures of the three - than how can you be racist? It is the only country I know where people quite unselfconsciously refer to their own skin tone and that of others with a complete absence of any other connotation - just as in other places you might talk about the colour of someone's eyes. For me, living here has made me much more conscious that this is as it should be and that the racial segregation that is "normal" in Europe and the USA is a sickness.
[img[images/virus.jpg]]The response to the virus here was extremely fast and decisive. Before there had been any deaths and whilst there was still only a handful of people who had been known to have been infected the government prohibited all flights from Europe & Columbia.
Then in very quick succession they put the three states where there were known infections into lockdown. Then the whole of Venezuela and all international flights were banned.
Successively they required facemasks on public transport, then in shops and then at all times on the street.
To begin with they only allowed essential shops to open (food & pharmacies & a few other businesses). Not even petrol stations were considered to be essential. Now all shops are only allowed to open until 2pm and after 2pm there is a complete curfew. Over the last fortnight there has a been a constant tightening going on and who knows what other restrictions they may bring in.
In Venezuela it was necessary to take strong measures because the public health system has already reached the point of collapse several years ago. If the virus started to infect large numbers of people it would be impossible to respond. The way they have responded was entirely appropriate.
Of course, these measures are only buying time. It seems inevitable that the virus will eventually get everywhere. I haven't heard anybody talking about "flattening the curve" here. Does the government believe it can "get rid" of the virus? Is it creating the resources that are needed to handle the advent of the virus such as [[testing kits|Testing for the virus in Venezuela]], protective gear for medical staff and respirators for pneumonia? Or are they just hoping it will go away?
One difference here compared to many places is that the government isn't really concerned about the economic effects of lockdown. Private enterprise is the enemy of the "revolution" anyway. And for many years the Venezuelan economy has operated in the strangest ways. In a way there is almost no economy in the normal sense at all. So it doesn't make so much difference that everyone is shut up in their homes. It is already a miracle that many people manage to survive.
One consequence of the [[crisis|The economic crisis in Venezuela]] that Venezuela has been living over the last 5 years or so is that millions of people have left the country. The cities feel half empty. From the point of view of controlling contagion, that will help, however, there are still overcrowded //barrios// with high concentrations of people living in small improvised housing. Essential services such as electricity and water are intermittent, so simple things such washing your hands become more complicated than just opening a tap. But generally I guess having a smaller population eases the pressure a but.
This government rarely thinks about the secondary effects of the actions it takes and some of the measures that they take are completely arbitrary. For example the recent rule that all shops must close and nobody can be on the street after 2pm. Certainly the streets are free of people in the afternoons. But what about the mornings? Because there is less time to do your shopping there is now a ''greater'' concentration of people on the streets in the mornings. My small local fruit & veg shop, where I've rarely seen many people at a time, now has a queue to get in. (The number of people allowed in shops at one time has also been restricted).
Near where I live is a tiny park on the edge of the meseta on which Mérida is built which overlooks the river below and looks up to the highest peaks of the Venezuela Andes. During the last few years whenever I've felt trapped in the city with the need to see the mountains, breath fresh air and hear the birds sing, I like to pop over to the park. It is hardly a place of mass meeting. The day after the whole country was put into lockdown and I was recovering from the shock of knowing that I was stuck here, I fancied going to the park. I know how things work here. "Is it possible that they will have shut the park" I asked myself, knowing with a sinking feeling that yes, it was quite possible. I decided to go just in case, but there it was, the notice on the park gates: "closed until further notice". Some supposed measures to control contagion are not only ineffective but just increase misery.
Even more worrying is the government's tendency to spread disinformation. Supposedly there are very few cases here and because the shutdown was implemented so quickly it may well be that the spread of virus is well under control. However, I know that local doctors have been warned by the police that if they say publicly they are treating someone with COVID-19, they will be arrested. Covering up the facts doesn't help to control the spread of any virus. It is all too reminiscent of the case of Dr Li Wenliang in Wuhan. Why repeat those kinds of mistakes?
[img[images/TWicon.png]]A ~TiddlyWiki is a single html file which has all the characteristics of a wiki - including all of the content, the functionality (including editing, saving, tagging and searching) and the style sheet. Because it's a single file, it's very portable - you can email it, put it on a web server or share it via a USB stick.
This has the advantage that I can write new content or restructure the whole thing completely even if there is no internet here in [[Mérida]] ([[a frequent occurrence|Getting Online]]) and then upload it when I can.
It is made up of //Tiddlers//. This is the name given to a unit of microcontent in ~TiddlyWiki. In other words an "item" or "entry" in the diary.
This one is based on the "classic" ~TiddlyWiki version <<version>> You can download the latest classic here https://classic.tiddlywiki.com/
Or you can download the very latest one with more features here http://www.tiddlywiki.com/
I use the classic version because the file is smaller for uploading from Venezuela with [[poor internet speeds|Getting Online]].
If you want to download this TiddlyWiki diary so that is still works correctly you should [[right click here|http://venezuela.vajira.co.uk/]] then select "save link as". As it is the classic version, you'll need to get the images separately from this directory http://venezuela.vajira.co.uk/images
[img[images/toilet rolls.jpg]]This photo is actually from a different shop than the one I [[mentioned before|Panic Buying, Toilet Paper and "Tapabocas"]]. This is a whole wall of toilet rolls two deep. I still don't see many people buying them. I could imagine we end up with the situation reversed from Europe: with the shops empty except for toilet paper!
|~ViewToolbar|closeTiddler closeOthers +editTiddler > fields syncing permalink references jump|
|~EditToolbar|+saveTiddler -cancelTiddler deleteTiddler autosizeEditor|
This is my Buddhist name. I received it in 1984 when I was ordained into the Triratna Buddhist Order. I'm writing this digital notebook.
<!--{{{-->
<div class='toolbar' role='navigation' macro='toolbar [[ToolbarCommands::ViewToolbar]]'></div>
<div class='title' macro='view title'></div>
<div class='subtitle'><span macro='view modifier link'></span>, <span>modified</span> <span macro='view modified date'></span> (<span macro='message views.wikified.createdPrompt'></span> <span macro='view created date'></span>)</div>
<div class='tagging' macro='tagging'></div>
<div class='tagged' macro='tags'></div>
<div class='viewer' macro='view text wikified'></div>
<div class='tagClear'></div>
<!--}}}-->
[img[images/hechicera.jpg]]A friend of mine is a university biology professor in the ULA, which was of the most prestigious universities in Venezuela. He tells me that in the biology department, in principle, it would be quite easy to set up laboratory to do the full test on people to see if they have COVID. All they need are the reagents. Any of his post graduate students are already trained enough to do the analysis.
However, for the last 5 or 6 years the government has been running down the universities. The ULA is in a state of almost complete abandonment. The science department, which a few years ago was an impressive modern campus full of students is now completely empty and choked with weeds. Due to the lack of security thieves have been breaking in and taking the equipment. It doesn't feel like a safe place to be.
Why has the government allowed this to happen? Basically because they perceive the universities as being places where students and teachers can form an effective opposition. Education is a threat to the government. Both university professors and secondary school teachers currently receive a [[monthly wage which is in the region of $10|The economic crisis in Venezuela]]. This is deliberate and many university teachers have simply left the country.
I thought that this is why the government won't ever give the qualified people at the university any funds to set up a lab or obtain the reagents and it occurred to me that it would not be too difficult for us to raise funds to help set up a lab. However, when I suggested that idea, I discovered that in addition to all that, there are three possible different government agencies who might be possible for authorising a lab. None of these would work in cooperation with the others. If we tried to work with one of them, we would become political enemies of the others. Thanks to all this, the only place where there can be a COVID testing lab is in Caracas - a very complicated journey away from Mérida.
//Macro: allTagsExcept
//Author: Clint Checketts
//Version: 1.0 Sept 8, 2005
version.extensions.allTagsExcept = {major: 0, minor: 1, revision: 0, date: new Date(2005,8,15)};
config.macros.allTagsExcept = {tooltip: "Show tiddlers tagged with '%0'",noTags: "There are no tags to display"};
//usage: < < allTagsExcept systemConfig systemTiddlers > > This will show all tags but those listed (e.g. systemConfig and systemTiddlers
config.macros.allTagsExcept.handler = function(place,macroName,params)
{
var tags = store.getTags();
var theTagList = createTiddlyElement(place,"ul",null,null,null);
if(tags.length == 0)
createTiddlyElement(theTagList,"li",null,"listTitle",this.noTags);
for (var t=0; t<tags.length; t++) {
var includeTag = true;
for (var p=0;p<params.length; p++) if (tags[t][0] == params[p]) includeTag = false;
if (includeTag){
var theListItem =createTiddlyElement(theTagList,"li",null,null,null);
var theTag = createTiddlyButton(theListItem,tags[t][0] + " (" + tags[t][1] + ")",this.tooltip.format([tags[t][0]]),onClickTag);
theTag.setAttribute("tag",tags[t][0]);
}
}
}
The items marked content are listed in the alphabetical index and the timeline. (And in the box on the left). Smaller notes are not. Many of the smaller items are listed as [[Snippets]].
These tags are unwritten items.
Also...
<<list missing>>
These tiddlers are for configuring how the TiddlyWiki that is the software behind this diary works.
config.options.txtUserName = "Vajranatha";
merge(config.extensions.linkify.defaults,{
linkifyAllTiddlers: true,
doNotLinkifyInside: 'h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,.header,.noLinkify,#sidebar',
doNotLinkifySameTiddler: true
});