Sanare, Lara, Venezuela.For 32 years I have called Venezuela home. Its mountains have given me beauty, its barrios have given me music, its struggles have given me purpose, and its people have given me love.
Its Bolivarian Revolution gave me hope. How could I not feel hope when most of my neighbors - ages 2 to 70, were studying, right in our little potato-growing town in the mountains of western Venezuela. How could I not be hopeful when 18 neighbor families received new homes to replace their unhealthy, crowded living spaces?
How could I not be grateful when my partner received life-saving emergency surgery? Or when my blind friend Chuy had his sight restored. Both for free.
But today, this is what I see from my porch: neighbors digging frantically in barren, already-harvested potato fields, hoping to find a few overlooked little spuds.
Rastreando they call it. It is an act of desperation to find any food source to keep the kids from crying, because for months, the shelves of the stores have been bare.
How did this happen? That is the question that I bolt awake to every morning. As I watch Juan Carlos claw the fields for potatoes; as I embrace a tearful Chichila - up and waiting in line since 2 am, searching, unsuccessfully, to buy food for her large family; as I see the pounds shed before my eyes from 10-year-old Fabiola. I am glad that my mangos are ripening now. They take some of the empty glare from Fabi's eyes.
Comment: How is it that "nothing points in the direction of bullying" when a young girl is publicly humiliated to the extent that she commits suicide?! Violence against women and girls has become an allowed behavior of pathological individuals from pathological institutions. These types feel no shame, as demonstrated by the ex-boyfriend's comments above, but it is a shame on all of society to see such regular cruelty.