Leaving Merida

There were a couple noteworthy things I forgot to mention. One was the rain. In the evenings, it would usually rain (that is what tends to happen in the rainy season, and probably part of why it is not the tourist season and everything was closed). There was not much of a drainage system in the city, unless you count the water just running through the streets. The sidewalks were elevated typically 6 inches to a foot, which is good, because in a heavy rain there would be up to four inches of water running across the entire street, with waves and piles up to six inches. It was enough that when you would step, your foot would slide a little bit from the force of the water. I got caught out twice. Once I took a taxi and the second time I just tried to stay dry. But failed. My shoes are just now drying, and I seem to remember that, as I hopped across the street as quickly as I could, the water would pile up around my ankles reaching halfway to my knees.

My last full day there I rented a bike and went for what ended up being a long ride. Despite the claim that Merida is the mountain biking capitol of the country, the guide shops denied that there were any trails to ride. They just suggested road rides. I went to Tabay, about 7 miles and 3 huge hills away. It was okay. The claim to fame is a hot spring, but that was the last thing I wanted when I arrived. Coming back, I decided to take the low road, through the valley. Rolling hills, beautiful, cooler etc. I knew it would be further, and all the directions I got were "....blah blah blah through the valley then sube sube sube." Sube means 'you climb.' I thought, "how bad can it be?" Well, the ride through the valley was great, but the climb at the end killed me. I actually, about 1500 feet below Merida, passed the entire city then had a STEEP two mile climb that left me at the wrong end of the city...a city that happens to be built on the side of a hill, of which I was at the low end. It was pretty tiring.

I say this though not to horrify my parents (by going cycling alone in Venezuela, and, more importantly, telling them about it), but to point out just how nice everyone was. At just about every intersection, I would ask for directions. And everyone was first amazed that there was this white person in the middle of nowhere on a bicycle, then very helpful. My theory is that people are indeed nicer here and it is because they are forced or choose to live close together. Most houses are small and hold a lot of people. You have to learn to get along, and you do not have the opportunity to start thinking you are more important than anyone else. If you live in a more isolated situation, that is an easy thing to start to think.

I was talking to someone about the traffic, and about how I did not understand how it could function with so much anarchy. If there are signs, they are typically ignored, but some areas seem smart enough to know that putting them up is a waste of resources. He said that instead of paying attention to signs and doing what they say, the people pay attention to the other cars, and do what they can. It makes a lot of sense and, in a way, seems simpler. To drive safely in the US, you have to do both. Actually, no, to drive safely you just have to pay attention to other cars. To stay out of trouble with the cops, you have to do both. The result is probably about the same, in terms of safety, at least it does not appear that the roads are any more dangerous here than at home. Just different.

Merging the two above themes, My trip back was in a car, a por puesto taxi. There are just a couple busses on Sunday, so it was worth the extra money to take a car. These por puestos ("by place," kind of) are at the terminals and wait until they have five people who want to go wherever they are going. Then everyone piles in and you go. So, you have 5 passngers (strangers) and a driver in a car for three hours, and everyone chats and gets along well. I tried to imagine that in the US, and had a hard time. Again, the culture is that they live close together and beyond that, it is hard to afford to buy a house. They have to learn to get along.

I thought I would be adventurous and take a different route home. Instead of going from Merida to Valera (big city), I went to Timotes, a small town halfway between. Carorita is on a mountain above Timotes, and there is a jeep going to LaPuerta that passes the entrance to Carorita. The advantage was possibly saving to hours, disadvantage that I would have to walk from the main road to the house (1 mile?) and may not be able to find a jeep. But I did almost as soon as I got out of the car and it ended up being a great decision.

So, I am back in Carorita for two days before heading to Maracaibo and the US. Finally, though ironically, my Spanish is improving by the hour is seems. We are finishing up on the house, which has taken forever to do, but it will be extremely nice.

As for my question spawned by going to Merida, I do not think I can give a yes or no answer. I met great people from all over the world and learned a lot from them. But it was frustrating being served. Bruce had the same sentiment. We were treated like high class travelers. That is not what I am here for, or what I am about in life in general. I tried to help them out with various things, and hang out with the staff as much as I did the other guests, but it is still not the same. In the end, if I come back I will spend time as a tourist, but the majority will be in the community, whichever that may be.

So, this will probably be my last entry in Venezuela. I am looking forward to seeing everyone when I get back, and appreciate whoever may have read all this stuff. I will definitely be wanting to talk about things, partly to share my experience and partly to help me resolve all the issues that this trip has brought up.

Merida II

I still like it here. Here are possibly a lot of my experiences...

Yesterday I went to several museums, in fact all of the ones I could find out about in Merida. Part of what is neat about being in Venezuela is that they do not have a lot of infrastructure I take for granted. Like signs telling where museums are. They were almost all hard to find. And generally small. While I am not sure if there are anymore Indiana Jones type discoveries left, just visiting all these museums would be an adventure in itself and could yield some interesting things to someone who knew a lot about the indiginous cultures. They do not seem to understand much about the things they have. Most items do not have a date attached because they do not know. Either we put more resources into these pursuits in the US, or they do not mind making it up. It may be a combination of the two, but when have you seen something in a museum with question marks in the "age: " space? Here it is most things. There are a couple bells made in Ireland in the 900s. They were almost melted for scrap a hundred years ago when someone salvaged them.

The art museums were interesting. All modern...more of a showcase of regional artists than anything. Three really struck me. One was titled Maternity. It showed a very typical, sad, unhealthy looking woman holding a typical, sad, unhealthy looking kid. Very simple and to the point. Another was of an indiginous girl praying "god, thank you for letting me live. I pray that someday my family will have a house." Again, direct. The third was sort of funny, a triptic showing three restroom doors. One had a typical figure of a man, another a woman, and the third had a anasazi-style person aiming a bow/arrow. I am not sure what I would think if I saw these in the US, but here they seem to address soem very real, very nearby problems.

I have really enjoyed the people at the posada. I was up late last night talking with two couples from the UK and a guy from Arizona. Carolyn, one of the britts, told a very interesting story of her parents travel history. It really seems that they should not travel. Here is the one with the most (by far) impact. She has a sister in Hong Kong, and the family typically meets in Thailand at the beach for Christmas, but she did not go this year. Her family though, while looking off the balcony, saw a big wall of water coming towards them. They ran up to the roof, with water boiling up the stairs behind them. Apparently there were two waves in the tsunami. When the second came, they just kept watching the water rise, and, with nowhere else to go, basically started saying goodbye to each other. The water did not come over the building though. Luckily, the ground floor of the building was very open, allowing water to go through instead of pushing it over.

They were there for hours and soon realized that raiding the mini-bars was not going to last them long. They were with about 40 people, and theirs was the only family that had not lost someone. And, they did not realize that they had just caught the edge of it. They thought they would get help soon. A helicopter did come and tell them to go to the main road, which was a 2km wade through waist-deep mud. They then got to higher ground and lived at some guys house for a week or so before going home. Thankfully, Caroline heard from them (cell towers are great) before she realized that Thailand had been hit hard. I think the part that hit me most was that she did not recognize her parents at the airport-- her mom had lost a lot of weight and her dads beard was grey when it had not been before. I am not sure why, but just hearing that story was enough to make this trip to Merida worthwhile. Caroline has travelled a lot, including central america in the mid 90s, by herself. It sounds like she went to all the places you are not supposed to, but did not have any trouble. Amoungst the several of us, there was a lot of travel experience, including places you "should not go," and we all agreed that we have seldom found anything but hospitality.

I have been hanging out with Bruce, from AZ. He is around 60 and was getting very burned out from his job in social work/mental illness. His solution was to quit and get on a bus to see his friend in Columbia. That was 4 months ago I think. We are trying to figure out how to save our poor nation, and making some progress. He said that he keeps in touch with his wife through an instant messenger, and that it has really improved their communication, because you can not yell or both talk at the same time. It sounds, interestingly enough, like this trip has been great for his marriage. He has been a lot of fun to run around with. Today we went to Culata, some small town near a national park. When we got there, there really was not anything there, so we just started walking, and probably climbed a thousand feet or so. We did not really get anywhere, but it was nice to just go out and roam around, and crawl through the bushes, although I definitely noticed the altitude (maybe 12000 feet)...and the lack of sleep.

On the van back from Culata, I was telling Bruce about Maracaibo and a woman behind me announced that she was a Maracucha (in Spanish), and we talked about Maracaibo for a minute. When I told her I had been on San Carlos for 3 weeks, she thought I was crazy, when I said that I had stayed in Barrio Bolivar, she was appalled. It was neat to meet someone from outside the church who is familiar with these places.

My experience has been very different from that of my fellow travelers at the posada. I seem to always have an agenda, and there it is to get them to think of a different sort of tourism, where you do not just travel around, but where you spend time in one place for a while and really get to know the culture, not as a tourist, but as a pseudo member of the community. I think they see it as a good thing, and maybe I can provoke some jealousy. I do feel a little differnt though, because I hang out with the employees about as much as with them, and I like it that way.

Well, that is probably more than enough, and all I can think to say.

Merida

Well, it is vacation time. I am in Merida, way up in the mountains. The big attraction here is the worlds longest and highest cable car. It goes from the city to the top of a nearby mountain that is 15000 feet high or more. But it is down for repair. I am still, though, in the mountain biking capital of South America, apparently.

So far things have gone very well. Amazingly so. I am staying in a posada that is amazing. My room is about as small as it could be and still hold a bed, but there are big communal areas, and the staff have been extremely helpful. There is really nothing like this kind of hospitality that I have experienced in the US....and for 12 dollars a night. And I have already figured that that works out to 360 dollars per month, which is about what a single apartment would cost.... And I really thought this place was too good to be true when I came into this internet cafe and it had a US style keyboard. Sadly though, my hopes were shattered when I found while they keys are laid out like the ones at home, they are all mapped to a standard Spanish style keys, so I have to remember that a quotation mark is shift-2 etc.

The interesting thing is this: Will I leave here thinking "I want to come back to Venezuela as a tourist for a month" or "I want to come back to San Carlos for two or three months." The cost for the two would be similar. I am reading The Demon and Miss Prym by P. Cuehlo which is an interesting rendition of the "personal struggle between good and evil" plot. I view the above question as my version of it, and try to answer it for myself as honestly as I can. We will see.

With the cable car down, and the nice lady at the hotel saying the zoo is not worth the cab fare to get there, I will have more time on my hands than I had expected, but it will allow me to do some biking and hiking before returning to Carorita on Sunday and the US on Thursday.

A different reading of the water into wine story

I thought this was interesting. I was at a meeting last week where this was the scripture. I cannot remember where, maybe towards the beginning of John, but everyone is probably familiar. I noticed two differences.

One reflects the theology here. Latin America has developed Liberation Theology, which has no shame in saying that it is an...how to spell it...the opposite of exegesis...eisegesic theology. They look for how Christ was the liberator of the oppressed.

I never thought about it much before, but at the wedding, they had run out of wine. Some of my first experiences here were celebrations with 40 people and 9 bowls, or a party celebrating a baptism where there was just one case of beer, and everyone got one. Having a party and wanting your guests to have whatever they want but not being able to provide it is a fact of life here. In the water into wine story, the significance here is that Jesus is the kind of guy who thinks everyone should have enough wine to satisfy all their guests at a party. It is a simple statement, but very real here. Actually, I guess Mary is the one who thinks that, because Jesus did not want to do it until she told him to. But, the point is the same, especially in a very Catholic culture.

The other difference was that they did not make any sort of disclaimer that "in those days wine did not really contain alcohol," or anything like that. I am not sure how common that sort of apologetics is, but have run into it often and think it is a very American thing. Here, women rarely drink, but men do, and boys do if they want to. Somehow, the culture avoids being awash with alcoholics. There are a few and it does cause problems, but I do not see any reason to believe that they cultural acceptance of alcohol makes the frequency or severity of the problems any better or worse than in the US.

And, at the risk of becoming a little too polemical, in the "camel through the eye of a needle story," I do not think they would try to explain that the bible does not really mean the eye of a real needle, that it is figurative and rich people can still get into heaven if they try really hard or something like that.

Gender Issues Here

As an editorial note, after being frustrated with the way these computers handle apostrophes, I have realized that I can write without them most of the time. So, if you notice more formality and less garbage, that is why.

Gender issues here are a real problem. I think there is an awareness and desire to change in the government and in intellectual circles, but not where I am. For what it is worth, any governmental document or address is very egalitarian -- instead of using the general masculine form, they always say "doctors y doctoras" or something like that. I think the redundancy and the fact that it is so different from normal speech really cause it to stick out.

Two experience really illuminated the problems for me. First was on San Carlos. I was trying to figure out what the youth there would want or could use, things I could send here with people or groups coming in the future. For the guys it was easy -- a soccer ball, baseball stuff, English as a second language books. I couldn´t really come up with anything for the girls. There is a submissiveness that I had not realized that disguises any interest or desire for anything. If you ask them, they don´t need anything or want anything. "What do you like to do?" "Nothing much...talk, listen to music." I think it is partly a habit of meekness and partly that they don´t have the opportunity or resources to pursue anything recreational. Here, the guys play soccer and baseball and the girls can occasionally be found playing volleyball. Probaly they would appreciate a volleyball and an assortment of nice clothes. They have alot of things brought from groups from the US, but it is mostly boring stuff. The culture here is very image and fashion conscious, especially for women. I think the girls would appreciate more than our old t-shirts and other things we are tired of. One could probably buy a good selection of nicer clothes for not too much money. The only problem is that the standard attire here may not be something many churches are comfortable providing people. In general, people here are not very modest, and the weather on the coast tends to discourage it even more.

Another thing I have not had much opportunity to look into is the incidence of rape. Given the submissiveness of the women and the attitudes of most men in San Carlos, the following situation seems to follow naturally -- a young girl is raped by an uncle, cousin, or step-father, but does not say anything because of cultural pressures and is forced to deal with the violation as if there really isn´t anytihng that wrong with it. I want to be clear that I have not seen any direct evidence of this sort of thing, but the attitudes and environment are such that...it makes sense that it would occur. If someone told me that it was common, I would not be surprised in the least. I have seen it often enough in the US, and our standards for such a thing are much higher.

Another situation happened here in Carorita. There is a youth group that meets at the house/community center in Carorita. Francisco has been in Maracaibo, so..I do not know how to spell her name, but it is some adaptation of Rosa...Rosa was in charge. She came across as being very confident, intelligent, and capable. In the US she could probably be as successful as she wanted. It is different if I am at her house though. I walk in, am given a seat, and talk to her father and brothers. She comes at some point out of the kitchen and gives me a cup of coffee, says hello in the official way and will smile or something to make it a little more familiar, but it´s still within a very formal structure. Then she is back in the kitchen or other part of the house and I don´t see her again. It´s like two different people. That is just the way it works around here.

The girls in Carorita do have one advantage though. The boys go to school as much as they have to, but it is seen as an impediment to work. They go to school, come home, work, go to bed. No time for studying. The girls however have the opportunity to study and take school seriously. And the education system, on every level I have seen, takes them as seriously as the guys. BUT, you still have the strong family structures that make it hard for someone to leave Carorita, which is a requirement to do anything more than go on to be a farmers wife.

It is a tough problem. If you give malnourished people food, they will probably eat it. If you give someone who is sick medicine, they will probably take it. But changing attitudes like this is difficult. As I said, at the top level the attitude is very egalitarian, at least so far as I can tell. I think there is beginning to be an awareness amoung women that things can be different...and that is where any real change will start. In a place like Carorita, I think it is just a matter of changing habits of interaction. In San Carlos though there is actually power and self-esteem (of the men) tied up in the structure, and that will be much harder to change.