Esteban's Venezuelan Adventure

The title of this blog entry pertains to at least a couple of the pictures. Sorry its been so long since my last post, but I moved to a new apartment and am still working on getting internet. The rule here is that things move slow, so it might still be a while. I am writing this entry on my laptop at the computer lab in CEVAZ. The picture below is of the freezer at the home of the Peruvians where I lived for my first four weeks here. To make some extra money, they sell these little frozen treats called cepillados for about 20 cents. Cepillados bring a moment of happiness during a hot day, and the Peruvians always sold out their entire stock within 24 hours. The pink ones on the upper row are colita and the brown ones on the bottom are toddy. Colita are made by mixing strawberry soda with milk and toddy are frozen chocolate milk and water. The three on the upper left were made especially for me with apple juice and soy milk. These people really treated me like family.

It's good to occasionally include a really bad picture. These two gentleman are actually quite handsome, but they look horrible here. The guy to the left in the red Manchester United jersey is Efrain. The serious-looking young man to the right is Alexander. Efrain teaches courses and helps out with administration of some of the academic programs at CEVAZ; he has become one of my closest friends here. Alexander is a member of the Peruvian family with whom I lived, and he took me on an awesome but really sweaty walking tour during one of my first days in Maracaibo. He is an undergraduate medical student and has written two unpublished books of poetry. This photo was taken at the CEVAZ Rock and Pop festival. At this event, Efrain and I shmoozed with all of the bands after their sets in order to find local artists that we could invite to the music appreciation course that we were planning. The course starts next week and will be run by myself, Efrain, and two other teachers at CEVAZ. It is only available to advanced speakers of English, so if you're interested and living in Maracaibo, Venezuela, give me a ring and we'll see about signing you up.














This was a posed group shot. The small brown cow to the right kept cracking dirty jokes so I had to pull her aside for a milking session. This photo was taken at a farm that I visited with the grandmother and granddaughter of the Peruvian family. The property owned by the proprietors of the farm is huge, several hundred acres, but they only cultivate a small portion of it for fear of attracting attention of guerilla groups that sometimes make forays into the area. I went during the day when it is quite safe, but the family no longer visits the farm at night, instead entrusting it to local guajiro indians who tend the livestock and maintain the crop of papaya. In spite of all of this, it was wonderful to get out of the city for a while. Oddly, we lunched on chinese food that had been kept on ice during the long car ride from Maracaibo. I had shrimp fried rice with some sort of fried chicken.
Here is the granddaughter of the Peruvian family crouching beside a little boy who is the child of the owners of the farm. She is three and he, four, but he considered himself highly knowledgeable about animal maintenance and delivered several discourses on how to care for horses, sheep, pigs, and chickens. They were watching lambs being driven back into their pen.
When I first landed here in Venezuela, I was really surprised by the number of cars littering the sides of the road leading from the airport to the city of Caracas. How could 50+ cars break down along this relatively short stretch of road? I have since learned that many people here are driving cars from the 1970's that work sporadically at best. New cars cost just as much as they do in the US, and everyone wants one because gas is so cheap and public transportation so bad. Thus, used cars are extremely sought after, and people drive clunkers that would have been sent to the junk heap in the US 40,000 miles ago. This guy was driving me to work in a taxi that stalled out, and I had to walk the rest of the way.














This is a picture of the property of the Sociedad Israelita de Maracaibo. The guy on the far left is entering the Sephardic chapel where they hold services every day. There is also an Ashkenazi chapel on the upper floor of an adjoining building, but this is not used because almost all of the Jews in this city emigrated to Caracas or Miami. There are now only about 60 Jewish households in Maracaibo, less than half of which regularly attend synagogue. After I took this photo, I was told to stop because they weren't sure who I was, but now that I have attended high holiday and shabbat services a few times, the community is starting to warm up.

This photo was taken on a trail at about 9,000 feet of elevation outside of the city of Merida at a park called La Culata, literally "The Butt." Merida is situated in the far northeast of the great Andes cordillera. Despite its location close to the equator, Merida can get quite cold. The farmer in this shot was harvesting potatos from the rocky soil. It was about 2:30 PM, but the light was dim because of the thick layer of cloud that envelops the mountain. The beauty of this land was otherwordly; the strangeness of the specialized plants living above the treeline lent the experience the feeling of taking a voyage to an alien planet. I went to Merida for a 5-day long vacation but unfortunately had my second bout with food poisoning, so spent 2.5 of the days immobilized. However, I plan to return to go hiking and enjoy the cool mountain air.

That's all for now. Next time, more pictures of Merida and life in the new Esteban Miller bachelor pad. Thanks for taking some time to keep up with my experiences here.