the perception is nostalgia

There’s this article in which I could read some about time’s perception. It wasn’t too deep but what I usually remember from it is that we, –the almost forty in 2018- when saying something about the nineties, tend to think it was about ten years ago. I hadn’t bought a DVD player yet. I remember that a friend lent me two VHS tapes with the bands he could record from a special broadcasting of Woodstock 99. I remember Limp Bizkit: the nookie. Few years later Korn came to Venezuela, Papa Roach performed at that show too. I was amazing, affordable, young and nearly ten years ago (in my head at least). Moments and memories are always playing tricks, I can´t precise when I stopped playing VHS tapes and replaced them with DVDs, for instance. I remember those Coca-Cola concerts (Experiencia Roja, they were called) as not so distant events. My wife gave me as a present my first smartphone in 2013 (I’m not so into what’s on but that’s not the point here) and nowadays I’m finding hard to see the daily routine without it, even though I’ve been using it only for five years: it’s seems like forever but it’s not. I’ve spent more time with mobiles of the other kind. So this tricky is this perception issue…

Money, on the other hand, got tricky too. During the first months of 2008 the Government ordered the first trick with money; from then on, three units would be suppressed this way: what´s valued one hundred fifty thousand bolívares changed into one hundred fifty; three zeros out. It was called (bolívar fuerte) to make a difference from the former one and this was, for real, ten years ago. It obviously created a new perception. Four years later there was no distinguishing of one currency from another; there were both bolívar and also by that now, the former bills were all out of circulation (they got out the same 2008 and this is tricky too: nowadays there’s a strong shortage of bills) We simply got used to say that a car costs forty thousand instead of forty millions, and if it’s putted that way it did not sound so bad until you talked about salaries…

Venezuelans have been dealing with ‘Control Cambiario’ (this sort of ban from free market and that’s a euphemism, because it is brutal) for over fifteen years. Fifteen years of managing multiple exchange rates. This got crazy on 2015 (the first time someone had to pay one hundred bolívares just for a dollar) but it didn’t stop there, by October 2017 one dollar was fifty thousand bolívares, one hundred thousand by November, two hundred thousand last January, just for a dollar. That makes most of us handle salaries not higher that ten dollars per month… and this situation brought us a refreshed trick: due to the astonishing devaluation, people are suppressing, again, three zeros, this time on their own; a nice but not so fancy meal costs five hundred in a restaurant, but it’s not five hundred, it’s five hundred thousand and most of the people just make over a million in thirty days, so, if you want to have a meal, just a meal out, you know it will be almost half of a salary for some, and simply impossible for many…

The government made time and money a matter of perception in Venezuela. The most frequent tale people say to each other is what you could do with certain amount of money and that’s certainly less and less every day on… the perception is nostalgia.  

expect it and despise it

A second. Just a second went by meanwhile everything was black: from blur to black, then, after that second, it got blurry again, as if trying with a lens. It was desperate until finally seeing and breathing got back to my body. I saw the faces of my workmates crying; mine as well: I felt it. The partner who was pressing around me all that time told me: you freaked us out! Are you ok? I just hugged him, by instinct, by feeling, it doesn’t matter. I can write still these shitty posts thanks to him. 

Last time I had a blood test was… I don´t even remember: three, four years ago. I was ordered to have it so. Everyone is scared now: my mother, my wife, the guys from work. A blood test costs half of a month pay; not affordable to my taste and there’s no point, besides, I felt bad only that moment, I’m ok now, nevertheless there’s the insurance policy, so I did what I had to and now, with a little luck, I may get it within a couple of days. 

Last week -as all these weeks we’re living under this perspective- the president announced he’s going to -like it actually were his money- give the people what equals a little more than our minimal salary, as a bonus for Carnival. In Venezuela there are many things we don’t take too serious, not the case of holydays. Holydays are very important here. Before falling into this regime, people made plans for traveling across the country, going to the beach, buy a lot liquor; but, like I’ve just written: it was before this regime… nowadays and, if one’s able, we better stay home and watch a lot of TV. The things is: these announcements are confusing many people. At every line where people got used to wait: the bakery (for buying six pieces of bread) the bank (for withdrawing ten thousand bolívares which no one can buy even a small chocolate bar; it costs almost three times that cash) the supermarket (just to get lucky if finding a price regulated something) and some other places, people talk about it on the streets: some agree and also praise for such a gesture from the government, some others don’t and it doesn’t mean they won’t be expecting the bonus, everyone expects it and despises it (except the praise ones, of course) and my point with this is that needs come first and also needs don’t take too much wondering the right and wrong of actions, in spite of social networks preach…

Social networks has become the alleviation of the former middle class (I put it this way because there isn’t such a thing anymore) and we’re so into it that we actually see posts as real actions: anger, complaint, flattering; also knowing, analyzing, news, tastes, many things; many things are now gotten by the approach of this media, and this media is telling us even how to think and say to thus just follow… and we’re following, especially those ones who claim themselves independent and controversial then we judge; judge this, that and each other…

safe passages

There is this phrase which more or less in english goes like: we’re making the effort for having a better country. Now everything is for having a better country. Last Saturday I went to the venezuelan version of a Food Truck Fair and, like everything lately, it wasn´t enjoyable at all. Many people complained and they had a point to do so, the thing is that the producers of the event weren´t, in my opinion, respectful enough with the upset ones. This mainstream way of management through cell phones and by posting flattering moments of itself is not being well used as I can see. We are supposed to be cheering and grateful because they’re making the effort for having a better country; just like the government. Chavez used to speak about the new man as a person with new values. A lot of money in propaganda got spent to convey such an affirmation. I think it worked, there’s indeed a new man, only that perhaps it is not what’s expected, not to me at least.

The new politicians for instance. They’ve become so popular and then, at last, it turned too little (almost nothing) all these growing alliance against our oppressors. Yesterday, for example, these representatives, both sides, gathered at Dominican Republic to renegotiate terms. I’m kind of lost with those terms. I need my income to reach the next payment. We need a whole new economy system and we need it right away. This terms thing just delay while prices keep increasing. On the other hand, like the people of the Food Truck, these ones also are making the effort for having a better country…

It seems like everything is being done through safe passages. It seems that’s the excuse we better believe so, yes, we’re supposed to self-deceive one another, post it as a good thing to then, by lying each other, make the phrase a slogan. Therefore, let’s say I’m making the effort for having a better country I guess…