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…

another taste…

A little taste from a beer: a black one; a black one that puts some of my thoughts chatting with my memories, so I remember Berlin. It was my first trip as tourist to Europe; I had been in Frankfurt before but it was as a musician: something I’m not being for a while.

By that time - Berlin, not Frankfurt - we had this mechanism so called cupo and, while others used it to bring dollars for making themselves more stable, I used it to know some of the world, and thanks God I did it, now a Venezuelan hardly makes ten dollars a month…

I actually feel this remorse when I reach thirty dollars because it is not common, so I write while having a beer, a beer that costs more than a working day for most fellows. I get a little taste, another one, and see this picture: no one can even buy something just for pleasure nowadays. Everything is only for the necessary, so you can understand how guilty we may feel for having a beer. I get another taste. In a time when every working hour is just to calm down hunger a little, the president says he’s running again because, surprise, we’re having elections within three months. He practically doesn't have opposition, well, he does; the majority hates the guy, his people know it, the thing is he controls the bureau, the army, the courts; everything from the public administration, he probably controls the opposition leaders, although that's just a rumor. A few days ago the Supreme Court released a sentence that forbids CNE, the electoral power of the nation, include the coalition of the opposition members, who had been unified as a single party. Divide and conquer, and we’re everyone for itself. There’re also anti-government people who despise their representatives (their own, not Maduro’s ones) as much as the president, so you can imagine who may win. I get another taste. I picture myself three months from now and wonder again how could this guy and his people actually have supporters: I know why, but still, l can't get it, what I can get is another taste…

Hunger is the best tool for these politicians, the promise of being fed without working looks like a paradise on Earth, in this case Venezuela, and it’s just a promise, they don't even have to, let's say, fulfill it. Last December they said on national TV they were importing (because we don't produce a shit anymore) pork meat for all and it didn't happen. There were even riots for it. They said, again, on national TV, they were not to blame but Portugal (at first) then Trump (it used to be Obama before) and then Santos (the president of Colombia is always guilty of something) It has to be someone from abroad unless the responsible lies on the opposition, in that case that person will be guilty of charge for sure... and yes, their people believe those things and I won’t take another taste because I took my last one while realizing we haven´t realized properly yet; this could get even worse, worse enough to stop writing and posting because there won’t be time nor resources for it. I still have a twitter account, I mean, we’re bad but there’s more to worsen…

See you!