Venezuela: My Home

“Home is where the heart is,” is a phrase that to my limited knowledge was something I would see in either a Valentine’s Day card or repeated as the lesson in some cheesy kids’ tale, not knowing that it was spoken by a Roman philosopher known as Pliny the Elder.

As of now, I am writing these overly flowery words and introductions in the comfort of a hotel room, in the United States Of America, almost 3,000 miles away from the home I used to know. I have seen many strange things ever since I have come here: clean streets with only a few errant plastic bottles lying around, the absence of graffiti in a lot of public spaces, and bathrooms that aren’t complete biohazards, although according to some of my new friends, this place called “Taco Bell” has plenty of them too… an adventure for later.

I have traveled for a while and have seen many interesting places over the years but my thoughts, much like the foam of the sea or the waves of the ocean, always come back to those same shores, of Venezuela. And after thinking about it for so long and writing these blogs, I think I am beginning to understand why.

NATIONAL PRIDE AND ARROGANCE

When I started to notice the rot and decay in the walls, the streets, and the government halls, I distanced myself from my country, because I felt ashamed of what it had become, this all stemmed from the idea of love or hate for one’s country that many people have experienced the same as me.

I, at least when I was younger, could not hold any pride for my own nation in my heart. What pride could I have for a nation where my classmates would talk about getting kidnapped with the casualness of an afternoon dinnertime story? or how I discovered that my nation was invisible to the rest of the world? I remember the day quite well weirdly enough, I asked in some forums if anybody knew about the situation Venezuela was going through, what with the dictatorship and all that, nobody could really tell, and others were even shocked to hear that Venezuela was even a real place at all.

I even longed for a time when I wasn’t even born yet, I longed to have been somewhere or somewhen else, if that makes sense. But now after my journey not just to this country but also after reflecting on the differences between national pride and national arrogance.

Pride is a funny thing, most see it as a double-edged sword or some sort of emotion that should always be present, because some say that one’s pride is what makes them stand up to defend something, or to hold themselves in some form of esteem because they cannot tolerate others attacking said thing, but it can also lead to arrogance, which is the excess of pride, to think only of one’s self and their value, to place one’s self as the center of the universe.

When it came to me and my country, those two emotions never came to mind for some reason. I studied our history and loved our tale of rebellion, of breaking the yoke of the Spanish to be free, but for the longest time, I never felt pride. My country was like I had described it so many times before, falling apart like a crumbling tower, and yet all the times the government highjacked every radio station to boast about how great their nation was and how they were being held back by “those filthy imperialist gringos,” all I felt was a secondhand embarrassment, and this was before the sanctions too.

All these efforts by the government, who themselves appeared arrogant, to make me feel proud of where I was from, just led me to feel much more shame in my heart.

The years went on and on, I got a little older, discovered new things about myself, and one of which was that after all these years I realized, that I never really hated my country, rather, I hated the circumstances that my country represented for people. Some ate their pets, some left to never return, some worked in the USA to send money and food back home to family and friends who couldn’t leave.

Patriotism is not evil, not inherently so, it is merely pride of where one comes from. Rather, Nationalism is the excess of patriotism, of pride, that turns to arrogance.

The Things I Missed

Back in school, it wasn’t unnatural for teachers and students to suddenly go missing, and come back weeks later, or not come back at all. Kidnapping people for ransom was a dangerous gambit for criminals, but not here, 98% of crimes were never reported, and even when they were, the police never had any resources to do anything about it, because of inflation.

And in the end, we all talked about such things happening like some quiz we got that morning or what we had for lunch yesterday. Concerning, I know, but that is just how it was for us. We all had self-imposed curfews, there was a certain time in which the criminals would start to stalk for people to rob, and possibly put food on their own plate. It was 6:00 pm for me, and all of my family really, it was painful to watch my sister try to argue with my mom and dad, desperately wanting to go out late at night to parties or to hang out with her friends, only to be told no.

A nice view of Caracas. Despite its beauty, it’s one of the most dangerous cities in the entire world.

It wasn’t because my parents hated her but because of the criminal activity, because of the curfew we all had. Were my sister in some safer place or country, she would have been allowed to go out later, probably not to a ridiculous extent, I mean she was and still is a teenage girl, but she, along with many people, missed many great experiences because of it.

Birthday parties had become luxuries to many. Hell, I used to have two birthday parties, one for my family and one for my friends, that was the level of privilege I had. But soon that went away too, it bothered me sure, I am not someone who likes change, be it to my lifestyle or routine, but this just made me feel like I missed something big. But there are some things while living in that nation that I never missed and will always remember.

The Things I Loved

Regardless of what happened to my country, I have learned to hold it near and dear to my heart, not by ignoring all the bad things that I had seen but by focusing on the wonderful things I did get to experience.

I remember the hundreds of thousands of times I went to El Club Nautico, and eating the same foods all day every day, seeing kids and adults play in the pools and randomly finding classmates at the place and catching up with them. I also expected to find a friend of my father’s at least once, we would shake hands or hug, and they would go on to talk about stuff that I could make no sense of.

The greasy food and the nostalgic scent of plastic, the squeaking of rubber soles against the smooth marble floor, the little stray cats that ran as soon as you looked at them. I will forever miss those things. I will always miss the late afternoons every Friday when I and my friends got together to play D&D. Going to the docks in El Club Nautico and staring at the miasma and garbage covering to the surface, or just walking along the shoreline.

My country was not perfect, it never was. But I will forever miss the myriad of things that I both did and didn’t do while I was there. It is not a matter of forgiving my countries flaws and loving it despite those flaws, but rather I love my country for both the good and the bad that it has accumulated over the years.

I do not think I could ever call myself a patriot, not after having such a disconnect from where I was born. But I will not look upon my country with shame, not anymore. Now I stand upright, looking towards the future, with the hopes that one day I can return to those shores, to the land I once knew, and hopefully get to know again.

Thank you all so much for your time and consideration.

Have a nice day.

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