The Arrival

The flight from Houston to Caracas was long and tiring, especially since it left at midnight. Adding to the morning arrival experience is the fact that Venezuela is 30 minutes difference in time zone. I was told that I would be greeted upon arrival and be escorted from the international zone to the national zone to check in for my flight to San Virgo.

Riiiiiiight!

I then find out that Venezuelan Bolivars can't be traded internationally. I can buy them using US dollars, but it would be next to impossible for me to go in the opposite direction, especially outside the country. This trick of the IMF is playing a critical role in every American's life who is here working. It means having a bank account here would be crazy. I could never change my money to dollars if I wanted to transfer any of it to an American account. There's no reason for the IMF to change Venezuela's status simply because Chavez is president.


The Venezuelans have it even tougher. If they are to do business internationally, they need dollars. No one will accept the Bolivar thanks to the IMF. So they have to spend another 50% above and beyond the official rate in order to have dollars to use internationally. The burden imposed by the IMF is huge and is never reported in American propaganda news.

Our internal flight was diverted to the very touristic Margarita Island due to airport problems in San Virgo. Everyone was ecstatic. Unfortunately, we wound up only visiting the inside waiting room at the airport. I've seen better. I did meet two gringos from the flight who were working at the same site and I decided to tag along with them rather than attempt completing the change in venue by myself.

Arriving at Hotel Gringo was indeed a once-in-a-lifetime experience, thank god. This is the first time I met my boss at 8 pm on the steps of a hotel . And he's younger than my kids. Not only that, he's drunk. Well, he's not plastered, but you can tell he's been having a good time. About 4 more gringos pile out of the bus right behind him.

"Hey, John, I'm your boss."

"Hi, boss."

Now, I'm tall, but Honcho is three inches taller. A real Southern guy, he talks, chews and spits all at the same time. That's multitalented. He promises to show me around the site in the morning. "Looking forward to it," I reply. Hoo-doggie. Tomorrow promises to be a real eye-opener.

The Old Fart is right behind. This guy is from South America, but has lived in the US for several decades. By his every demeanor, he personifies Anthony Quinn, albeit in a quite shortened, squat version. Imagine Pancho Villa in a near-midget's body.

I had already been at Hotel Gringo for four hours and came to one very startling conclusion, it's friggin' hot. The hotel itself seems rather modern, but isn't located on any major thoroughfare. Apparently, someone thought that an obscure street that barely allows one car to pass is the precise location for the as-yet-unfinished, building in which we reside. There are spaces for tons of shops on the two floors below, most of which aren't even finished being built yet.

Ah, but it's home.

And the 5:30 am wake-up call seemed like the beginning of a dream. Breakfast is served on the first floor, planta baja, and we pass by these very same unfinished future offices and soon-to-be tiny, little cubbyholes of stores. Now begin the, "And just what the hell do you do?" questions. I wish I knew myself.


At the site, Honcho introduces me to 500,000 people, all with strange ancient Sanskrit names that made it impossible to remember, gives me a book and points to a large fenced-in yard the size of a football field and says, "You need to inventory it." "It" turns out to be 21 shipping containers, several generators and turbines, many giant, heavy-looking objects that probably do incredible work and are surely very sophisticated, and assorted welded piping in twisted, Hitchcock-style patterns.

"Looking forward to it," I reply.

It's too dangerous to walk home

This actually happened a few days after my arrival and it typifies the overall feeling of the middle class in Venezuela. I will make a disclaimer up front. I do not know the history of the various levels of crime in Venezuela, nor those of San Virgo, but I can say with great confidence that they can't now be anywhere near what I've seen in the US.

Three reasons I can say this. First, I rarely see a police car in the street here, unlike everywhere I've been in the US. I actually think there should be a greater presence of them, a statement I thought I'd never make anywhere in the world. I seldom see any emergency vehicle of any kind in use. Second, I read the newspaper daily on my way to work and I read about the local violence and crime. I also talk a lot with locals here about what they have heard.

Third, I have decades of experience in all types of cities and countrysides in the US. I have spent countless thousands of hours reading, watching and seeing the news all over the country. I have found few places where crime is as absent as what I've seen since I've been here.

Just a few nights after I arrived, Cowboy invited me over to Grandmas's Boso restaurant. He told me that the food was fantastic, the ambiance great, and it was only half-a-block from Hotel Gringo. He also knew a back way to it that shortened the walk even more.


So we started off on our small trek to Boso and the growing gringo contingency there. Rather than turning left at the end of the parking lot, we turned right onto that small street, which I shall name Pygmy Street, where only tiny cars can pass, and head off down the darkened path towards our destination. Apparently, street lamps are a premium in San Virgo.

Fifty yards later we turned left into a poorly lit parking lot which connects Pygmy Street with the huge Avenida de las Americas. Within thirty seconds we were on the main avenida and headed for Boso. This was looking like a great evening after a long and arduous day's labor underneath the hot gatire Sun. Unfortunately, sometimes the best laid plans of mice and gringos don't always work out.

There are actually two parts to Grandma Bosos's restaurant, unbeknownst to us. The wonderful indoor eatery with its wooden bar and great ambiance is only half of the place. The other half consists of an open airdining hall which allows the gentle tropical breeze to create a totally separate feel. Sitting at the corner table next to the street were fellow plant workers. In fact, the project head, Vishnu, of the other plant site, site B, and his right-hand man, Sailor, had just sat down to enjoy a seafood meal with their driver, Manolo, and his wife and newborn child.

"Join us," Vishnu says.

We hadn't even noticed the place nor the group until then. "Don't mind if we do," retorted Cowboy. With that, we forgot the other side and entered the door which lead to their table. It looked like this was turning into a "Meet the other site management" night.

Vishnu is a small man in his 70s who has starred as a leader since his days as a lieutenant in the Vietnam War. He has run Pemex regions in Mexico as well as plant constructions in China and elsewhere. His stories are both hair raising and inspiring. His Spanish is also quite good due to the years he spent in Tampico, Mexico.

Sailor is my age and has been around the world almost as much as Vishnu. His most recent exploit has been the fabrication of a series of power plants in Iraq. He's been there off and on over the past six years and has plenty of heart-breaking stories to tell about the horrors of a country at war. He is especially informative about the famous surge that started in 2007 and the difference in life in general in central Iraq it made. The fact that it took the US military super brains four years to acknowledge that Bush's "stay the course" was a recipe for continued disaster is not as obvious, apparently.

Manolo is their personal chauffeur and has been putting in tons of overtime taking the two around the sites, around town and to and from the airport. Vishnu, true to his humanist form, had promised him and his family dinner of his choice at the restaurant of his choice. It was to be a seafood night at Boso's for site B management.

Manolo and his wife represent the modern middle class in San Virgo and I believe all of Venezuela. The vehicles they drive give away the fact that they have money and are doing quite nicely, even under the archenemy President Chavez. They live in a very nice area of the city and are members of some rather exclusive private clubs around town.

We sat down next to Sailor and joined the conversations in progress which mainly consisted of how wonderful San Virgo is, how great the food and people were, and how terrible Chavez was. We were given menus to order from, but that proved a mere hollow gesture on the part of the waiters, an apparent feint to give us the impression we were actually going to be able to order food to eat. The evil waiters were probably chuckling wickedly in the kitchen at our attempts to actually procure a meal.

However, there were plenty of seafood appetizers coming and the food never did stop making it's appointed rounds to all seated. At least with one notable exception, me. I hate seafood. I have always hated seafood. I can eat fish, but put a shell on the critter, and it becomes as evil as liver. As the platters rotated around the table, I just kept passing them on, some to Cowboy and some to Sailor, as I tried furtively to hail a waiter and order some regular food.

All the while, the drink flowed and the discussions multiplied. I was quite curious about Manolo's opinion and why he and his wife thought that way. "Chavez has turned our country into a lawless pit. It's now too dangerous to go out at night. No one is safe in the streets anymore. Crime is rampant and Chavez does nothing about it."

"Um, but we are out now; it's nighttime; and we don't seem to be in too much danger."

"That's because we're in a restaurant."

Apparently, the evil doers are thwarted at the doorways of restaurants. There must be rows of garlic cloves, crosses and other defenses behind these doors to prevent the criminals from attacking dining hall guests. Even though we are in a windowless eatery and sitting right next to pedestrians walking on those hazardous streets, we have nothing to fear from the lawlessness created by Chavez.

But before I could pursue my line of reasoning, Cowboy pulled out his famous, "No more politics" refrain, "How "bout that March Madness?" We had all been told that politics was a no-no topic while in country, but it seemed that only anti-right-wing, anti-conservative, and anti-ultra-radical Christian statements are really taboo. As long as one called President Obama "The Magic Negro," referred to his policies as extreme Socialism and denounced all unions and all liberals, one was permitted to speak openly and freely among the gringos without fear of sanction. If one, however, mentioned that Obama was probably born in Hawaii after all, one was immediately subjected to the politically-ending statement, "How "bout that March Madness."


At the end of the evening, it was paying time and Cowboy and I offered to help with the overall bill, even though I only had one drink and hadn't eaten. At first Vishnu refused, but his trusty sidekick, Sailor, seized the opportunity to have us help pay his bill. One drink wound up costing me 100 Bolivars (about $23). Quite an expensive drink if you ask me.

"We'll be moseying on back to the hotel," Cowboy announced with his usual insight for the obvious.

"No, you can't go," Enriqueta blurted. "It's too dangerous. Let me give you a ride."

"No, really, we'll be fine. It's only a half-block away. It won't take us but three minutes."

"The streets are far too dangerous to be walking them at night. I insist, you must ride with me."

I could see the international incident developing before my eyes. We had just walked there from Hotel Gringo not 90 minutes before. Cowboy and others had already returned safely, and under more inebriated conditions, the night before. No one had complained about feeling threatened, insecure or afraid of the walk. In fact, I had seen young girls walking alone the other few nights I had already ventured out upon my arrival there. I saw no need for such extremism.

But Enriqueta was more than insistent and, to avoid any unnecessary friction between us and the locals, we graciously accepted the offer. The vehicle ride took about as long as our original walk did, and the trip was exactly the same, down to the parking lot connecting Pygmy Street with Avenida de las Americas. We arrived at the door of Hotel Gringo just like we left there, and Enriqueta was satisfied that she had thwarted the Chavez-led evil doers once again.

I had thought that only in the US such extreme illogic about reality in one's country existed, but I am finding out that the same axiom holds true in other countries as well. Tell a lie long enough and people will start believing it.