Will We Hold Out?

For several years now (starting with the Vargas floods of 1999) we have lived through very hard and difficult Decembers in our beloved homeland. At Christmas it is normal to feel the crisis more, along with people’s needs and the poverty in which a high percentage of our population lives. December is also usually a month when muggings and murders increase, which have become “our daily bread.” That is why we tend to be a little more tense than usual.

This year, those of us who work with the Church and with various NGOs have noticed that expropriations, land invasions and the like have meant that more innocent people, children, the sick and the elderly, are going through great hardship. Thank God these people, however hard things are for them, always have a smile on their faces, and however little we can do to help, for them it is enormous. Seeing this at Christmas hits me hard in the heart; you wish you could win the lottery so you could help so many people.

On the other hand, it also hurts to see so much waste and so much superficiality on the part of some people and authorities who live in a “glass bubble,” as if nothing were happening here. How long do they think people will believe there are no problems and no poverty here? How long will they waste the opportunity they have to do good to so many people, with all the resources this country has? How long will they waste the help of thousands of excellent professionals who are unemployed, driving taxis or working as street vendors?

It is not possible that in a country with so much wealth there are so many people living in such need. It is not possible that our streets look like Swiss cheese (as someone said) from so many potholes, and that our highways, and many other things, are falling to pieces (among them many expropriated properties where a great deal of good used to be done). It is not possible that we see accidents like the one at the Vargas Hospital, where a patient fell through a hole left during a renovation, and the hospital director then forbade patients to walk down the ward corridor. It is not possible that, of the families left homeless by last year’s rains, only a quarter or fewer have been relocated. How long will this inefficiency go on?

As if that were not enough, we saw a luxury summit whose guests were taken only to places that had been given an emergency makeover. Nobody took them for a ride on the Metro on a working day, for example.

My question is: will we hold out? I do not say this because those of us who decided to give our very marrow to our beloved homeland are going to throw in the towel and stop fighting here. No! I say it only because at any moment many of us with heart trouble or high blood pressure could end up having a heart attack at seeing so much inefficiency and injustice everywhere.

Thank God there are things that lift our spirits, like what the students said at the Catholic University before the debate: “If we had to choose a country to live in, we would choose Venezuela again.” Bravo, young people! You are an important part of our hope and of our strength to stay here, supporting you.

But this is hard, everyone, very hard. Forgive me, because today I am complaining and that is a bad example, but we all have our days. I am sure that with a few aguinaldo carols, a piece of pan de jamón and a glass of ponche crema this pain will pass. And remember, those of you who are abroad: don’t let a day go by without praying for us, so that our hearts hold out. Please!