Here You Can Sell Anything!

A few weeks ago I was having lunch with a group of friends. One of them had just come back from Spain because she lost her job, and she said the unemployment situation there was terrible, so many people have had to make the painful decision to return to their countries of origin after living there for several years. Another friend took advantage of that lunch to sell some tickets to one of the thousands of Christmas bazaars held in Caracas this year. I don’t know what the bazaar scene is like in the rest of the country, but here in Caracas, from around November 15, there is bazaar after bazaar. There are so many that one weekend Caracas was gridlocked because there were three famous bazaars on the same day in different places. And lots of people went to all three!

The friend just back from Spain said: “It’s incredible what you see in Venezuela. Here you set up a little stall selling bracelets made from soda bottle caps and you sell every one of them. You don’t see that in Europe. Over there, what you usually buy is brand-name.” I started thinking about that and drew a few conclusions that describe some new features of the Venezuelan character.

First, it is normal at Christmas for people to visit bazaars to buy their little Christmas gifts. What is not normal is the list of people we want to buy something for (grandparents, great-aunts and greatuncles, parents, in-laws, aunts and uncles, siblings, children, nieces and nephews, cousins, cousins’ children, godchildren, of whom we sometimes have as many as ten, and so on). And if the money stretches that far, the last on the list is usually our husband, whom we take care of at the last minute with some handkerchiefs or socks.

So we start by helping the people who organize the bazaars (usually NGOs that do great work for people in need), buying extra tickets from them to sell to our other friends. Next comes the process of putting up with the traffic to get to the bazaar and find parking. Then, packed in like sardines, we make our way from one stand to the next, where everyone has great, creative, delicious (if it’s food) things at very good prices. What I like most is that most of the things are Made in Venezuela, by our wonderful artisans, painters, cooks and so on. The Swiss, Lebanese, Jewish and German bazaars usually sell their traditional items, but they also have plenty of stands with Venezuelan things.

All the vendors, with their friendliest faces (and they are helping a good cause besides), win us over so completely that we end up buying from almost all of them: the handmade goat cheeses, the starshaped chocolates, the black fruitcakes in beautiful tins, the candied papaya with its little hat, the knitted bows, the butterfly headbands, the soaps that glow, the Venezuelan-style Nativity scenes, the handpainted Christmas cards, the beach sandals, the yarn necklaces, and so on and so forth.

In the end we leave the bazaars with plenty of little gifts (thank God the prices show real solidarity) and spend several days wrapping them to hand out from the fifteenth on, because the parties and gatherings here start on December 1 and go on until around the twentyeighth, when crowds of people leave town and Caracas becomes a delight to enjoy and rest in, with few cars and little traffic!

Now, some will think that we Venezuelans are very consumerist, but I think what we are is very generous! First, because we like to help all those organizations that put together their bazaars with so much effort. Then, because we like to use our purchases to help those enterprising Venezuelans who work for months to offer us wonderful, original and tasty (when it’s food) products. And we are also generous because we like to give gifts to everyone (from the street sweeper, the hairdresser and the teachers… to the whole extended family, friends and godchildren…).

So this is part of Christmas in Venezuela. The most satisfying thing is that the money raised at these bazaars usually goes on to help many people in need, and lets many children have their Christmas party and gift.

We Venezuelans love Christmas because there is nothing lovelier than sharing with others so we can be happy at this time of year, when God became a child to come and meet us. That happiness is so great, so great, that we have to share it with others!