Nobody Can Stop This

Here in Caracas, reporting on what these days have been like in our country.

The first thing I have to say is that I have never been so proud of our young Venezuelans. The huge rallies in every corner of Venezuela have been impressive, and the most impressive thing is the number of young people there.

My husband told me he felt like a doddering old man among the crowds of young people who gathered at El Marqués last Saturday.

I suppose that, with everything seen on television these days, there can be no one in the world today who feels like saying that Venezuelans don’t fight for their country.

What will come of everything we are living through? Nobody knows. These have been very hard days, days when we have wept a great deal at the deaths of so many young people who had their whole future ahead of them. Many of us mothers and fathers try to do our crying early, into the pillow, before we get out of bed, because we cannot be sad for a single moment. We cannot grow tired, much less depressed.

Many of us mothers are sleeping with a rosary in our hands; we pray even in the few moments when we can sleep deeply. We pray for our young people, for everyone out in the streets, and I especially pray a lot for our soldiers. Every minute I ask our Mother, the Virgin of Coromoto, to cover us with her mantle and not to allow a clash among her Venezuelan children.

Nobody is going to stop this. We have a young people out in the streets demanding a better future for their country. Things are going to get worse, we all know that, at least in the economy, because everything is at a standstill. And social discontent will keep growing and become unstoppable.

That social discontent also affects the families of those who are in the streets following orders to repress. They understand us too, and I am sure that with the help of God and the Blessed Virgin they will not attack their Venezuelan brothers and sisters.

We cannot grow tired, even if we think we can’t go on. Look at our young people. They have impressive strength, and they are leaning on us and on our prayers a great deal. Let’s not leave them alone, and let’s guide them as well as we can, so that their protest becomes an immense social movement that makes Justice and Peace triumph in our beloved Venezuela.

I have never been so proud to be Venezuelan. I have never felt as much admiration for our young people as I do now. I have never before felt so much support from around the world for what we are going through, and I have never before felt the strength of the prayers of so many people praying for our country. Those prayers fill us with fortitude and joy to keep going for as long as it takes, because we are not going to stop fighting and praying for our much-mistreated Venezuela.