A List of Things We Venezuelans Need

A few days ago a Venezuelan friend who lives in Miami came to Caracas to take care of her family’s medical appointments and stopped by to see me. And imagine my surprise when the little gift she brought me was a bag of soaps (plain, ordinary hand soap), because she had been told there is no soap in Venezuela. Do you want me to tell you how I felt? As if I were living in Cuba, exactly!, where supposedly there has been no soap, toothpaste or sanitary pads for a long time (at least that’s what we have always believed, and now I don’t know whether it’s true or not). My doubt comes from not knowing how far people who live abroad fill their heads with prejudices and rumors so big that now you don’t know whom to believe about anything. Of course, the big difference between Cuba and Venezuela is that here we are not under any trade embargo!

Since many Venezuelans abroad read this column, I am going to make you a list of the things we Venezuelans truly need, to see whether you can help us:

1. That ALL Venezuelans living abroad (who worry and talk so much about us) move heaven and earth to register and vote in 2012.

2. That every time horrible messages reach your inbox, like one I was sent recently from Miami claiming that “on the Panamericana highway they stopped a truck and the driver killed himself as soon as he saw the guard, because in the back of the truck he had 100 dead children who had been killed for organ trafficking,” or that “they’re going to take our children away,” or that “they’re going to ban us from leaving the country,” or that “they’re issuing ID cards to half the world,” and so on and so on, you DO NOT FORWARD THEM.

3. That you become a little more skeptical about the terror stories meant to make some people paranoid. Call your friends (who are busy working, not wasting time talking nonsense) and ask them whether what is being said is true or false. Usually people who are busy working and helping others in needy areas don’t have much time to fall for rumors, and they know what the real situation is.

4. That you understand that the purpose of our lives right now goes far beyond whether or not we have a particular brand of soap, cooking oil, tin of milk and so on. Brands are history for many of us, because material things, fortunately, have dropped very far down our list (even if some people don’t want to believe it). We no longer make a tragedy out of a missing product, and our happiness doesn’t depend on it. We have far too many big projects under way, fighting for a better country for our children and grandchildren, to lose our heads over a product or a brand! And know that if we ever run out of a little bag of sugar or a little bottle of oil, we always find it among neighbors or family until it shows up on the shelves again.

5. That you understand that the great majority of today’s Venezuelans are not the Venezuelans of “it’s cheap, give me two.” Thank God that era is over! We have learned a great deal (and taught our children) that it is more important, and far more enriching as human beings, to spend our holidays helping with social work than shopping at the mall.

6. That you take heart from our joy and our struggle. Don’t believe, and don’t try to make us believe, that we are in a tunnel with no way out, because we can already see the lights, more than you can imagine!

7. That instead of talking about bad examples, you talk about Venezuelans of worth, among them the excellent Venezuelan doctors who give you your regular checkups and on top of that charge you very little compared with prices over there.

And above all: every time you hear bad news about the country where you were born, pray for ALL your Venezuelan brothers and sisters. Understand that those of us who live in this Land of Grace in 2011 are not the same as in 1999. Twelve years have gone by in which we have grown and learned a lot, and in which a generation of young people has been forged that is hard to find anywhere else on the planet.

And now more than ever we have great hope that, with the help of God and our “all-terrain” patience and perseverance, we will very soon enter a new stage in our history that will be an example for the whole world.