Varanasi

Now that I am not in India, -more than a month has passed since our return- I think that contrary to what said during the trip, I would return to Varanasi in a blink of an eye.

Varanasi is dirty. There is no way to put it differently; It's dirty in a horrible way. There is shit, literally shit, everywhere. The cows eat garbage and the hungry dogs fight with them for pieces of paper that once had little piles of chicken tika masala in their entrails: but they do so with respect, cautiously. even they know of its sacred condition. The city, which normally has more than a million inhabitants, is full of foreigners. Men and women who come to the banks of the Ganges River trying to decipher the fascination that this pile of brown waters, full of excrement and toxic waste, manages to exert on a population of more than one billion people. Every night at sunset, there is a ceremony to honor the river in which it is thanked for the mere fact of existing. It is a moment full of unique energy, mantras, flowers, orange and many, many people. Five priests stand on dais and their fluid movements that include throwing flower petals, beating the air with long-haired whips, while holding an oil lamp in their free hand, honor the great mother Ganga populated by small boats full of of people. The atmosphere is packed with incense, cow dung, leftover food in different states of decomposition and I, am absolutely enthralled, watching every movement through the lens of my camera while trying to remain calm in the face of the avalanche of sensations that flood my prejudiced intelligence.

The next day we took back the same rickshaw that drove us the night before. It's cold and when we get to the ghats we have to deal with the different sellers of necklaces, postcards and trinkets. It is extremely difficult to handle the vendors and the beggars who persecute you, with an admirable determination. Our pockets were repeatedly emptied. We got into the habit of giving the kids the apples that the management left in our room along with nuts, and their smiles of thanks never ceased to amaze me. I discovered that the Indians are not envious, they try to do the best they can with the luck that destiny has in store for them because if they do things well in this life, in the next they will probably reincarnate in a better caste, in a family with more resources. , have a protective roof that covers them, and maybe more than one cow to milk. They really believe in that and seeing that sincerity in their looks, in their attitudes, makes one forget the misery that the country is going through and oh those big, almond-shaped eyes that make contact with you without any shyness, melt all your resistance and fears.

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Staying here is not going forward

In an article written by Andrea Small Carmona and published by venezuelan`s top leading newspaper El Nacional, one can see that there are more people wanting to leave the country and establish themselves elsewhere than there are people wanting to come. Sad for a country that used to be a reference for emigrants who needed a haven in which to drown their miseries. Sad for a country that was built mainly by immigrants.

But the path is not easy. If you are a young professional and think you will be able to work with what you have learnt, there are lots of document to be legalized in order to be valid in other country. University titles must be registered but then, there are other things to be considered: those coming from public institutions must go through the Ministry of Education and then through that of Foreing Relations. Then, of course, you have to have quite a bundle of cash with you. If you want to register your title it will cost you 280 bolivar, then you have to buy fiscal stamps which are calculated according to the year of graduation. Some emigrants simply leave and take care of their legal status at their destination. If that were not enough, the emotional cost of leaving your roots, family and friends behind is really high. Some would really like to stay and stand against the rough winds but this sometimes is not possible because many have faced being kidnapped or having a gun pointed to their heads because they had a Blackberry at hand so they decided staying is not an option.

The number of people that log into "mequieroir.com" meaning "iwantoleave.com" looking for information on how and where to leave Venezuela is greater and alarming. In 2009 the site would receive sixty thousand daily visits. As of January this year, that number went up to eighty thousand per day. The thing is, people are leaving like the rats of Hammelin That means, those of us who do not have this possibility, will face less and less people who are young and intelligent, willing to do whatever it takes to revamp the country once that is possible.

The country is crumbling down

I am now going to quote what one of our most insightful journalists Marianella Salazar wrote in her column of today´s El Nacional. And I do this because I feel identified with her opinion. As a venezuelan, I feel exactly the ways she describes our live in our beloved country. I could not explain things better than she did in her piece. This is our life. Day by day. Minute by minute.

"As the nation crumbles down and the economic crisis marked by the cruel devaluation, without any possibility of saving your money, with a financial system on the verge of being nationalized by the regime, dread has become a daily torture for venezuelans.

People nurse appalling fear that condition their courage. First and foremost, is fear of losing their lives due to the extremely high levels of insecurity, second is the anguish of losing their jobs, which in turn brings them to accept undignified salaries that are not sufficient to buy in full the basic food products, pay fixed expenses and honor commitments, specially mortgages and insurance policies. In spite of the presidential decrees that rule out the possibility of being fired, there is no labour stability not even for those who work for the government; empresarios cannot augment their payrolls, small and medium sized merchants feel ripped off by the State, represented by the voracious tax office Seniat, that imposes unfair fines and obligates its owners to close doors of their companies and businesses against their will.

Suppliers that in their inventories have merchandise are also desperate, because they have their indebtedness in dollars and cannot obtain them, their clients go down, fly from the country or do not pay them. In a country with constrained economic activity where a communist dictatorship takes over properties and freedom, there is no possible hope and entrepreneurs pack their bags to look for other places where work is feasible. A tragedy. Those who stay against the rough wind cover their lack of income trying to obtain other jobs sacrificing their quality of life. The catastrophic predictions are all coming true and the worse thing is that we cannot shake them because we are in the gear and nobody can save himself alone. It is the consequence of this "revolution", of this war to the death of whatever means productivity. Those of us who do not participate of the bolivarian feast are hitting ourselves against the floor and have to save ourselves together before drowning and the country- with its media and work generating companies- sinks and isn´t alive for the 26th of september elections".

Cards are on the table and the Croupier at the top is not an honest one.

A Laura Restrepo

Estimada Laura

Primero que todo, felicitaciones por su premio. Como escritora en ciernes y compatriota suya que vive en Venezuela hace 20 años , celebro que la critica la acoja.

Estuve leyendo con detenimiento la entrevista que se le hizo con motivo del Alfaguara. La verdad, me dejó perpleja el titular “¿Creen que Uribe iba a dejar que Chávez le robara el show?”. Me pareció increíble que una mujer de letras, ganadora de tantos reconocimientos, toda una intelectual además de izquierda, haya hecho tal aseveración. Me permito hacerle un recordatorio, querida Laura: Todos, menos usted según veo, los que leyeron por prensa y vieron por televisión los acontecimientos que antecedieron al final del 2007 se dieron cuenta de que quienes montaban un show no fueron Uribe y el gobierno colombiano. Los que trajeron los helicópteros, los periodistas internacionales, los compañeritos como Kirchner entre otros, a Oliver Stone, válgame Dios, fueron Hugo Chávez y sus secuaces de turno. ¿Acaso no se ha dado cuenta de lo mucho que le gustan las cámaras al presidente Chávez? ¿No lo ha visto en sus maratónicos programas de los domingos? ¡La invito!

Desde el momento en que Chávez y Piedad Córdoba fueron llamados a mediar en el conflicto se encargaron de decirle al mundo lo importante de su misión. El asunto de Ingrid Betancourt y sus compañeros de cautiverio ha estado involucrado en una nube mediática liderada por Yolanda Pulecio desde hace mucho tiempo y me perdona pero ahí Alvaro Uribe no tiene la culpa. Entre otras cosas, jamás he entendido porque al secuestro de la Betancourt se le da tanto valor cuando hay tantos otros secuestrados con ella y por los cuales nadie, entre otras cosas, ni Chávez que dice que todo lo puede, ha tratado de hacer nada.

Le cuento, Laura, que yo no soy Uribista furibunda. Creo que ha tenidos unos cuantos errores politicos de consideración. Entre ellos, el haber metido a Chávez en este problema. Alfonso López Michelsen decía que los estadistas tenían que ser como muchos primates: estos examinan primero el tamaño de lo que se van a comer antes de hacerlo no vaya a ser que se les quede atragantado en el intestino y no puedan expulsarlo en el momento de una indigestión. Uribe no midió el tamaño de lo que se comía y después no hallaba como excretarlo. También considero que la manera como manejó la indigestión fue otro error. Pero ya sabemos que Uribe tiene lo suyo también en arrogancia. En eso por lo menos usted y yo, estaríamos de acuerdo.

Lo que tampoco entiendo es como se manifiesta la falta de interés en la liberación de los secuestrados. ¿Desde cuando la demostración de interés tiene que ser unilateral? ¿Es posible que usted piense que Uribe tendría que entrar con bombos y platillos a las zonas guerrilleras para extrincar a los rehenes? ¿A riesgo de sus vidas? Sólo así entendería lo que asevera porque de otra forma no veo cómo se manifiesta esa falta de interés. ¿Acaso piensa que hay falta de voluntad política en el gobierno? ¿Cuales fueron los resultados del “interés” en el proceso de paz que manifestó Andrés Pastrana cuando les dejó El Caguán a los guerrilleros? ¿De qué sirvió tanta largueza? ¿Cómo se puede negociar con sujetos al margen de la ley que sólo conocen la del “embudo” (lo ancho pa mi, lo angosto pa ti) ¿O es que acaso usted de verdad piensa que si al gobierno independiente de que el jefe sea Uribe le vienen las FARC a ponerse a derecho, a plantear los cambios necesarios desde las leyes, a proponer soluciones en lugar de crear problemas, éste se va a negar? ¿De verdad lo cree?

La frase “canje humanitario” me da risa. Siempre he pensado que los canjes se hacen en igualdad de condiciones. Los presos que las FARC reclaman actuaron al margen de la ley. Violaron, mataron, robaron. Eso se tiene que pagar. El que mata, tiene condena. El que viola, tiene condena. Como delincuentes no son políticos, como dice la guerrilla, son comunes. Ahora resulta que en el caso de Colombia, matar, si se es guerrillero, tiene una connotación de delito político. ¿Y los secuestrados, que delito cometieron? Los presos que las FARC reclaman no viven en condiciones infrahumanas. Sus familiares los pueden visitar, saben que están vivos y que por lo menos no pasan hambre aunque lo que coman no sea cinco estrellas. ¿A quien le consta que Clara Rojas está viva? ¿Que de canje y que de humanitario hay en el caso que nos ocupa? ¿Es humanitario devolver a alguien la vida por el solo hecho de ser alguien de alto perfil? ¿Qué derecho tienen estos desgraciados y lo digo desde la acepción “faltos de gracia divina” de truncar la vida de alguien a nombre de un proyecto político que ni ellos tienen claro? Yo la verdad necesito que alguien me lo explique. Debe ser que hoy es lunes y los lunes despierto un poco más tarada que de costumbre.

Usted misma considera detestables los métodos de la guerrilla y la vez asevera que Uribe no iba a permitir la entrega de rehenes. Laura, ¿desde cuando a los guerrilleros se les ha hecho difícil liberar secuestrados? Lo han hecho desde siempre y desde la clandestinidad con la misma facilidad con la que se los han llevado. Los han soltado a placer, siempre y cuando, claro está, hayan recibido algo a cambio. Si ellos hubiesen querido, y por Dios, tiene que reconocerlo, hubieran dejado tirados en cualquier cañada a Clara Rojas y a todos aquellos a los que les hubiera dado la gana. La invito a leerse el inteligentísimo artículo que escribió Moisés Naim en el periódico El Nacional de hoy en donde termina diciendo: “Quienes simpatizan con las FARC deben exigir que se liberen todos los rehenes. Eso es algo que las FARC saben hacer y pueden hacer si quieren. Ahora mismo. Sin Circo. Y sin payasos”.

Me alegro que considere detestables los métodos de las FARC y que se haya dado cuenta de que se han deteriorado y la población no los siente como enemigos. ¿Por qué diablos no cambian la estrategia? La invito entonces a que indague más en los motivos que hay detrás de las acciones de cada quien como aconseja en su entrevista. Así podría darse cuenta de que, y ahí va un cliché que mi editor odiaría, no todo lo que brilla es oro pero a la vez no todo lo que es oro brilla. Tiene razón en afirmar que no se puede gobernar sin ponerle atención al problema de secuestrados y me encantaría que lo aplicara a Chávez que sí le importa la liberación de secuestrados cuando se trata de los de otra nación y hay prensa internacional de por medio porque la de aquí no le sirve.

¡Feliz Año!

Mariflor Blaser

In the wee hours

It is 11:20 a.m in Caracas, Venezuela and most of us are still in shock. Our president, the one we have fought so much to oust from office and see if we can regain some peace and prosperity because he can´t provide it, for anyone, has won the referendum vote according to the Consejo Nacional Electoral. For some of us voting meant waiting for long hours, under sun or rain. It meant a long battle for democracy would come to an end. The long lines in every poll station told us there would be no abstention. Even the Consejo Nacional Electoral, had something to say about this: They congratulated the "brave people of Venezuela" for their behaviour and composure and said never in Venezuela´s democratic history had there been such an outburst o on the streets to excersise their constitutional right. That is true. I never had to wait so long to cast a ballot. There was of course the fact that the people in charge did everything in their hands to make the process more painful and complicated. But the people stayed, patient and in peace, waiting to be called up to present all fingers to the funny contraption that would state that your fingerprint was yours and nobody else´s so you wouldn´t vote twice eventhough your pinky would be, three minutes later, smeared in a terribly purple ink that will come off mine by December if I am lucky. The lines remained in place pretty much until midnight and exit polls predicted the opposition would win. In the wee hours of the day, meaning 3 a.m, the president of the Consejo Nacional Electoral said the outcome was pretty much 60-40 against the opposition who had the same numbers, just the other way round. They of course cried: FRAUD. You can always say that crying FRAUD is unfair and all that, but consider this: no people from the opposition side were allowed to witness the final counting. 40 percent of the people registered to vote did not and we know of cases of people who having registered duly and on time, had simply dissapeared from the official lists. The Consejo Nacional delayed all procedures on purpose, the government owns something like 25 percent of the machinery involved in the process and nobody except them knew about results which were handed out at 3 am? Can it get any worse? Yes it can. The nightmare is just really beginning.