Today Henrique
Capriles Radonski came to Mérida and thankfully our politics class was
canceled so we could go check it out. I was wearing gym shorts and a tank top I
bought in the Centro the day before.
It looked a lot bigger when I bought it, but when I put it on, I discovered
that quite a bit of my gut was hanging out. Around 9AM we started walking up la Avenida Urdaneta and caught a bus
which took us about ten blocks from the viaducto
where the concentración would be.
When we arrived, there were already thousands more people than had been at the Maduro rally. Afterward, they said
somewhere around 250,000 people had gathered on the streets, rooftops, and the
viaduct for the event. Similar to the Maduro
rally, it was somewhat of a party atmosphere with music and plenty of beer.
We developed a system where people would pass money to those selling the beer
and then pass the beer back so no one would have to push through the crowd with
cups overflowing with foam. There were signs representing every area and
organization; my favorite was Páramo la
Culata con Capriles. For those who watch Game of Thrones, there was a sign
with Eddard Stark and the words “Progreso is coming.” Another interesting one
said Revolución with the R crossed
out. A note on the word revolución in
Venezuela: it is associated exclusively with the Chávez government. They refer to the Bolivarian Revolution as
something that began with Chávez and
will continue with Maduro; although
nothing is changing, it has a kind of “we’re going to keep sticking it to the
man” connotation. There are often
pictures of Chávez alongside Che Guevara and Simon Bolívar, despite the fact that Bolívar was a rich, white criollo
who wanted independence from Spain for financial reasons. The music was very
enjoyable; they played a mix of salsa, joropos
recios (the music of los llanos played
on the cuatro and harp; their equivalent of bluegrass), and Capriles songs (algo nuevo está pasando! Somos miles y miles y miles con Capriles, hay
un camino, con Capriles somos todos Venezuela…) which are strangely reminiscent
of a Disney soundtrack. We learned a few chants while we were there as well,
the most popular being “se ve, se siente,
Capriles presidente!” People were getting creative with their choice of spots
to see him; some were even climbing over a wall with barbed wire and shards of
glass and then walking across a tin roof. One guy fell through the roof and had
to get carried out. The roofs and balconies of pretty much every surrounding
building were full of people; it was pretty amazing experiencing all of the
energy. My friends lifted me up to the point where my feet where at the height
of their heads and I got some great shots of the crowd. I unfortunately needed
to use the bathroom once, which was a twenty minute affair pushing past people
and then waiting for a chance to open the door when people were not pushing
past. We ended up waiting for about three or four hours for Capriles to arrive; he was scheduled for
10AM so we assumed around noon, but it was not until 2PM when the truck emerged
at the end of the viaduct. Since we had been waiting so long, it was chaos when
he finally arrived. As with Maduro, the
truck passed about fifteen feet from where we were standing and then we jumped
into the river of people following it. He was wearing a soccer jersey with the
national petroleum company PDVSA printed
on the front and his classic tri-color hat. He did the usual routine of handing
out his hat, putting on a new one, and then throwing the new one into the
crowd. There was a veritable current of people pushing towards the front, so my
friend Adam and I went with the flow and ended up about fifteen feet from the
podium where he would speak. At this point it was a mosh pit atmosphere with
plenty of pushing and shoving, which I actually enjoyed because I was taller
than most people there. I am used to having to put forth a little more effort
to hold my own in a crowd. There were so many people that the truck did not make
it all the way to the stage; he had to get out and be escorted through the
crowd. It was hard for him to get a word out for the first ten minutes since
everyone kept erupting into cheers and chants. The speech was filled with much
of the same rhetoric as Maduro’s, but
he spent quite a bit of time talking about Mérida-specific
issues like the teleférico which has
been out of commission for five years, the lack of hospitals in El Vigia, the airport which is not open
for commercial flights, the unsafe streets at night, and the unnecessary
importation of potatoes and milk. Since he speaks very clearly, I understood
about 95% of his speech. It was much easier to cheer for Capriles since I agree with many of his policies and most of what
he said. In my opinion (which matters very little in this case), he would be a great
choice for Venezuela, but for many people he is associated with money and the
United States, which is not very palatable for poor Venezuelans. Although the
US is the number one importer of Venezuelan heavy crude oil, and Venezuela
turns around and buys it back after being refined in the states, one of the
biggest tools of Chávez and now Maduro is maligning the US as
imperialist pigs and talking about this so-called fight for patria. We found out later in the
evening that a woman was killed by the paramilitary government police that ride
on motorcycles (can’t remember their name at the moment); they did not give us
any details, but crazy man! In other news, we are heading back to la Culata this weekend for a four day
adventure. The elections are Sunday so we have school off Monday for whatever
reason. I had been thinking about trying to summit Pico Bolívar and Pico
Humboldt before I leave, but the trips are pretty expensive and there is not
much interest, so as of right now, looks like I’ll be back in Minneapolis on
May 4th!
What? No WOOFing in Argentina?
ReplyDeleteCarolyn
Whaaat? No other interest in climbing the big mountain. Oh, if I were there I'd join you in a heartbeat. Hope something works out! "Carpe diem" or "Aprovecha el día" as we old folks say. We have thoroughly enjoyed reading about your amazing journey. Hope the election day stays safe, I imagine emotions will be HIGH.
ReplyDeletePeg
P.S. Glad to hear a Rush say he's taller than most of the crowd, vertical progress in the Rush gene pool!
ReplyDeleteI agree - it would be nice if you could connect with a few kindred souls and meet that mountain or otherwise explore SA a bit before heading back. I was also really hoping you'd consider coming back through Florida so you could get that massage! Que sera sera.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great experience to be there during this election and perhaps ()evolucion! I too hope energies are somewhat subdued just for safety's sake....glad you have youth on your side to be able to hang in the crowd like that...ah, the good ol' days ;) I look forward to your next post - again, great writing, reading and wonderful pix <3 Now I'm going to prove that I'm not a robot :D
The political rally sounds like a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert in the 70's. Did you here libre pájaro shouted out? Great job with the blog Mick. You should get another minor in blogology. I also enjoy the fact a Rush stands above most in a crowd. Take care Mick.
ReplyDelete