On monday, I became acquainted with Mavis, a 29
year old Venezuelan lady who was staying and working at one of the
tourist camps 5 minutes walk from our farm. She's pretty bored
staying on her own, especially when there are no tourists at the
camp, so once every couple of nights she has become the recipient of
my broken conversational spanish. Her english is very limited which
is ideal since it forces me to either make sense of what she's saying
or reach for the dictionary. I'm sure its very annoying for her when
I ask what a certain word means every other sentence but its great
for me.
Mavis used to be a lawyer in a city in western
Venezuela but said she got fed up with it, not least since the
political situation in Venezuela makes it somewhat difficult to work
in law and retain any form of morals or ethics (I couldn't possibly
comment on whether this is restricted to Venezuela, especially since
I know you'll be reading this mum). Corruption and law go hand in
hand here. Richard has a female friend who is a lawyer and when I
asked him if she was a good lawyer, he said “Of course”. When I
asked him if she was corrupt I received the same reply.
 |
| working hard at the foundation |
 |
| the kids love me, honest |
Mavis also told me that last year, while she
was on holiday in Italy and had planned to travel and also try and
find work, Chavez devalued the Venezuelan currency, which forced her
to cut short all her plans and return to Venezuela. A simple story
like that made me appreciate how many extra difficulties the
Venezuelan people must face in almost daily life, most of which seem
to be linked to a lack of security. What can you do in a country
where the police are corrupt, the courts are corrupt and the leader
makes changes at the drop of a hat?
No comments:
Post a Comment