VILLAGE NEWS
La Guardia, Isla de Margarita, Venezuela, Saturday, December 16, 2006

Our villagers, maybe all Venezuelans seem to be fascinated by fireworks. Every night and sometimes during the early hours of the morning there is likely to be somebody setting them off. Mostly they seem to be the kind that rockets upwards fifty metres or so and then explodes. This morning at about 0500 as I was getting up I was startled by fireworks just over our wall. Of course, the reverberation off our courtyard walls and down the hard surfaces of the hallway of the house had me wide instantaneously awake. The first few times I heard it I jumped. Now however I seem to have adjusted. Maybe it’s because I can hear the fizzle of the rocket first and am psychologically prepared for the explosion that follows one or two seconds later. I must remember to tell visitors about this when they arrive.

School seems now to have let out for Christmas. Strange as it feels to us, the 19th Century German ideal of Christmas has now taken over even the tropics: most houses here are now strung with coloured lights. (The shops have been full of Christmas gear since September! And I mean full! Another aspect of the European Christmas tradition, no doubt!) Like back home, next to every television there is a Christmas tree (exclusively synthetic ones here with winking lights and garish baubles. Friend Jens says that many businesses will close now for a month. He dropped into his local auto mechanic and they were in their last hours before shuttering till mid-January.

Casa Venamor is situated right next to the local parish church, a well-maintained small edifice where masses are sung every morning at 0800 (except Monday) and most evenings at 1730 (except Sunday). Instead of chanting, we hear Latin music coming from loudspeakers on the church plaza. A large group of families is ranged around the little amphitheatre of steps at the entrance. Just as in every other Christian country, this is the annual children’s Christmas pageant. Given the 25ºC temperatures, of course, it is being held outdoors and not in a dank church basement (there are no basements here in any case). There are the angels, there Maria and Joseph, the shepherds, etc. I never figure out who the two or three prepubescent girls in very tight, very short, very colourful, off-one-shoulder, butt-length T-shirts were supposed to be.

Being so close to the church we get a slightly different perspective of life here. We have not yet witnessed a wedding but every other week there is a funeral. So far these funerals are not those of the elderly who have reached their allotted time, though there are a lot of elderly people in La Guardia. We pass them with a greeting often as they sit in the shade outside their houses. A very big funeral three weeks ago was that of a young policemen of 19 who, along with two others, had been shot down in a drive-by shooting in Porlamar. He came from La Guardia and, as the rather clanky-sounding church bell tolled, his bier was followed from the church to the graveyard (at the other end of Avenida Bermudez near Jens’ house) not only by a very large body of mourners but by a small squadron of police cars and motorcycles with their lights flashing and their sirens and whistles going. The coffin was carried the whole way on shoulders; I could see the polished wooden coffin draped with large ribbons in Venezuelan colours swaying above the people but I could not see if it was policistas who were the pallbearers.

Yesterday afternoon, however, there was another funeral. Much smaller attendance. I looked out of the blue metal-courtyard door where Francisco is taking a break from building the new drains for the patio, leaning on his mattock and watching. “Un hombre muy malo! Muy malo!” he said with emphasis. A very bad man! Very bad! He went on to tell me that he was known throughout the village as a seriously bad, violent character. Well, he had met a violent end with a police bullet or police bullets.

In the pre-dawn of 0530 today I am surprised to hear singing and handclapping coming from the church. After all it’s rather early. There are still fireworks going off. Maybe they have something to do with each other. When I dress and go out to investigate I find church is brightly lit, full of people and a mass is in progress. I don’t wait around to ask why, so still not sure what this out-of-turn service is about. Lively singing this morning, though. Maybe the fireworks have something to do with the service. Maybe something to do with Advent?

We have been enjoying the visit of Kathleen’s parents from Baltimore. We have seen some sights and played some cards and swum at the beach nearly every afternoon. We shall be sorry to see them go when they leave on Sunday for the U.S.A. and then on to Christmas with Kathleen’s younger sister and her family in Los Angeles.

We took a little day-trip through Santa Ana, a very nice town with shady streets, and thence up in the hills at the eastern end of the island to visit pretty La Asuncion, the island’s capital. It is a colonial town with a very old church (16th Century), a tiny museum and a small, recently-restored fortress above the town with a lovely view down the long green valley to the sea. The Spanish built several fortifications around the island to protect settlements from the attacks of “pirates.” (By nationality they are often here said to have been English, Dutch or French but, unless they were commissioned by the home government as “privateers” - in which case the crown got a cut of the take of commerce raiding - most “pirates” were just freelance freebooters or simple outlaws. No doubt this island’s capital was also sited inland five or more miles to give it added protection from quick sea-borne raiders.

After looking around the town and the fort, we drive up the hill even farther to “El Paraiso”, a restaurant that Jens has told us about. It has a fabulous view down to Porlamar. Much cooler up here, too, at 650 metres above sea level. We are the only ones there. The owner says ruefully that there are no more American tourists coming and wonders why. I explain to him that, as part of the Bush Administration’s vendetta against Chavez, the State Department has been “warning US citizens away from Venezuela because it is too dangerous.” He scoffs. It is ridiculous, of course: even the elections were very quiet.

Back at the house, Francisco, approximately 22, and Chilo, his helper, have worked every day this week to open up new drainage for the patio. The two or three little drains that already exist have been augmented by two new and much larger ones. The two young men spent four days chipping away the reinforced concrete with small sledge hammers and chisels. All runoff water up until now leads to a collection pool outside the wall that leads underground along the length of the house to the street. Rainwater eventually flows down the street to the sandy beach. None of this system has so far apparently been able to cope with heavy downpours and the house gets flooded. So not only have these two extra 4-inch drainpipes now been laid under the patio but a simple hole has also been opened at the base of the wall at the patio’s lowest point: if the water rises and overwhelms the drain system, water can simply pour out there into the alley. And if the collection pool outside the wall cannot handle the volume, water can also now overflow into an open and cemented-storm culvert that also now runs along the wall of the house to the street. This is for really serious, serious rain. I am so glad that Jens has got this done before he leaves a week hence for Europe to visit family. (He is an architect and local character who is in charge of the project; Francisco and Chilo work for him.) At least I shall not have to get up in the night to pump the bilges!

In other countries the job might have been done faster and mechanised equipment might have been used: a small Bobcat front-end loader, perhaps; certainly a compressor with jackhammers; and cement would come ready-mixed in a huge truck. Machinery like that is expensive and can only be justified as wage levels rise and as enough work can be found to justify the cost of the equipment. Machinery like that also tends to make a lot of “collateral damage” which later has to be rectified. In our case here, Francisco and his helper did everything with hand tools: mattocks and shovels, pails, small sledges and rock chisels and trowels; an electric hand cutter to make a clean edge along the proposed drainage pathway was used. This latter put up huge clouds of dust that was soon blowing through house, i.e. collateral damage. After that it was days of chipping.

At local wage levels there is no way one could justify employing complicated and expensive machinery. (Francisco gets around twenty euros a day ($13) and his helper half that. The average per capita in Venezuela is under US$6,000 per annum. Assuming a 50-week work-year and a 40-hour work week, the average hourly wage in Venezuela is about US$3. Francisco makes less than that for his unskilled or semi-skilled work and his helper gets half Francisco’s wage.) A small and rather decrepit local dump truck brings the sand and gravel at intervals and leaves it in the dirt alley next to the house where the men are working. Not too much at once, Jens says, or it might tend to disappear at night! Francisco and Co. mix the cement. Sand and gravel with water in the alley and carry the wet concrete in rubber buckets to where it is needed. They clean up after themselves each day and leave punctually at 1600 having put in a full eight hours of work plus an hour for lunch. They still have to complete the storm culvert outside the patio but they are now essentially finished in the patio. If all this does not work in a heavy rain one could still add large gutters around the roof. For the moment, however, this ought to suffice.

I mentioned that La Guardia is basically a largish fishing village. All of the launches are built locally of wood, usually painted white with bright-coloured trim and orange on the inside. These boats are either drawn up on the beach using log rollers and manpower or anchored off in the swells. There are one or two largish fishing boats with inboard motors and there are tiny wooden dinghies for getting out to the other boats; plenty of times, however, I have seen a fisherman simply swim out. Most of the launches have outboards. At one time all the boats had sails.

We recently visit the excellent Museo del Mar to the east of us across the mangrove lagoon called “La Restinga”. This museum is extremely well done and, even leaving aside the audio-visual theatres, needs at least a couple of hours to tour. Besides interesting collections of shells, coral and fish (live and otherwise), there are quite a few model boats and ships. Some are of the bigger Spanish barks but also models of the traditional island boats. There were quite a few different ones but most had interesting rigs frequently with lateen sails.

Down the beach to the south of us, back up behind some houses, shaded under some large trees and canopied with a lattice of dried palm fronds is a large fishing boat about half completed. You can see the upper part above the fence with the bow pointing to the road. We go along to get a look at traditional boat construction and are invited into the Carpenteria. There are about five younger men in there: a couple of them I recognise from the beached fishing boats. Maybe they are just “hanging out” at the boatyard after a night of fishing. A couple of them flash big smiles. The maestro, Señor Sulacki, his name, I understood, is of indeterminate age and completely toothless, which along with his local accent does nothing to make his Spanish understandable to me. But I persevere with my questioning.

The boat is probably 40 feet or longer and they are in the process of planking it. All the interior wood has already been painted orange. I ask the boatwright what wood they are using. “Aceite,” he replies, which sounds like it might be oil wood, whatever that is. The frames appear sawn and sistered rather than steamed and bent like aboard Vilisar. I ask him if he uses water or steam to bend the planks around the bow but he says he did not. I can see that one or two of the planks have split a little with the bending but are still in place. Maestro Sulacki thinks the boat might be finished in February and then they will get a gang together to roll this 15-foot high hull to the beach and thence into the water. Jens thinks they will also have a wheeled front-end loader or some other pulling machine as well. I also ask Maestro about small sailing boats: “Todos eliminados!” All eliminated! I have rather been hoping I might find one to mess around in while I am here. I must remember to take an amble down to the boatyard every week or so to see how they are progressing.