Having just completed a week's worth of intensive private Spanish lessons, it is no exaggeration to declare that my mind is effectively oozing from my ears.. and possibly a little from my nose. After such a lengthy hiatus from any form of study, I don't envy Rocio's job of guiding me through a landmine-littered Struggle Town, armed only with good intentions and a little over 10 years teaching experience. It didn't take me long to realise the Spanish courses I took in Australia were of little conceivable benefit when compared to the "full immersion" environment in which I find myself. Evidently, it transpires that my knowledge of Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian language) is of greater value than I realised, thanks to similarities in sentence structure, pronunciation, and even some vocabulary!
My summary of Español so far is along these lines: Verbs are killers. Irregular verbs are worse. Masculine/feminine objects must be learned by rote - my memory rating is "Poor". Why is the sun masculine (el sol), while the moon is feminine (la luna)? Plurals do my head in. Future tense is not so bad - no need to conjugate the verb. Reflexive verb - what the hell is that?! Exceptions, so many exceptions - infinitive verb ending in -uir becomes -yo, UNLESS it ends -guir. Past tense? Well, that's for next week...
Yes, I've decided to hang around and push on with further lessons next week, but I'm cutting down from 4hrs/day to 2hrs/day so hopefully my head won't hurt so much. Now, armed with entirely too much spare time, I have taken to inevitably over analysing things and making inane observations in order to relate them to the world via this blog! Lucky you. To make matters worse, I have just finished my final novel which effectively eliminates one of my time-wasting options and makes my daily Hammock Time a little less exciting. It was a William Faulkner masterpiece called "Light in August", which took me a few months to complete thanks to the shooting pains experienced each time I reached for it. I managed to read another three novels since opening it and immediately allocating it the coveted "back-burner" status. Anyway, it's done now.. and nicely smoldering away in a bin at the nearby park - thanks Perks, but don't await its return.
It is no secret that Venezuela is recognised as "the beauty queen country". Leading a hand-on style investigation I believe I've uncovered a few truths. Firstly, I have scrutinised the appearance of many women here, only to confirm that they are indeed ridiculously hot. Although it's an ongoing investigation, I have noticed that from a young age appearance seems to be a priority of many girls here. School kids wearing makeup is not uncommon, and neither is the sight of girls stooping to check themselves in car side mirrors or shop window reflections. Now, walking the streets of Merida, you would be forgiven for concluding that it is in fact one massive shoe store. Once you become comfortable with every second shop selling shoes, your breathing returns to normal and you realise that the remaining shops are either pharmacies, ice cream stores or internet cafes (they also have hair salons, and yes, they are indeed run by gay men with peroxide hair). Anyway, these pharmacies are the ones pimping all the hair/skin products, and boy are they doing some business here. I think mums are mostly to blame for their dolled-up daughters, but it also must be understood that what we may consider "slutty" appearance is fully acceptable here, and possibly the norm. Painted on pants, belts passing as skirts, and an oversupply of midrift. So, naturally the blokes here (myself possibly included) are walking around losing their minds on a regular basis, eyeing off a variety of outfits that leave very, very little to the imagination. Natural Progression: [super confident, gorgeous young girls] + [horny blokes] = [teen pregnancy]. It's a damn shame too, because many of the real stunners are already a few kids deep before they know it, and they haven't even met me yet!
The wolf whistle is alive and well in Venezuela. Walking past a construction site takes you back to a time before political correctness went silly. In a stroke of genius, someone came up with the idea of replacing the horn on each car/bus/truck with a wolf whistling siren, hence facilitating an endless cacophony of wolf whistles, 24/7, and saving the drivers the effort of actually whistling. Then some other genius put a car alarm on every single car, but either through malfunction or sheer inability to operate them, the alarms go off constantly and for no apparent reason. They are also fitted with the loudest possible arming/disarming beeps just in case they are being operated from the next suburb. It is refreshing at times to see a society bereft of political correctness, yet saturated in the sort of common sense that should have never left developed countries. Seeing a kid burn themselves at a bakery, complain, and then be told "you burned yourself because it's hot" as mum nods in agreement really makes my day.
Venezuelans tend to think mostly about themselves, and mostly about "now". The saying they use is something like "para vivir", which means "to live". This philosophy isn't necessarily based on selfish tendencies, but is more so born of the entrenched belief that it's every man for himself - a notion arising from many generations of government mismanagement and lack of services supplied to citizens. For this reason there is no real thought given to "the greater good" or any sort of long term future. It also provides a handy excuse to explain the general lack of consideration found throughout the country - whether it be incessant littering, inability to form a queue or wait in line (without police presence), or the antisocial behaviour of parking cars in public areas to belt out tunes on unbelievably loud car stereos (usually not far from someone else doing likewise). In contrast, I also witnessed an old (and somewhat overweight) woman trip and fall on the footpath in the city - I was both delighted and relieved to witness assistance (mostly young people) come from all directions, even to the point of repacking her spilled groceries and buying her a drink.
Hugo Chavez is the man in charge now, and all indications are that he is making sweeping changes - of course it remains to be seen if they are for the good or bad of the country. A former paratrooper, he came to power after leading a failed coup in 1992 and a brief stint in the slammer. He idolises Simon Bolivar, an important Latin American figure who is seen as the liberator of several South American countries. Every town here (even small ones) have a Plaza Bolivar, which is essentially a central park with chairs, trees, and of course a bust likeness of the man himself. In much of the rhetoric and campaigning the government does, Chavez eerily chooses to declare himself "Bolivarian" and has his own likeness painted next to Bolivar's on walls and leaflets. To manipulate a revered historical figure in such a way certainly does reek of propaganda and desperation, but more scary is the overall media saturation at the government's mercy.
Some fun accomplishments since coming to power:
1. Changing the name of the country from the Republic of Venezuela to the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, at great cost to a struggling economy (think new currency, passports, government documents etc).
2. Adding another star to the flag as a tribute to Bolivar, and making the horse on the coat-of-arms run to the left instead of the right after his daughter asked why the horse ran to the right with its head facing backwards.
3. Amended the constitution to allow him to rule for more than one term as President. After already changing the ruling term from 4 to 6 years, he is currently seeking to change the length of term from 6 years to "indefinite" (essentially "forever").
4. Changed the date of the National Day to reflect the date the flag was first flown over Venezuelan soil, rather than the date the flag was first flown (it was in Trinidad & Tobago).
5. Sighting rocketing unemployment, he changed laws governing street vendors, so that now anyone can set up a shop on the side of the road to sell whatever they like. This causes some animosity from legitimate store owners, as the street vendors pay no rent or tax. Overall it's not too bad an idea because the vendors can sit outside instead of moping around at home, and it means cheap sunglasses for me. My favourite slice of enterprise is the street phone vendors, which are essentially people with some mobile phones and a chair. They sign up for high-traffic phone plans and offer their reduced rates to the public.
6. Allegedly turning a blind eye to military on the border issuing Venezuelan ID cards to Colombians in exchange for their vote in the coming election.
7. Visited Fidel Castro on his 80th birthday when he was already ill, and was single-handedly responsible for confirming he was actually still kickin'.
Life here is not bad. I'd even go as far as to say it is bareable. My room is only Bs10,000 per night ($4.50), lessons are Bs14,000 per hour ($6.50), clothes washing is Bs5,000 ($2.50), and food is as cheap as you make it. I'm tucking into "Special K" for breakfast, and then mostly just buy awesome food from the street vendors for lunch and dinner. They have this burger, right, and it has two beef patties (think bigger than HJ's), cheese, bacon, egg, beet root, onion, tomato, lettuce, chips (seriously), and some sort of magic sauce. All for about tree-fiddy ($3.50). Now, imagine that same burger with a slight twist. Throw in some chicken breast instead of beef.. then BOOM! you whack a slice of pineapple right on the top just to blow my mind (FYI: "pineapples" in Spanish sounds like "penis" - imagine me giggling like a schoolgirl). So are you done blowing my mind? NO! Then you tell me it's cheaper - only $3. Faaark off! Nooooo waaay! Just to top this whole food situation off, there is a fan-bloody-tastic panaderia (bakery) just a minute away from my posada (hostel). I confess I have thrown some canned tuna at one or two of their "pan integrales" (essential bread, ie. wholegrain rolls).
My posada does have cooking facilities, but really why would I bother? Being the low season, it also has bugger all visitors which has allowed me to wangle a 33% price reduction, as well as being the only smelly person in my 6-bed dorm. One feature I'm not such a big fan of are the deadlocked rooms - so many times I have left my key in the door (outside the room), only to have the door blow shut and render me stranded. Being locked INside a room is just silly.
I'll have even more spare time on my hands next week... everyone keeps telling me to get a local girlfriend to "help with the Spanish, and things".
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