Queues...

More than a week has past since my last post. Well, what can I say. Classes have started and that's that.

But heaven, so many peculiar things have happened. Like today for example, when I was milliseconds away from falling asleep on my fish biology class. It would have been more ore less embarrassing since we are three students sittning around a table. The sleepyness had to do with some strange form of insomnia last night and then having to get up at 5.50 am to be in school at 7.00 am. Probably it also had to do with the zillions of new words never before heard on spanish: names on sea-living animals (there are quite a few of those creatures I can tell you), describing different parts on these animals, how you separate them from one another, and so on. Well, I felt very bad since the teacher is one of the most fish dedicated people I have ever met and a very nice person. To make it up to all those fish out there I put up one of the pictures from today's lesson. The spikes are in fact it's scales, marvallous isn't it. I am telling you, this fish business is getting to me!

So, what's new? As the devoted radio listener I am, I have tried my best to get a grip on the lastest political turns. It sure isn't easy since the opposition is so incredibly againt Chavez, whilst the Chaviztas can't take a word of criticism. The most recent debates are about the following:

- OF COURSE still Chavez proposition of a reform of the 1999 Constitution, specifically concerning:

*Article 230 - prolonging the mandate time from 6 to 7 years and changing the maximum period of time a President can stay in power from 2 mandates to "forever".
Opposition: With the reform he wants to make sure that he stays in power his whole life. He is becoming a dictator.
Explanation given by Chavez: If the people in a country want a President to stay in power they should have the possibility to decide so, without being limited by the consitution. The same system is found in many European countries which makes the massive critique against the proposition from foreign media difficult to take seriously. Why should the population in a third world country not have the same right as poeple in the West to choose whom they want as their President?

* Reducing the working day from 8 to 6 hours
What will happen to productivity? Factories will produce less and the economy will stagnate.
Lina's comment: This was said by a friend, who is very against Chavez, being very upset. But I just smiled, wonderful!

* Article 115 - concerning rights to different kinds of property
Opposition: Chavez wants to get rid of all private property. To vote in favor of the reform would meen that company owners, business men, etc would see their property being handed out to the public. International companies will pick up and leave the country and there won't be a single investor wanting to put money into Venezuela. The economy will freeze and degrade.
Chavez: Studying the actual change of the article can not leave anyone in doubt of the continuing respect for and recognition of private proparty. What is new is the extension of the different kinds of proparty the citizens of Venezuela can share. The reformed article adds: community property, citizen's proparty, collective/cooperative proparty, as well as other types, which is thought to give people more influence and possibilities to participate as citizens.

The reform deals with 33 out of totally 350 articles in the constitution. But the ones mentioned above get almost all attention. Apart from those two the reform also suggests:
- the distribution of un-used land to small holders and campesinos
- a total abolishment of all monopolies
- to make it impossible to privitize the nation's nature reserves
- establishment of community councils with a direct influence over the decisionmaking
- employers would be forbidden to force employees to work overtime
- introduction of a whole set of new fundamental rights for workers (pension, vacation, work free time before and after pregnancy, etc)

Oh my, this is getting out of proportion, there are still so many hot topics to mention, but I will go easy on you and save them till my next post, you can think about it as a cliff hanger!
Although one last one to make you drewl for more, before I stop:
- The setback of the time by half an hour
This sure has taken some seriously outrageous proportions in media, and everyone I have talked to so far about why Chavez wants to change the time, all inclusive (for-against-in the middle) shake their heads in confusion and call him crazy.
Chavez: To set back the clock by half an hour would mean that no one, working normal workday-hours, would have to get up before the sun rises. It is unnatural and very disturbing for body and mind to get up when it is still dark. It would also be easy to on the same time make it so that people working within certain sectors start work earlier than others in order to reduce traffic and the time people spend in queues.
Lina's comment: As a swede I don't find the suggestion so strange at all, and I don't understand the outcry by everyone.

In every speech and on every event Chavez appears at he speaks about media's manipulation of his intentions and the government's politics. And it is quite clear that it has been successfull. It seems to me that people more and more finsih their argumentation against Chavez by: "Well, he is a crazy man". True or false, no one seems to have the interest to check it out further, and there ends the discussion. Sad.

Well, that was that. Other than attending class, trying to keep up with the academic scientific spanish and standing in one hundred queues every day (waiting for the bus to and from the uni, in the inscription queue, the queue to the school restaurant, and so on forever) I have been training with the running team. The competition is this sunday, at 7.30 am, 8000 people participating, shit. We did 4000 m on the track yesterday, on time the fastest we could. It was very unpleasent. I will die the "heart bursting death due to over dose of adrenaline" before I even get to start running, or maybe the "running too fast in the beginning and be all drained out of power heart bursting death" after 5 km, or just the normal and slightly boring (and zero glamorous) "being squashed by 8000 pairs of feet against hard concrete death". Hm, what do I prefer...

I have a new assignment. Self imposed and with a high probability of being a complete failure, but well, here it is: To make the school restaurants (serving about 7000 meals every lunch) serve vegetarian food one day a week. Ok, so for you who have been on the south american continent maybe understand the magnitude of this goal. People here looooove meat and they eat meat in every meal. To get support from the students in this is the biggest challenge. So I am now in the process of planning how to carry the whole thing through. I need to be very strategic, and I have to say that it sofar has gone way beyond my imagination.
Yesterday I got a lift home with one of the men in the running team. He just happened to be the vice headmaster of the university and the one in charge of "services" which is transport and food. So what to do when sitting in a car stuck in a queue for 40 minutes... I launched my idea and waited for his friendly face to take the form of a raisin with fire coming out of his eyes and his skin colour turn red... but to my surprice he said:
"But what an excellent idea! I am "naturalista" myself, we only eat vegetables, well not all vegetables of course. We don't eat tomatoes nor soya meat, I don't know why. But lately they have become less strict, so... now we eat tomatoes."
I was amazed! Dropping me off he said: "We definetley have to talk more about this!"
"Of course", I responded, you know, the way you respond to one of your pals, I mean, I am so cool when it comes to dealing with authorities.
So, yepp, it will be very interesting to see where this end up. My only concern is that the whole idea of my project is lost, which is to raise to issue of eating meat in the first place. I will have to talk to my friend (the vice headmaster) about it, I am sure he will understand.

Ok, a few photos in the end. The flowers are from a walk I took this sunday in the very beautiful botanical garden and the others are just a very representative for this country, and yet so very controversial.

So long.