lina in venezuela

Creating socialism

2008-05-05T21:54:00.005-05:00

I just came back from a weekend in the east of Venezuela where I went with a chilean friend to give a seminar/workshop on sexuality and gender at a camp for 32 young people between 13-16 years. It was held by a national movement that work with farmers asociations and local communities, seeking to teach "socialism" and not just speak about it. The kids were at the camp during four days and the workpasses were about communication, the water issue, capitalism, agroecology and sexualism and gender. It was a mixture of nationalities among the "facilitators" (us giving the workshops) but the kids were from the local neighbourhood, and they had all come voluntarily, to learn, discuss and meet other young people. It was truly amazing to listen to some of them speak, 14 year old boys who had a vision and a conception of the world which I think few in their age have. There where though more guys than girls present and it was very difficult to get the girls to speak at all. Sadly the structural signs of quiet women are global, which maybe isn't too surprising but still quite hard to see how the same order is being reproduced also in the younger generation.

In our pass we discussed puberty, sexuality, the reproductive aparatus, contraceptives, homosexuality, abortion, gender, equality, machismo, etc. It is difficult to get a group of 32 14-year olds to keep their attention for 4 hours, especially with 30+ degrees and an open spaced "lecture hall" where they can come and go as they want, but the discussions were sometimes wild and lively. The hardest thing though was when we discussed abortion and confront the argument: "It is not right to deny the babys right to live" when it is based on a religious value... how on earth do one even enter that discussion, when the opponent is throwing God in your face? How to win over the almighty? Wooosh, it is difficult.
"Well now...you see, I don't believe in God, and I'll rather give the mother a chance to live her life". That kind of thing just don't bite on them. But with the help of some of the other people I think our point of view at least was understood and the whole thing seen in a new way.

Speaking with one of the girls the day before giving the workshop she told me that her older sister had become pregnant when she was 11 years old and today (9 years later) she had 4 kids. She had married her boyfriend (18 years old by the time of the first pregnancy) although today they were divorced. Her other sister had had her first baby at 13, and today 16, she had 2 kids. These things are but too frequent still in this country, especially in the country side. Asking the girl (14 years old) if she wanted kids her self she said, "Yes, but not now, I am too young". Yeeeah! You go girl! I felt happy to be able to be in circumstances where these young girls at least get a chance to educate themselves about the dangers of not using contraceptives and their rights to make their own decisions.

As a true socialist camp they didn't miss out on the constant remindment on the values that such a society pretends to rely on: solidarity, combating egoism, respect of others and participation from all. It is clear how easy it is to speak about that we would like to achieve a socialistic society, but so much harder to make the connection between the nice words of respect and the practical implementation of it, meaning that I should keep quiet when someone else speaks and raise my hand if I want to intervene. That is also why these kinds of gettogethers are so important. Today in Venezuela a lot of people have the rethorical part of the revolution clear to them, but the corruption is wildly out spread and devastating. Even among the local councils that are supposed to be the grass roots, the people! It is sadly enough not too rare that the house of the president of the council is both bigger, robuster and nicer than the others'....how is that possible?

But the fantastic part is that it also exist a whole bunch of other nice fighting people and so there is no need to lose hope.
With their left hand in the air they are shouting: "Patria, socialismo o muerte - Venceremos!"
Tjoohoo.

This week I will probably move to a new apartment in the center, so that I will have a lot closer to my work. Since 2 weeks I am working in a Center for Environmental studies, doing my practice there until july when it is time to go home to Sweden. Until now the experience has been interesting and I hope and believe it will continue like that. And there is unlimited amounts of free coffee!! My god. Hm... maybe that is actually a bad thing for me.
Well.

Finally I put a foto of a man carrying around a frame with Simón Bolívar in the demo of may the first. He was dressed as a military and looked very happy!

Oh maaan, why are they soo predictable

2008-04-15T08:38:00.008-05:00

I was walking on a quite quiet street from the supermarket on my way home. Had my earphones stuck in my ears, listening to a downloaded podcast from Sweden about China's growing pollution problems in their big cities (ok I am completely addicted to swedish P1, maybe one could argue that it is a bit overkill, living in Venezuela and all, but what can I say, I am just not ready to move on from the first step in the twelve step programme - acknowledge that you have a problem...). So anyways, all of a sudden I become aware of the fact that a car on the other side of the road is slowing down and that the driver (a man around 30-35) is obviously asking me something. I take out the earphones (!!) to understand what he is saying. He wants to know where he can find a cash machine. I happened to know exactly where there was one since I a few minutes earlier almost had walked straight into a guy standing in line to one (it was an extra intense moment in the radio programme...). And so I started to shout the directions to him from across the street, but with cars running in beween it was quite difficult to make myself understood. So after a few tries I just crossed the street instead. The directions I gave were very easy to understand, since what he was looking for was just a few hundred metres away on the same street we were on. But for some reason this guy kept asking and just not understanding at all. And then all of a sudden he says:
- You are not from here right? Where are you from?
me: - Ehh, no, I am from Sweden.
guy: - Really!? Haha, so what are you doing here?
me: - I am studying.
guy: - Oh, really, where?
me: - At Simón Bolívar.
guy: - Wow, so what are you studying?
me: (with an obvious face of boredom) - Biology
guy: - Yeah?! haha (what on earth is funny with a swede in venezuela studying biology at a university???) So... you like Venezuela?
me: (sigh, it would be interesting to keep a record on the number of times people have asked me that) - Eh... sure, very much!
In this moment my extraordinary theatre experience is helpfull, since I show with my whole body (like body theatre you know!) that I am very stressed and really need to go (this came out of the combined facts of "me standing almost in the middle of the road, being an easy target for the cars passing by and not minding me" and of "the total lack of interest from my side to keep on a chat with this un-known person whose intentions I didn't know, but out of experience just too well could imagine").
guy: -So you want to go, it looks like you are in a hurry.
me: - Yes, I am, I have a lot to do.
guy: - But you should take it easy on this street you know, it can be dangerous.
me: - Well I think it's ok, the big street is just over there and I live close to here.
guy: - Where do you live?
me: - Here in Baruta, Piedra Azul.
guy: - Ah, yeah that is pretty close (now, one might think it is strange that the guy obviously knows the different parts in the area by their names, but does NOT know where to find a cash machine...)
guy again: (not minding my comment 2 seconds earlier that I was in a hurry) - Sooo, do you have many friends here?
me: (looking at him almost with a smile on my face... out of the predictability of his whole being) - Yes I have about one zillion friends here.
guy: - Oh, so do you want to be my friend?
me: - hahaha... eh... what? eh.. hrm , hehe, wahhhh. Well, I am sure you are a really nice guy but, NO. I have to go now.
guy: - haha, but wait, we can be friends...
me: - You take care now, and by the way, the cash machine is just around the corner!

Now maybe this whole conversation doesn't seem so extreme to you who read it. And in fact, it is not extreme at all, it is actually a very common and highly frequent thing that happens almost all the time. Maybe you people don't see what bothers me so much about it, maybe it is a seemingly alright conversation... well, what can I say. I just hate that I have become customized to immediately when you meet (or sit next to, or stand in line behind) or for some other reason come in contact with a guy/man presume that he in the end will ask for your number, because... I don't have a f-king clue of why!! It has become quite tiresome after some months of that all the time. And very boring!
Warning me of the dangerous street we were on gave me a good but a very bitter laugh, since he is completely unable to understand that what constituted my biggeset threat in that moment, was him!

Finally I can give you a tip for a documentary about Venezuela, made by the network "Hands off Venezuela", which should indicate where the filmmakers have their sympathies. Well worth seeing: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8259680613061191794
If for some reason the link doesn't do it for ya', try searching "No volverán" at Google or YouTube.

Equity vs. equality

2008-04-12T20:19:00.010-05:00

This week I participated in a three day long course in "Gender related violence" organized in Baruta, the municipality that I live in, originally aimed for people who work within different public institutions, police and lawyers. I was invited because I wrote an email to the municipality asking about their politics concerning the problem. It turned out that they didn’t have a specific or strategic plan for how to manage these issues, but according to article 29-30 in the new law (see last post) they are obligated to work with prevention and also to create different service possibilities for women who are victims of violence. So, this course was a first step in that process, that is, to make these people aware of the problem, it's magnitude and complexity, and to prepare them to handle it in their work.
The discussions were many and loud, but very dynamic and progressive. One specifically interesting aspect was the seemingly unanimous opinion… or maybe I should describe it as perception, of the whole gender issue as being a question of “equity” and not about “equality”. No one in that room wanted equality, since it was expressed as a general truth that the differences between women and men inhibit this from being possible. Equity in this sense is referred to as an equal valorization of performances, work, etc. of women and men, whereas equality would be a 50% share (or divide) of everything in society between women and men.
Maybe the mere fact that they just didn’t go deeper into this sensitive area can increase their possibilities to act more efficiently. And probably within their respective fields of work, that is the most important thing, since a huge problem in Venezuela regarding violence against women, is the lack of proper institutional service and competence of the workers. But to solve the fundamental problem behind the violence against women, one needs to focus on the organization of the society and on the educational system, and within these areas channel other perspectives on “women-men”, feminine-masculine, power structures within the families and within the society, etc. This was also the general conclusion of the whole course, still without having touched the underlying questions of “What IS femininity and masculinity?”, “How far do the social constructions of these concepts reach?”, among others.
I think these questions are very important indeed since I do believe that many people are caught up in the traditional way of perceiving what is “right” or “normal” and what is “wrong” or “abnormal” when it comes to the attributes and attitudes of women and men. I would like a more open discussion about those issues, based on curiosity and criticism, in Venezuela as well as in Sweden. But for now… in Venezuela… trying to tackle the immense problem of gender based violence… well, maybe the work just needs to be put in action, and then...as women in Venezuela reach stronger positions and gain more and more self-consciousness, they can decide if they want to raise these specific issues, or maybe completely other issues that women here feel are urgent.

Thursday was the last day of the semester and my last day at the University of Simón Bolívar. So I am now on vacation, and in two weeks I'll be starting my intern-ship with an environmental organization in the centre of Caracas and work there until the end of July.
The photo is from the final presentation in Ecology, me and my group are proydly posing infront of our poster. It was a project about predation of crabs and snails on mollusc and cirripedios living on the roots of mangrove trees... Ok. If anyone wants to know more about that, you just let me know eh'! =)

Ele, Ale and me!

Anarkism och Våld mot kvinnor

2008-04-07T18:29:00.014-05:00

Asså visst, kanske det gått ett tag sen jag skrev sist. Och nej, jag tänker inte köra igenom värsta uppdateringen på allt som hänt här i landet sen dess. Men det är en hel del kan jag lova. Som bara det att det utväxlades rätt hårda ord mellan Chavez och Uribe i Colombia över de senares intrång i Ecuador och bombning av en hel massa sovande männsikor ur den colombianska FARC-guerillan, där den näst högsta ledaren, Raúl Reyes, dog. Hans laptop beslagstogs och sedan har en massa intressanta, och i många fall tvivelaktiga uppgifter kommit ut. Bland annat om Chavez' och Venezuelas relation till den terrorist-stämplade FARC-guerillan. Chavez kallade hem ambassadören från Colombia, och placerade ut militärposter längs hela gränsen, som markering gentemot Colombia att det de gjorde i Ecuador inte kommer att hända i Venezuela, men också som ett tecken på stöd till Ecuador. Det uttalades till och med varningar om förestående krig mellan Venezuela och Colombia. Men konflikten tycktes få ett väldigt snabbt och uppsluppet slut på ett toppmöte för några veckor sen. Uribe bad om ursäkt, Chavez sjöng och gav tydligen ett mycket bra tal, och Correa i Ecuador mjukades upp. Så skakades det hand och svors trohet till den latinamerikanska enheten och konfliktlösning via dialog.
Allt frid och fröjd som det verkade... tills det några veckor senare kom uppgifter om att de bomber som använts av Colombia i Ecuador varit av en typ som normalt används av USA-militär och som Colombia enligt vad som varit känt innan inte innehar. Det skulle i såfall ha varit USA som stod för attacken mot guerilla-gruppen vilket skulle ha satt hela operationen i ett ännu mer kritiskt läge. Det är ju välkänt vilka enorma mängder finansiellt o militärt stöd USA ger till Colombia i deras krig mot terrorismen och knarkhandeln. Colombia och Uribe hade dock bedyrat att USA inte hade något med ingreppet i Ecuador att göra... vad som stämmer och inte vet jag inte än.

Nåja. I övrigt har jag hängt runt lite med anarkisterna i stan. De är en rätt begränsad skara på kanske högst 40 pers, varav dock ca 20 ger ut en mycket bra och läsvärd tidsskrift: Ellibertario.com som jag rekommenderar till dem som läser spanska. De har även artiklar på engelska. Det är verkligen spännande att diskutera med dem kring den bolivarianska revolutionen som Chavez anför i Venezuela. Hur de ser på den, på Chavez och vad de hade önskat istället. Det är en ganska hård inställning från anarkisternas sida gentemot "2000-talets Socialism" som implementeras i Venezuela av Chavez. Som anarkister föredrar de ju ingen statsmakt överhuvudtaget, men å andra sidan är det ju ändock med en socialistisk retorik som den nuvarande regeringen driver igenom sin politik. Det är extremt intressant att jämföra den kritik som anarkisterna framför, med den som jag satts in i av alla uppe på mitt universitet. Och det är nästan som om nån kört copy-paste, för argumenten, ordval och mycket annat är slående lika trots att många studenter nog skulle sky en anarkistisk titel och vice-versa.

Några av de yngsta medlemmarna har sedan några veckor tillbaka börjat planera att inreda ett ödehus och göra det till ett hus öppet för vem som helst, med aktiviteter och verkstäder, musikrum, kök och allt sånt. Förra helgen följde jag med till huset för att se. Det ligger mitt i ett välbärgat bostadsområde och dess ägare stack därifrån för mer än 15 år sen. Av all graffitti på väggarna står det tydligt att det är ett välkänt hus bland många unga, men säkerligen också av hemlösa och andra nyfikna. Så deras idé är helt enkelt att städa upp allt som är förfallet, reparera de trasiga väggarna, dra ledningar och måla om för att göra det till ett aktivitetshus. Ett litet problem är bara att det inte är deras hus, vilket samtidigt är lite av idén. Men hur ska man få alla andra användare av huset att vilja samma sak när det är en högst brokig och odefinierbar skara... ett dilemma. Men det är ett otroligt häftigt hus!! Dock väääldigt mycket jobb kvar innan det går att börja använda det.

Så i övrigt har jag nog mest varit begravd i artiklar, intervjuer, konferenser och kurser och dylikt i temat "Socialpolitik och våld mot kvinnor". Mycket att ta till sig men väldigt spännande samtidigt. För precis ett år sen kom en ny, typ, grundlag ut rörande Kvinnors rättigheter till ett liv fritt från våld. Det är en mycket radikal och heltäckande lag med potencial att ändra och förbättra många aspekter kring detta problem. Men det största problemet vad gäller de venezulanska regelverket är just att kunskaperna om lagen och ännu mindre om problemet som sådant i många fall saknas hos de profisionella som skall applicera den, men också hos alla kvinnor som innehar alla de rättigheter som den innehåller. Det finns dock rätt stort intresse för frågan som jag uppfattar det och om inte annat så är det ett rätt tacksamt politiskt klimat för tillfället att genomföra stora och genomgripande policyförändringar. För är det nåt som revolutionen i Venezuela inte kan neka, så är det lika rättigheter till alla, åtminstone i retoriken.

En del resor har också hunnits med in emellan. Det var ju påsklov till exempel. Jag åkte iväg med några andra utbytesstudenter till en flod i Amazonas, med ett gigantiskt vattenfall som mål, mitt inne i djupaste djungeln. Efter två dagar och mååånga långa timmar i en liten motorbåt och under het sol så kom vi fram till en stor flodstrand. 2 timmar upp i bergen var vattenfallen. Vi kom fram vid nio på kvällen, fullmånen lös så starkt att det bildades en regnbåge av dess sken!

Fear

2008-02-23T19:48:00.001-05:00

So what is the actual gain of being so afraid of everything that might or might not happen that you restrain your life to the point where every posible danger is avoided... if this also means that you miss out on a whole bunch of nice things, possible encounters, experience and new influences?? In this country, many of the people I daily meet and have around me (people who have the fysical and financial opportunities to choose where to go and where not to go) seem to live (and pass on!!!) a constant fear and concept of an ever ruling danger being present where you expect it to be... that is, not even where you least expect it to be.
To explain this a little better... it is quite commonly known among many of these people that some places in town one just don't go to. For example, few people think it is a very bright idea to go to the center of Caracas, and even if it sure has a high frequence of crime and violence, there are limits to the emphazis one should place on this danger. Especially when I have started to realize that the supposedly justified advices these people give me (of places to stay away from) don't have a very firm knowledge base and that they often don't have a clue about what they are really talking about.
Some of these people live their lives completely apart from the mentioned danger and it is amazing to notice how different lives people can live. In one and the same country, in one and the same city and even within parts of the city, exist parallell universes... created and sustained by whom... not really determined. By the government, by anonymous capitalists, by the very own people who live in them...? Well. I hate it. It is such a nasty form of discrimination. And it is not even an obvious discrimination, since the majority of the people with the good luck of living in the better off universe don't see their part in the sustaining of the whole system. Whatever it is...
So, ok. it is messed up. Out of these differences in standard of living it is scaringly clear from where the hard knocked resistence against Chavez and his ideas of change come from. Why change a system and a society that has given you opportunities to climb higher and gain a real good level of livelyhood? It exists a paradox of human fear when it comes to changing from something known and secure, to something un-known... even though this change actually in the end will create an even better situation for you (and a whole bunch of others!!). But if what one has today is good, then why take the risk of changing it, when it might result in a worse situation??
The concluding question of this is: How make better off people in this country want to "risk" their economic and social standard for the cause of making it better for the majority?
Tricky.

Beauty queens and big breasts

2008-02-09T11:20:00.000-05:00

Ok, so Carnaval passed, one of the biggest holidays in all of Latinamerica, you know the carnaval in Rio and all that. Well, me, a classmate and Petra decided to go on a roadtrip to lake Maracaibo to see a unique nature fenómenon called Los Catatumbos. These are flashes of lightning that are present every day during the year. No one can explain why these discharges happen so frequently, and it is only there, in the whole world, that one can witness this. Exciting and an excellent plan for carnval, since everyone else was going to the beach, which would leave this place empty! Just one small problem... it is about 1000 km from Caracas. From an environmentalistic point of view, that sucks. And what sucks even more was that we were going to do the whole thing by car... three persons in one car. My god. That, I can assure you, would never have even been seen as an alternative if I would have been in Sweden. But here, well, there were no buses going to where we wanted to go, and the car just seems to be the obvious means of transport. Ok, so that sucks as an excuse. Scheisse. I am a bad bad bad environmentalist... the story continues.
On the way there we made an overnigt stop in Coro to visit another classmate. Coro is a colonial town with a nice old center and about 15 min out of the town one finds these strange desert like "strips" where you can walk around on pretend to be a beduin in Saudi Arabia. Or one can do acrobatic stuff on the top of one of the sandy mountains, that's what I did.
Later in the evening we went to a small village further away and we ran in to the prepartions for the big happening that evening... the beauty contest!!! Posters of young women in bathing suits were put up all over the place and people were already gathering around the stage. Inspiring reggeaton music made the whole sensation even more intense and my travelling buddies and I started to evaluate the candidates. Who was the best one, that is, most beautiful... right?! Well, my latin friends went for Ingrid straight away, but I thought Andrina would make it, she was a little bit more exotic (that is what I consider exotic). Later during our road trip it became obvious how popular these kinds of beauty contests are in Venezuela. Every little town has there own and the girls are young, very slim, all with long hair and the majority with big breasts. I guess one could define them as "Tripple A:s", a term used to describe a certain type of woman: 90-60-90 (cm), medium tall/tall, long hair and normally operated breasts. The woman ideal! It is possible that one or two were "Double A:s" (nice body, medium tall and a beautiful face)...
I wanted to stay and see them come out on the stage, but the show wasn't about to start until much later, so we left, without ever getting the chance to know who in the end got to be the beauty queen...
Plastic surgery in Venezuela has become something which today is considered to be normal and almost a requisite if you want to make it to the top, working in areas where you need to sell products, but as well within different service business. But the reasons for getting your breasts operated are more than a carreer thing. Lots of women do it simply for the estetique, something which of course has a very relative base. Different cultures have different ideals of beauty, and the value of being beautiful and attractive, although I most of the time think that it has turned quite global. Now, maybe that is a consequence of globalization as well.
Walking around in any city in Venezuela and one can be certain to see at least a bunch of girls with their breasts done. The female dressing in this country is quite homogeneous, normally with an décolletage (it is only a question of how deep). Having done a surgery to enlarge your breasts is something lots of women are proud of, which normally means going for an even deeper décolletage. Comparing to Sweden where it is almost reverted in terms of openness about an operation, where women try as long as they can to simulate their operated chest as being the real thing...
So why do women feel this need to live up to the ideal in such a high degree that they are prepared to operate themselves, pay a lot of money and take the physical risk it means? It is not even a once in your life thing, since the plastic things only last for about three years, and then you will have to do it all over again. Well... I asked a friend who is about to go through with an operation within a few weeks. She said that her reason was simply that "I want to... for me! It is not for anyone else, for boys or anything like that, it is just that I want to. I will feel better, I want to dress in other types of clothes..." I guess that is a reason as good as anyone. But I can't help to take a sceptical standpoint towards this way of reasoning. Because... from where does the contentness of looking in a certain way come from? There is some kind of twisted and sad paradox working with the minds of the women who think like that. They feel happy and content with their new looks, which is a happyness as valid as any other, but not taking in to account that the foundations of this happyness consist of an ideal created and sustained by the society, and which says that she was not good enough as she was.
So how much should one sociologize about this? There are still many women living in this society who never will operate their breasts, and live happily anyways.

It has gotten to the point where a breast operations has become a "common" (of course we are talking about people with an economic state more or less well established) 15-years birthday present (a very celebrated happening in Venezuela). Considering the immaturity of a 15-year old body it just seems rediculous to let such a person go through with something like that. Not even mentioning the twisted perception of ideals the parents are maintaining and passing on to their children, fucking up another generation.
Well... to be continued, for sure!

More photos from the Roraima-trekk 2-6 jan

2008-01-26T19:09:00.000-05:00

1 2 3
4 5 6
7 8 9
10 11 12
1. The group we went with, looking at the nearby mountain Kukanan.
2. Me and Linda.
3. Me on the road.
4. On the top of Roraima.
5. The Guyana jungle spreading out infront of us.
6. The view from the northern top of Roraima.
7-9. The view from the southern top.
10. Linda and Cinthia. Linda got ill the same day that we began the trekk, and she struggled with throat ache and a wet nose the whole trekk through.
11. The last wall up to the top.
12. Going back down...

Back on track in Caracas after a tour to Colombia

2008-01-24T22:48:00.000-05:00

After what was said to be a 15 hour busride from Caracas to Colombia, ended up taking 24 hours (we had to wait 6 hours at the border for an incoming bus, that is... not because we got kidnapped by the guerrilla nor by the paramilitary, even though that would also have qualified as a post in this blog), we finally arrived in the small but beautiful town of Santa Marta. Well, small and small, it has more inhabitants that Malmö! Santa Marta is just by the north coast of Colombia and the Carribean sea. The first thing we did in this neighbouring country was to find the best coffee-place in town and ooooooh looooord and his son (Jesus), it was gooood. Colombian coffee, that's all I say! The second thing we did was walking in to a huge
supermarket and to our eternal happiness encounter TAHINI! Life was treating us well! How I have missed this lovely sesame pasta!

Only having about 6 days to spend in this country (which had already won our hearts) we thought it would be wise to get moving, we wanted to feel the breeze of jungle or the sea in our hair (maybe not such a strong breeze to lift Linda's dreads, but still, Santa Marta was hot). So the next day we took a bus, 15 minutes to the little fishing village Taganga, not knowing we had come to the official rasta-hippie-hang-out place of he entire coast.
After having had a late lunch eating our ever standing (and most of the time only option food wise) plátano (green cooked and fried banana) - and taken the opportunity to shoot of some sweet fotos - we hit the playa!
Linda, being a very ambitious spanish student as soon as the normally intense travelling conditions allowed her, took the moment to practice the very useful verbs of dejar=leave and llevar=bring. Me... well, my restless beachsoul went for a juice haunt! The fruit juices in Colombia come second on the "Best drinks"-list (Coffee being the un threatened winner!).
As it was friday the little touristic village was preparing for paaarty and we were handed a flyer saying it would be a reggae band playing in one of the three bars in Taganga that night, coool. Strolling back to our hostel the village showed its best side...The reggae band consisted of five young men from Bogotá and they were really good! We swayed to the music (dance that is, but in a cool laid back reggae style) and tried to stay away from five very obvious swedish guys standing in the front, apparently also liking the music (from what they shouted to eachother: Fy faaaan, dom ä ju heelt sjuuuukt bra asså.). Not that they don't had the full right to be there, but man... the dance floor was just not big enough for 7 swedes... 5 had to go. Anyhow, after having danced until early morning hours we ended up chatting with some of the group members. They were on a tour for a few weeks and the next day they had planned to go to a beach about an hour from Taganga, after having been invited by the owner of the bar (Franzisco, who apparently owned a strip of the jungle and beach). They invited us to come, and we accepted. 5 hours later we met up and litterally packed ourselves in their 4x4, and off we went... to Palomino, further a long the road towards Venezuela. From where we went off the official road and to the beach it was a very bumpy 7 km long dirt road. But once we got there, we were quite amazed by what met us. Open ocean, palm trees, hammocks and lots of known hippie-faces from the earlier evening!

We felt like we knew the whole place... that is just what one night in a reggae bar can do! Me and Linda rented an old tent from Franzisco and then we spent two very nice and relaxed days on this beach, hanging out with our rastafari friends, playing ultimate frisbee, bathing in the nearby river, taking walks on the beach, going for runs at the edge of the sea, cooking, making fires in the night and enjoying the tranquility of this "hidden" place. I guess I saw more interesting people during my 6 days in Colombia than I have done during three months in Venezuela. Now, why that is, I won't even start to analize.

Anyhow, on the morning of the third day we and some other hippies (Linda being the hippie of the two of us) from Spain and Ecuador were given a ride back to the main road and the little village of Palomino by the singer Camilo. Waiting for a bus to pass by we were once again reminded of the tense military-guerrilla situation going on in the country. Any ride (by bus or by car or by whatever) where ever you go is interrupted by military checkpoints and the quantity of heavy arms worn by these boys is just rediculous. In the photo one can see how smoothly I handle the situation. Acting like I don't even see the military I calmly chew away on my apple.

Finally on the local bus and after having said good bye to our new friends me and Linda decided to get off at the very known national park Tayrona which was on our way back to Santa Marta. We had to pay an expensive entrence fee but once we entered we thought it was well worth it. Extremely beautiful beaches and jungle walks and wildlife, but also very very touristic, beeing the most famous and popular place to go for both colombians and foreigners. We stayed one night in the tent of some people we met on one of the beaches in this very park (since we didnt have any of our own and all hammocks very occupied). The next morning we got up early and walked about 1 hour up the mountain to a small ancient indigenous ruin village. From there we kept on for another 3 hours until we got out to the main road and took a bus back to Santa Marta. That is more or less where the Colombian adventure ends...

Linda has gone back and my classes have started again. I am taking Biology Conservation, Ecology Laboratory, Public policy problems in Venezuela and Arabic Culture! I think they will all be very interesting. This trimestre I hope to get out in the reality of Caracas and meet people who want to build something new and real in Venezuela. It is just to get out there!

After the votation of the reform (where NO won) Chavez said that he accepted the results and even expressed himself as being proud of the venezuelan people. It was a calmness and relief of many people after this, no matter if they were for or against. No violent outbreaks took place of any kind. But just a few days later these gigantic posters could be seen all over town... The sign says "Por ahora..." which means "For now..." They are really redicilously big and I guess their purpose is to make everyone who voted against the reform and thought that this meant that the reform was now dead...would have to think again, because obviously the government and Chavez will not give up. Don't know what to think of that really, just that it is quite an extreme way to make ones point...

See you soon again.

Still on vacation!

2008-01-09T13:10:00.000-05:00

So we have travelled and travelled, so many hours in buses that I have stopped counting. But as the extremely smart and experienced travellers that we are, we of course allways do it during the nights.

New yers eve was spent in a small town about 30 minutes from the Brasilian border, Santa Elena. We even had time to cross the border over to the small town La Linea, which is in Brasil!! I have been to Brasil!! Hello, it was aaaawesome maaan!! Ok, so we spent about 4 hours there, which was actually, believe it or not, quite different from Venezuela. The people spoke portuguise for example. We went around for a while to look for a place to have our new years lunch... it wasnt the easiest I have to say. But finally we saw a place where there were many people, which is allways a good sign (once again my extreme experience and wisdom led me to this conclusion). Once sitting down and after finally having got the waiter's attention, we started asking for veggie food. Anything without meat? we asked in a kind way. The guy looked at us with those blank "are you stupid"-eyes, and we felt a bit stupid actually when we realised that we had sat down at a "carnicera", that would be a meat-restaurant. They didn't really do vegetables if you know what I mean. But with some good will and a lot of likings for fried yuca (cassava), macaronies, rice and green salad we ended up having a quite good lunch afterall.

Leaving the meat-place we went for a coffee. And oh my god. Brasilian coffee is the shit. We we're quite pleased actually!

Well, anyways. Two days later we went on our trek, the purpose of our south going trip. RORAIMA! As the extremely fit people we are we decided to do the trek in 5 days instead of the normal 6 (and maybe also because we had to be back in Caracas on the 7th becuase Cinthia had her fligth on the 8th back to Sweden).

Itwas a very beautiful trip even though it was kind of different from our days in the Andes. We went with this tour company (obligatory to enter the national park) and in the group were also two other guys. The first day we were named
"Grupo Rápido" by our guide, the fast group. I think the estimations for the walk is based on an avarage walker, which includes everyone from the old overweighted man to the super fit. Ok. For you who don´t know what Roraima is... Roraima is the highest tepui mountain in the world, and tepui mountains are the oldest types of mountains that exist. They are completely flat on the top, due to many years of wind and water erosion. Roraima is 2000 million years old! The view from the top is indeed something. And depending of which side one stands on you could see in to the extensive jungle of Brasil or/and Guyana.
Misty mornings and moonlike landscape caracterised the top. It was something quite new for me.

Two days ago we got back to Caracas after a nice 27 hours busride with hardly no stops for going to the toilet (no toilet on the bus either, darn!) and barley no food. We went to a fine restaurant and had a well deserved candle lit dinner. Yesterday I went out to the airport and waived good bye to Cinthia, felt quite heart breaking to see her leave knowing that it will be another 6 months (at least) before I see her again.

Thank god Linda is here for another 10 days. Tonight, hopefully, we are heading to Colombia! Yiiihaa! We'll stay there for about a week. So I will miss the first days at uni, but I am such a crazy rebellion that I won´t let that stop me...!!!

If we don't get kidnapped I will soon be back with some hard on facts the latest!
So long!

Tripping in Venezuela

2007-12-30T10:29:00.000-05:00

I have spent the last month totally de-politicized (and don't even start to question the correctness of this word!) so there will not be any kind of reports on the latest turns. Because of the votation and everything that happened around that (demos, meetings, and so on) the trimestre was prolonged one week, so instead of going on holidays on the 7th, I had to spend one more week at the uni. And of course all proffesors had put all the last exams, presentations and things on this last week. Wunderbar! Especially since Cinthia, a lovely swede-argentiner, came to visit me on monday. Oh, how she appreciated the fine hours of solitude every day when I went off to school. I was quite unhappy with how it all had turned out, but got some spirit back when I was told that the next trimestre won't start until the 14th of january. So I will get my 4 weeks off anyways, jihaa!

At my birthday, at 7 o'clock in the evening, I sent in my last assignment and I was officially on holidays! Lovely! Me and Cinthia went down to the center and checked in at the Ateneo Popular, a social center which alos functions as a hostel. And from then until Linda came, on the 18th of December, we hung around Caracas.
Since the 19th of December we have travelled around and we have had time to go trekking in the Andes, spend christmas with a looot of food, travel many hours in different busses and even flash our whity skins on the beach.
Now we are in a town called Ciudad Bolívar and this night we are heading down to a small town called Santa Elena, just by the brasilian border. The idea is to start a 5 day trek to the top of mountain Roraima. Hopefully a lovely break from the crazy traffic and shouting men!

The bus in to Caracas from the airport after having met Linda. She was very very welcome, and so were the ginger cookies! Oh holy cow. It was good.

Once in the Andean mountains, on a three day trek. We hooked up with a very cool guy, Sai, who was a guide and took us up and down the mountains. Wild horses and fog caracterized the first few hours of the first day. But very beautiful!

Two fine persons in a fine landscape! Cinthia and Linda. Beware of the pirate look of Linda, she worked hard on it. Rough surroundings and clean air... ooooh, so irresistable!
We joined up with another trekking-group that our new friend Sai (yellow shirt) was guiding, just so we wouldn't get lost in the mountains. Sai was a very interesting person: naturista (only eat natural things, no meat!), ecologist, mountainlover and more.

On the second day we climbed up a mountain called "Pan de azúcar", 4700 m. It was really steep up and the same down!

The camping site for the second night! It was by a small lake. Me and Linda went for a "bath", which in the freezing water more turned out to be a fast so called Raggar dusch. But we felt clean in spirit and heart afterwards which we thought was the most important!
Breakfast on the following morning. Chilly air, hot coffee, marvallous views, well...
Walking towards our destination (hot springs!) on the third and last day.
Back in Mérida we went up to Pico Espejo with the longest Teleferico in the world. We all got a headache thanks to the thin air up there. This plant is the typical plant of the paramo, the special landscape above about 3300 m and the tree line. It is called freilejon, and is beauutiful. I love it!

Yesterday at the beach, in the other end of the country!
The gang. On the beach. I got burned. Didn't put sun block on since I thought that my living in Caracas the last months should be protection enough. ALthough, not really counting in the fact that I still haven't really exposed myself to the sun.

Now awaits more adventures and more busrides! Good!
Happy new year!

Blood and shit!

2007-12-06T07:50:00.000-05:00

"NO" won.
I guess it hasn't gone by any one by now. The National Council of Elections (CNE) didn't announce the result until 01.30 on monday morning. It was a thrilling evening. We had the tv on the whole day to see if there was any violence or other things happening. But everything was extremely quiet and calm. The voting centers closed at 16.00 and around 19.00 everyone expected to get the first indications of the outcome, or towards what side it leaned. But nothing. The reporters couldn't really report anything, everything was speculations.
And then rumers, that the opposition had been informed about the preliminary results started to go around, which led to that people started analising the facial expressions of the reporters of the biggest oppositional tv-channel (Globovision). Didnt't they look very happy...? Well, yes. But still, no one knew anything.... or actually, that is not completely true.
Sweden, or better yet... Aftonbladet knew. Yes. The only media in the whoooole world (all major venezuelan media included) didn't dare to publish anything about the result or in what direction it headed. Not until CNE officially announced it. But people, I must say I am proud to be swedish. Such extremely competent digging journalists we have! They are allways on top, doing a fine job, never resting. At around 20.00 pm on sunday night, Aftonbladet could inform the world about the results in the Venezuelan votation. Incredible! Apparently the Sí had won with 68 % or something like that, and that was given by Aftonbladet's "special source". Wow.
Only... two hours later, unfortunately they had to renounce this news... and they went back to: Still noone knows... (as the rest of the world). Well, what to say.

There was a long process before the result were announced, and many people from the opposition have theories about why. They are quite certain that CNE did everything they could to try and manipulate the results. Since it is very strange that it took so long to count the votes, especially when Venezuela can brag about having the most modern voting system in the world. It is done electronically, with machines.

Anyhow, when the result finally came it was quite a hysteric reaction. People went out on the streets and celebrated. People... that would be about 50,70 % of the Venezuelan population, that voted for NO. The 49,30 % who voted in favor of the reform probably went to sleep. I listened to Chavez speaking to the people at around 01.30 in the morning. He gave a good speech (!), was humble and congratulated the venezuelan people for their contribution and success of a democratic election. And he accepted the results!
The day after I read many articles by foreign journalists reporting from/about Venezuela about the importance of the No-side winning, for the chance of a true democratic development in Venezula. That with this the people in Venezuela and Chavez too, have showed that they want to create a strong democracy.

At my uni everyone was very very happy and relieved. And the people I know that wanted the reform weren't too sad either. So, the general feeling was quite relaxed.
But yesterday Chavez attended a meeting with the Fuerza armada... the army. And there he held a speech in which he showed another position towards the opposition. He called their campaign against the reform "Mierda" (shit), in those very words. And then he continued saying that but for more things concerning the opposition for a few minutes. And then he assured everyone that he won't give up the project of the reform.
So, what does that mean?? I don't know. All I know is that it is not a very clever approach to call 50% of the population for shit, if you want to gain more votes or convince people that your ideas are the best ones...

For the ones who know spanish (and for you who just want to see Chavez speak) can see the video here.

Ok.
Other than politics my life is all about studying right now. And there is absolutely nothing to report other than that. I am fed up with it all since long...but well. My light in the dark is the 15 min of watching "Julkalendern" every day. haha. ok I need a life.
Another good thing is that my friend David has lent me one of his Ipods, during the whole time I am here (my mierda mp3 gave up a few weeks ago! I bought it just before I came here. So a tip for those who are thinking about buying a new mp3, and want it to last longer than 3 months, DON'T BUY A SANDISK EXPRESS! Ok.=). Anyhow. I have also succeeded in finally straighten out the downloading programme on my computer!!!!!!!!!! Halleluja! Indeed incredible, like a small revolution in my life. I can now download what ever I want! So, therefore I would like to send out a request to everyone reading this: Please send tips on some of your favourite music!
I have a predilection for latin hiphop by women/feminists. But it is not a requierment :))
okidok.

The one who fills Avenida Bolivar wins!

2007-11-30T23:52:00.000-05:00

This thursday the opposition closed their anti-reform campaign with a big demonstration, ending up at the Avenida Bolivar in the center. I went down to see the people, get an idea of the general feeling on the streets, the response from the government and the police... and because all classes had been cancelled so that everyone could join the march.
It was a good atmosphere, lots and lots of people, very tranquil and without confrontation. Helicopters circulated above the center and everytime one passed the people everyone lifted their NO-posters up against it and shouted nooooo.

Depending on what newspaper one reads, which radiostation one listens to, or which tv-canal one watches, the story about all political events differ. Of course according to the political views of the particular media. The Chaviztas say there were only a few 10 000 people there, while the oppositional media says that there were several hundred thousand. I wouldn't be able to say that precise how many I think were present, but it is indeed interesting that even such physical fact as the number of people on the streets is reported differently according to what media that reports... I don't like that.

Yesterday the big final closing demo by the chaviztas took place, on the same place. I couldn't go since I had class. But on the late afternoon, when the people had gathered at the Avenida Bolivar Chavez spoke to the masses, and I listened to him on the radio. I must say that his way of speaking is not what I would call... somthing that make poeple enthusiastic. He seems to be a little bit full of himself. And his discourse, although I might agree with a lot of what he is saying, is very dramatic. It is like he wants to create an anger among the people, directed towards everything and everyone that is not supporting him. All of a sudden he started singing, in front of the hundreds of thousands of people. It sounded... well, quite terrible actually, but that doesn't have anything to do with anything, except that I got an inner vision of the swedish ex-prime minister, Göran Persson, singing to the people. It made me shudder. Göran wanted to project himself as the father of the country and that is exactly how it feels with Chavez, only like 100 times more. He proclaimed his love for the venezuelan people and that he has seized to exist as a person and is now the mere instrument available to el pueblo. That part I liked though, when he said that the people decide if he should stay or go.
He said: "If the people send me away to sweep the streets of Caracas for the next 50 years, I will go and I will sweep the streets of Caracas for 50 years. But if the people want me to continue to lead the revolution and the fortification of Venezuela I will do that with out rest, as I have done for the last 9 years. The people of Venezuela know that I have done everything I said I would, and I have never rested."
Then he emphasized what he has said before, that the people who vote for the reform are voting for Chavez, but the people who vote against the reform are voting against Chavez. And the he added, and are voting for George W. Bush.

Something that annoy me, is the lack of discussion among the opposition about the good things the reform is proposing. Pensionfunds for old people who never have had a registred job, reduction of the workday (6 h/day), prohibition of any form of discrimination, equal representation women/men in all political posts, etc. These issues have just been forgotten. And it is 100 % focus on what is thought of as bad. Although, sure, I get it. If I would desagree with something that will have major influence over my society I would fight against it even though it has good parts too. But, it is a shame in this case. Because the ideas about a rupture with the hegemonic order maintained by the west is indeed intersting and in my opinion neccessary. Although, de political discourse used by Chavez, to carry through the rupture is somewhat...peculiar. There is a significant element of conspiration theories flying around, not at least prompted by Chavez himself. The latest one is "Plan Tenaza", a strategy planned by the CIA which aims to destabilize the country before and after the election tomorrow, and which supports the violent groups within the opposition. If the Sí wins, they will launch a serie of actions against the government, sabotaging the electricity, the oil industry, plans to sabotage christmas, the food supply, etc., basically, plans to convert Venzuela to a chaos. But Chavez warned them, and said that the people who support the reform will answere these attempts, prepared to take the fight on the streets. Well, the problem with CIA is that its whole purpose is for noone to know what they are up to... so I don't know nothing.

Leaving the march of the opposition the other day we stumbled into a tent with people from the government. These tents are spread out all over the city and they play extremely high music with songs made especially for the "Sí-campaign", really good too! They have lots of resources, t-shirts, hats, pins, posters and so on. And as we went up to them they gave each of us a whole set. I must say it is a very effective way of winning people over to your side, to play good party music on the street. Although, trying to talk with the representatives there about the reform turned out to be a challenge since I didn't really hear what they said, also this an effect of the music. Everything has two-sides I guess.
Ok. one day to go. whhoooooo.

Counting down... 5 days to go

2007-11-28T19:01:00.000-05:00

The votation for or against the Reform of the Venezuelan Constitution is this sunday. And the country is vibrating. It is indeed a very special feeling in the air. People are filled with... energy, anger, desperation, hope, excitement, fear... everything. The discussions about what will happen, how to respond, how to react to whatever the outcome is, are endless, and very interesting!

I spoke with my only friend who is not completely against the reform and Chavez and he wanted me to join a demo with the "Sí"-block, that is the poeople who are in favor of the reform. To see how that is. And my god, I could really need another point of view of all that is happening, of the articles in the reform and what possible good they might bring. I think I have a quite good idea about the critique of the reform, but not at all about the other side.

So tomorrow (thursday) is the final big big march by the opposition. All students at my university are going, all teachers and everyone who is voting NO this sunday. This photo is from the preparations. They made hundreds and thousends of these t-shirts. I guess you can figure out what they are for.
All classes have been cancelled and the semester has been prolonged one week. Instead of going on holidays on the 7th, we have class until the 15th. Very bad for me, since I will have visitors coming. But as I have always said, I am never so charming and nice to be around as when I am a stressed out savage with red sleepless eyes and absolutely now time to spare!!

Well, two days ago the students at my uni went out on the road passing by the exitgate. It was like a demo, but with the aim to make the people passing by aware of what they think is bad with the reform. They handed out leaflets with info and took up half the road, which of course created a cue of cars. The police came and the situation got ugly. I wasn´t there when it all began but according to students I spoke with when I arrived it was the police who in cut off the road and then pushed the students back into the university area. When I got there the police were standing outside and throwing teargas bombs, over the fence and among the students. They answered by throwing stones. Who began the throwing is still highly unclear.
In the end of the photo is the exitgate, the smoke comes from the tear gas bombs. Everyone had smeared toothpaste in their faces to be able to stand the gas. They were also prepared with bottles of vinegar, it helps neutralizing the effect of the bombs if you breath vinegar.
I had mixed feelings about the incident this afternoon. On one hand it was indeed an exaggerated response by the police, and further a clear offense of the autonomy status that the university has. But speaking with some of the students throwing stones at the police I got a feeling that they enjoyed the mere fact that the situation had gotten out of hand.
The excitement shone threw their young boy-eyes and I could hear the adrenaline pumping through their body. But these people you find everywhere, and oh, did I say they are young boys... ok.

In this photo two students were studying the shells from the tear gas bombs being thrown in. I have manipulated the photo so you can't identify the people, as you should, being a good professional...

The vice-head master then went out together with the students representative to speak with the police and reach an agreement. After a lot of mediating the students were finally permitted to return to the street and carry on with the leaflet-out-handing activity. This is when I hitched hiked home. Apparently though, things got worse again after that and the throwing of things-process started all over again.

Mediation going on... the color of the University of Simón Bolívar is yellow.

...after the students had been allowed to once again enter the street and hand out leaflets to the by-passing cars.

Ok, what will happen tomorrow no one knows. On friday the Chaviztas will march. Both blocks have permission to carry out their marches, but that hasn´t prevented violence from ocurring in earlier demos.
And then the big question... what will happen after this sunday. In the case of a NO, as well as in the case of a SÍ??

Excursion

2007-11-23T19:17:00.000-05:00

Ok.
This Monday and Tuesday I went on an excursion with my marine ecology class. It was a very nice trip and we spent a lot of time in the water taking samples of the sediment and of the seagrass Thalassia, and took measures of the abundance, density and coverage of Thalassia. Later that evening we measured the length and width of the leaves and went through 15 sediment samples searching for microscopic animals. I liked it. Although my seriously lacking knowledge about everything that has to do with naming living things is indeed striking. I just don’t know what I am looking at. Same thing apply in Sweden. How does an asp look like… well, I don’t know. I remember a twoday course I took in februray 2006 with the swedish nature conservation organisation, it was about moss and the other green stuff that can grow on trees and rocks… well, when everyone was busy studying the little leaves of these things I found my self being more fascinated by the rock they were attached to. I saw some quite nice magmatic stone formations, but I do not remember one single name of all the different types of mosses and that other thing that we saw.
But anyhow, this doesn´t mean that I don’t keep believing that I one day will be an awesome all-knower and be able to identify every plant or animal that catches my eye! For those who are interested I can send you photos of some of the animals we saw with the proper text explaining what it is. To give one example:
This is a seastar! For some reason this particular name seem to be easier to remember than others. I guess I am progressing, soon soon I will rock!

During the 3 hour trip in the back of a small van we past one of Venezuelas 3-4 big refineries. It is an impressing aparatus, mixed feelings indeed. It is the source of income for all of Venezuela, at the same time it is oil!! Bad bad bad. And further... this very often used expression was printed on the wall.
"Patria, socialismo o muerte" =
native land, socialism or death
Sweet!

The latest in politics... Chavez has gone out and said that voting against the reform is the same as voting against him, and that he will have to reconsider his position as a President if it doesn´t go through at the election on the 2 dec. The opposition is trying hard to separate the two things: still wanting Chavez as president and support the revolution, and voting for or agaisnt the reform.
There are reports every day from the different polls being made and they all say different things. Sí is leading with 14 % or the exact opposite... difficult things these polls. Have never trusted them. I think they are more of a political instrument than a real thermometer of the people.

En bussresa som andra...

2007-11-18T20:03:00.000-05:00

Men kanske jag är helt konstig...
Stiger man på en buss eller metron och det inte finns sittplatser så ställer sig genast nån man gentilt upp och erbjuder sin plats, med ett älskvärt "Varsågod señorita!" Fan, som en förolämpning. Vilket svin tänker jag. Vadå, ser jag liksom svag ut eller vad? Då tittar jag på honom med en lätt ögonutstående blick och försöker lite generat säga... hehe, nej nej, och liksom med en svepande handrörelse (samtidigt som jag spänner armmusklerna lite extra) visa att, sitt du, jag har faktiskt tillräckligt mycket fysisk kapacitet att jag klarar av att färdas de 2o minutrarna, ståendes!!
Ja, det är inte lätt, man får stå ut med mycket. Men ok, saken är den att jag inte riktigt vet hur jag ska förhålla mig till dylika gester. För det är ju inte som att jag tycker att det är något fel i sig, att erbjuda någon annan sin sittplats. Det som stör mig är bara att det sker uteslutande till kvinnor, oavsett om man är i behov av det eller inte. Fast man kan ju tänka sig kaoset som skulle infall ifall det inte gjordes en sådan uppdelning efter kön... inga bussar skulle troligtvis behöva sittplatser i den bakre änden eftersom alla hela tiden skulle erbjuda varandra sina sittplatser och till slut skulle alla som inte var gamla, handikappade eller sjuka stå vart dom än skulle. Men tänk å andra sidan vad många fler som skulle få plats...

Men sen är du ju också det att de flesta kvinnor accepterar denna ständiga företrädes-försvagande-förlamande identifieringen.

Well.
Kanske ni hört och sett när den spanska kungen bad Chavez att hålla tyst på Iberico-americano-samarbetsmötet i Chile i förra veckan efter att han kallat den förre spanske premiärministern Aznar för fascist. "Porqué no te callas?" har nu blivit oppositionens självklara slagord och alla jublade över händelsen. Chavez själv tycker att han förtjänar en ursäkt och menar på att det latinamerikanska folket inte längre står tysta och undertryckta gentemot Europa utan nu är en maktfaktor att räkna med. Ja, den politiska karusellen fortsätter oavbrutet och det är lika förvirrande som vanligt.
Två ekologilektioner i rad har läraren istället för föreläsning om ekosystem uppmuntrat de väldigt engagerade studenterna att diskutera det som händer istället. Otroligt intressant att få vara med och lyssna på det de säger. Många av dom är väldigt aktiva i studentrörelsen, som till största del är emot reformen, och är därför också väl insatta i det som händer. Det mest spännnade var när det kom till diskussionen om våld-icke våld. Hur ska man bemöta sina motståndare, speciellt när motståndaren har en armé till sitt förfogande och inte visat sig ovillig att använda den gentemot demonstranter förut. Studentmöte på universitetet.
Det utvecklades till en högljudd och mycket känslosam argumentutväxling där det refererades till Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Mandela och gänget. Det som också är otroligt fascinerande är hur extremt laddat detta är, hela den politiska situationen, mycket mer än jag trodde från början. Så många av dessa människor som alla går under benämningen oppoistionen är helt förtvivlade över det som händer. De är övertygade om att det enda som väntar landet är en fullfjädrad diktatur. Av 20 studenter så var det bara en som inte planerade att lämna landet på ett eller annat sätt så fort de tagit examen. De känner sig helt hopplösa. Men samtidigt är det såklart många som kämpar emot.
Det finns mycket att säga om den sk oppositionen, och grejen är att den är så divers att det är omöjligt att egentligen tyda någon homogenitet alls. Förutom just det väldigt viktiga och uppenbara att det främst är folk som generellt har det bättre ställt. Men det går inte heller att utifrån detta dra några vidare djupa slutsatser, det är lite för komplicerat för att förenkla hela reformprocessen till att röra sig om: De rika vill inte tillåta reformen för att de inte vill släppa på sin ekonomiska maktposition.

Jag har diskuterat och läst och lyssnat kring vad reformen säger och kommer att innebära. Det som skrämmer folk mest är den maktkoncentration till Chavez som många artiklar verkar antyda, mer eller mindre uttalat, samt många otydligheter kring hur den nya maktdistributionen egentligen kommer att genomföras och sedan fungera i praktiken. Det lämnas många frågetecken som anses vara en strategi av Chavez att ytterligare binda makten närmare presidenten. Men sen är det ju också just dessa artiklar som enligt Chavez är dem som ger mer makt till folket. Ja jisses!

Och mitt i det sitter jag, och ska försöka vara lite objektiv... men fan, det är svårt. Har fortfarande inte lyckats hooka upp med nån som är för reformen, och det finns uppenbarligen många såna också!!!! Det verkar dock vara ett uppenbart kommunikationsproblem vad gäller många av artiklarna. Det finns en hel del missförstånd kring innebörden av olika artiklar som basuneras ut som sanningar och som regeringen sedan får gå ut och försöka dementera och förklara. Media är lurigt. Vem tro på?

Sopsortering i mitt bostadsområde...

Demo

2007-11-08T06:38:00.001-05:00

Last thursday students marched against the reform, it was a big march and there were confrontations between students and people that came to in support of the reform, and between students and the police. People were hurt and a girl in Zulia (another state where the university also marched) was killed by some unknown person. I never went to this demo since me and a friend decided to go on a trip instead.

We went to the state Sucre, about 8 hours east of Caracas. We spent one day up in the mountains in a small town called Caripe, saw a huge cave and bathed in rivers. The other day we went to a national park by the coast, went for an interesting walk along the beach and even took a swim in the big blue. Beauuutiful scenery!

Yesterday there was another student march, this time they had called for everyone againt the reform to join. The student councils of each university in Caracas (there are about 4-5) work together in deciding what and how to respond to the situation and to make sure that everyone gets the message about what will happen. Often they go out on the television to announce the marches and make their statement. The student movement is slightly more active here compared to Sweden, that is only my personal observation.

Many teachers cancel the classes to support the marches and so that the student who want to participate don't lose out on anything. Yesterday there were no classes for no one and all exams this week have been postponed to next week. I had decided to go down to the march to observe, not participate. The students gatherd first at Plaza Venezuela, in the center of Caracas, and after about 1.5 h the march began. Once everyone started to walk I walked too and therefore I guess one could say that I did participate in the march. Even though I didn't chant along in any of their chants "Quienes somos? - Estudiantes! Qúe queremos? - Libertad!".
The purpose of the march was to go to the Tribunal Supremo de Justica (like the supreme court) and hand in a document saying that the date when to vote for or against the reform (2 december) should be postponed till february, to give the people a chance to read the reform and make an informed deciscion, but also point out that the reform is breaking against the prevailing consistution in the way it has been proposed and also in some of the articles.

The total number of articles to be reformed is about 60-70 and I have tried to read them. But it is a very complicated language and even if I do understand the words the meaning of the text is very complex, as all law-texts. But there are enough people and analysts who have interpreted the articles and criticize their significance.

Well, the march went very well. It was all very peaceful and the atmosphere was good. The other marches that have suffered confrontations almost provoked Chavez to forbid all further marches. That is marches by the opposition, since it this sunday was a march by the Chaviztas, in favour of the "Sí", Yes to the reform. No confrontations took place during this march. The police let them through everywhere. There were a lot of people on that march, all dressed in the same shirt and hat (all red) which they are given by the government. It is said that everyone employed by the government are obliged to participate in the marches, that there even is a list you have to sign your name on to prove that you were actually at the march. Anyhow a lot of people came from all over Venezuela and it looked like a big fiesta on the streets, with music and all.
Two days after the "prohibition" of further marches Chavez changed the formulation so that it still is ok, but with some restraints.

So, we reached the supreme court, a group of students representatives went inside and talked to the poeple there and handed in the document. The police had hardly been visible at all until this point. They stood as a wall between the students and a group of Chaviztas that had turned up to demonstrate infavour of the reform. But nothing happened, no confrontations. So after the student representatives came out, everyone went back together and then everyone went home. We went and had something to eat and then we went home too.
But we were quite shocked when we heard later that the students from the Universidad Central went to the university they were met by an unknown group of people which started to shoot against them. The reason is still not known, nor who they were. I have seen photos and videos and the show masked people pointing guns at unarmed students. Nine hurt, but no one killed. I will go up to my uni later today and hopefully get some more info.

Next week I will sit down with two friends, very involved in the student movement, and we will try to work through the reform, and understand what it means. Well, my contribution will probably be restrained to "Hm..., huuh?, huuum" but it will be very interesting anyways!

Ok, in a few hours I have a presentation on an article about environmental factors controlling macrofauna comminities on sandy beaches on the northern coast of Spain, so I leave you here...

This last photo is also taken on the march. It was a man standing there holding it up... It says:
"Socialism is the filosophy of failure, a creed of ignorance and it preeches for envy. Its inherent virtue is the equal distribution of misery."

Well. Quite harsch I must say...

Sleepless

2007-10-30T21:15:00.000-05:00

Write shorter and more often instead, that’s what my papá says, and I guess it is a good idea. But there has been a lot of studying these last two weeks, little sleep and well that´s why I have been so distant.

Tonight is a big night, an important game of baseball is taking place. Baseball is the biggest sport in Venezuela. It came to the country in the great era of the second colonialisation, that is when all the big American companies invaded the country. Now, I guess some people find some kind of delight in the game, since it is such a fuss about it, but really…what in god’s name can that be? I will not change my mind no matter what, if there is something I believe in this world it is the inherent stupidity of baseball. You might think that I am exaggerating this whole baseball thing, and you might want me to stop going on about it. But then I just want to make you aware of what happened last time I for one second let go of my convictions…
Cape Town, South Africa, it was the summer of 06. I was deceived into all of a sudden think it would be a good idea to go to a game of rugby. 70 000 spectators, South Africa met…another country, the S. African team consisted of only white men with bodies like bathtubs and necks like bulls. The game lasted forever since they kept interrupting it by jumping on each other and throw themselves in a huge pile when ever they got the chance. It was terrible. So, ok… baseball is popular here, I have made my point.

So the students are marching, for independent universities and against the reform, well at least the majority of the students are. Then there are those who march in favour of the reform as well but they seem to be few. At least that is how it is put.
On the 2 of december the popular referendum will take place and the people of Venezuela will have a say, yes or no to the reform. There is no way to accept just a few of the proposed articles in the reform (which now are up in about 70 aricles in total), it is either the whole thing or nothing, which would be continue with the current constitution.
On thursday there will be another student march and one of their demands is that the date for the public referndum is prosponed to the 3rd of februray, 2008. I have no class that day because the teacher thinks the students should be able to join the march if they want. So I think I will go down and have a look! I will bring my camera and pretend that I am a correspondant from Sweden, man, I have always wanted to do that...
"...bombs are flying over our heads, the law has seized to exist, it is extremely dangerous to leave your house, people are desperate... this is Lina Hällström, Bääg-dääd, Ajrräk"

And I have met my first feminist in Venezuela! Yo-hoo! It is a friend of my friend whom I got to know in Ecuador 4 years ago, since we worked with the same organisation. We met this sunday for a coffee and she just happened to be very involved with all different kinds of feminist activities. She works with a government body which tries to make all other ministries aware of the law (which has some very interesting parts on women's rights and equality) but also doing various projects in the barrios, organising women there.

Ok, to finish it off I add some photos from my trip to Barinas last weekend. I went with a friend who has family there. I ate very good grandmothers food, saw lots of cows, slept in hammocks and bathed in rivers.
This photo is from a small village up in the mountains, can't bahve more than 500 inhabitants.

The photo to the right is from the one and only and obligatory Plaza Bolívar. I would like that Möllan was more pink, it could have been nice!

As I commented in the beginning, studying is one of the predominant things going on in my life for the moment and since I like efficiency (well, for the moment I don't really have a choice if I am supposed to make it through the semester), so what to do when someone (Petra) is cutting your hair... there is just one answere!

I'll get back soon and hopefully have some first hand reports from the march!

oh such confusion...

2007-10-18T20:26:00.001-05:00

This is just getting worse and worse. Yesterday I had a personal breakdown on behalf of Venezuela. It just seems impossible to get any kind of objective analysis of what is going on in this country. Quite a few things have happened during the last weeks and it is certainly necessary to stay updated the whole time with the latest political turns to follow the discussions and be able to get a grip of the situation. Every day I listen to endless interviews on the radio with politicians, attorneys, journalists, government-employees, doctors, ministers and so on. As it is all over the world, people from different political camps always sound so sure about their own point of view and take every oppertunity to spread their propaganda rather than meet the critique presented and really try to answer the arguments. I get so tired. Really.

I have had some quite appalling talks with people very active in the student movement, fighting for a free and independent university and educational system, but also part of the opposition in general. The stories about how people demonstrating against the government and Chavez have been treated is hardly what one would expect to take place in a society bragging to be a socialist one. People being put in prison without trial and tortured, and this just for speaking their mind about the prevailing system. Huge discussion sessions being organised for and with the public about the reform of the constitution, but not letting students entering because they are openly against Chavez.

And then again, there is almost always some explanation to everything, why things happen, but people are often very quick in making their judgements without considering this explanation. Then, the explanation doesn't neccessarily justify certain behaviours, but to be able to move forward one has to keep an open mind. But... then again, who has the right to impose a way of thinking upon others? I just got here, I haven't been through everything that people living here have experienced, nor will I stay here long enough to be affected by the social changes coming up.

My breakdown the other day was a result of severe ideological confusion. Or actually I would rather call it practical dissapointment...according to what I have been told so far about Chavez and the whole Bolivarian revolution it does seem more and more like a power concentrating, people conforming project, in a socialist disguise. There have been a few of those throughout history and my god, basta ya! But, well, I have said it before and I'll say it again, it all depends on from where one gets the information. A few weeks ago I really realised how extremely priviliged the people at my university are, they are all part of the middle, upper middle, or over class and they don't really represent the majority of the Venezoelan population. So, one could argument that their disliking of social changes don't make the changes less needed or justified. But one could also argue (like my teacher in "Cambios en el mundo - Reacción en Venezuela") that the general Chavez-dislike within the universities is more an effect of higher education and a greater perception of the political turns. What to say, what to think…

One of the hottest topics right now is the addition of article 337 to the reform. The National Assembly has proposed another 25 articles in the 1999 Constitution (that is the one prevailing) to be reformed. Article 337 deals with the government’s rights to put the constitution on hold for as long as it is considered neccessary, as long as it exists a threat to the state. The article can be compared with the US’s ”state of emergency”. For example it allows the police to arrest people without any prior suspicion of crime, the right to information, right to an attorney, and so on.

This article, amongst others, has been quite heavily criticized even by Chavez-supporting parties: the social democratic party (PODEMOS), PCV and Patria Para Todos. They also claim that some parts of the reform will signify a change of the fundamental structure of the constitution. For such a thing to be carried through there has to be a much more extensive process (submitted in the constitutional assembly for example), but these are steps that have been completely ignored.

Well, to be continued...

I will just add one photo today. It is from my excursion with my Marine ecology class last week end, it sure is hard work out here...
The wreck that you can see was a ship that sank during the World War II, I went snorkling around and under it, very very nice!

So for now, I have nothing more to add. I guess I walk around with a general feeling of blurryness and I have a really hard time to straighten it all out. But this weekend I will be going away to los llanos, 6 hours out of Caracas. It will surely be something different and maybe I will be refilled with more positive feelings about all of this...

So long!

Running for life

2007-10-12T21:55:00.000-05:00

This post will mainly be photos of my everyday life here. Sorry to those of you who are dying of urge to be updated about the latest political turns in the country. But you never know though, it is highly probable that a few comments slip through.

ok, I do know that you are all very eager to hear how the running competition went... Ok, before I go through it minute by minute I just have to show a few photos of the old center of Caracas. Today it is a poor barrio, with houses badly taken care of and worn out empty public buildings, etc. I went there on a hip hop festival with a friend and it was a very nice experience. I really liked the atmosphere, the houses and what people were doing there. Most of the poeple in the barrios are in favor av Chavez, these are the places where his specially constructed proyects are supposed to be implemented. And walking around a few blocks I was pointed out a few of the initiatives to reconstruct houses (e.g a music school, a social center) and put in place activities for the people living there. The graffitti painters are supposedly a few of the best ones in Caracas. They were indeed impressing!
Listening to the hiphop groups later on that evening was very nice, but man, I hardly understood anything. The slang was quite dominating, but with a translater by my side I got to know that many songs were about the dislikeness of the police, the prejudices about the barrio and politics. There was one female rapper, yeih!

I had to leave early that evening since I was getting up 5 am the following morning to be ready to run 10 km with 8000 others at 7.30 am. Me and Oriol, a spanish intercambio, and a few of the others from the running team at the university were participating. All participants were sponsored with a t-shirt and a hat! I picked up my and Oriol's bags the day before and I was overwhelmed when I saw that I, in addition to the hat and the t-shirt that Oriol got, also had been given a razor. Since I am a girl and would be running in shorts and possibly even in an armless top, I of course would be needing it! Yee, thanks!
Ok, so I had decided to meet Oriol at a certain place at 6 am, but since I was worried things might go wrong (well, you just never know) I thought I'd better bring the cellphone, in case we wouldn't find eachother. To be able to get down to the competition site I needed bus money and of course I had to bring my keys. Well, quite soon after meeting up with Oriol (which went without any problem) I realised that these belongings of mine could turn in to a slight inconvenience. Where to put the fricklisch things when running... Well, it was time to really challenge those dormant braincells of mine. Quickly I tore apart some toilet paper that I also had with me (once again you never know!) and wrapped it around my keys and three coins (the change from the bus ticket, worth about 70 öre), the other piece of paper I put around my cellphone. The key-coin-package I put in my sock, by the ankle and the cellphone I couldn't decide if I should hold in my hand or put in the other sock, but since it is quite big I finally decided to hold in my hand. Well, thanks to those hardworking braincells of mine I was kind of open to the possibility that the keys wouldn't stay on the exact same place in the sock as I put them. During 10 km and what... a few thousand steps, you just can't be sure that anything you put in a sock will stay there. But to avoid unpleasent surprises I ran back and forth quite a few times, jumped up and down and did ALL I could to simulate the rollercoster ride that awaited the keys, to see what happened, but not the slightest movement. It was like I had glue on my ankle and then wrapped 10 meters of silver tejp around it all. Convinced of the safe arrangement I felt prepared to do the race of my life.
I tried to elbow my way through the mass of sweaty and hairy men, to get a better starting position (it was a hot tips given my trainer), then the national anthem, and then finally the starting signal.
Ok, the first meters: tripping ant-steps, not really possible to give all in this moment
The following 10 meters: trying to concentrate on where to put my feet so it wasn't above someone else.
On the 11th meter: the god damn keys (the ones glued to my ankle and wrapped with silver tejp) are suddenly alive and decide to go for a little trip, down south. Oh no, was my first thought, and followed by, this can be a problem. And what can I say, unluckily for me they obviously felt very comfortable at a position where they kind of ate my flesh, little by little. The following 9 km and 989 meters my concentration was unproportionally directed at that little spot on the foot, maybe you can see it on this illustrative photo...
Well, apart from this minor mishap I can't say that I am very satisfied with the race. I got very tired after 7 km and had to play the most outrageous mindgames just to trick the body to move forward.
Entering the finishing stretch I didn't have much left to give, but there was a bunch of girls standing on the side watching and cheering me on, so I found some nonexisting energy and took it all out... expecting to reach the finishing line within a few meters. But what I thought was a normal and a the only suitable type of cheer (you know the cheer which means: ok you have done an excellent job and there are only at most 2o meters left) turned out to have been a seductive and lying cheer, which actually meant: this is not the finishing stretch at all, it is more than 500 meters to go, and if you take it all out now you will be crawling over the finishing line.
Once I realised that I felt a little vindictive and considered for a few seconds if I should turn around, run back to them and inform them about their misunderstandning concerning the cheering and the devastating effects it can have. But I didn't, instead the anger gave me the last pieces of energy I needed to make it over the finishing line. And I can tell you people, it was all worth it, they gave everyone a bag of fruit, and in there I found apples. They gave them away! Of course I went back 4 times and took a new bag, oh, it was a truly happy moment!

I am sorry, after having written so much about this very important race I got really tired, and I think I have to stop here. Only one thing... the week after the race the trainer at the university took me aside and spoke to me in serious words:
Lina, next race (!! what, another one?!?!) is in november, and I want you to do 38 min. Can you promise me that?
Hm... well, I don't think I will be able to do no 38 minutes (lina answering)
Ok, I am sure you can do it, but you have to train hard!
well, I will train like I normally do.(lina thinking)
Ok, 25 min, light jogging in the morning before school
ha... sounds a little bit over kill, I have never liked running in the morning but 25 min should be managable (still lina thinking)
And then you come here in the afternoon and run with us
Wholy cow, not in this lifetime that I will be training twice a day to make some stupid time (lina tinking)
Well I cant promise anything but I will do my best. (lina saying, and this is the ultimate evidence of my slight... well I guess one could define it as difficulties of saying no...)

The photo is arranged, the race didn't take place in my garden, and it sure wasn't any grass anywhere near.

That will be all for this night. I have done other things than running, but that is another story!

So long!

Queues...

2007-09-26T20:31:00.000-05:00

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.

Fiesta, theater and school

2007-09-18T18:20:00.000-05:00

This saturday I went down to the area around the Central university. Before I left for Venezuela a friend in Malmö had given me the email address of his friend, Christina, who is engaged in a social center, called Ateneo Popular, located in Caracas. After having been in contact with her a few times since I got here she invited me to the celebration of its anniversary. It was very nice to see what they had accomplished and just to meet people who have ideas and try to carry them through. The house offers different kinds of cultural activities, but they also organise discussion groups which touch upon various political issues. I have signed up for one of those!
They have recently put together a library with a good variety of political litterature, open for everyone. I didn't really get a deeper explanation of the main aim of the house, nor to how they carry out their work. But the general idea is clear, and it gave me a whole lot of positive energy!
In the evening it was a very nice show on the street outside with people juggling, linedancers and other very difficult things. There was even a girl doing acrobatic stuff in a long piece of hanging cloth. Darn, it was impressive.
The area around the university Central is known to be very pro-Chavez and indeed it was the first place I have visited where I could actually see that.

At the fiesta I met a guy who the day after (sunday) took me and my room mate Petra to the theater. It was a play about the contemporary woman in Venezuela. It was very nice to see them play but to be honest I didn't understand much at all. The actors were a bunch of quite fast speaking women and they didn't go easy on the slang. But I laughed on the right moments and all that, thank god it was dark where the audience sat so that no one saw my confused and lost expression. Apparently it was about how venezuelan women tend to be very over protective with their children and how that affects the children.

After the theater we went to a café and talked about politics. It was very releaving to get a more diversified analysis of Chavez, by a socialist.
Listening to seemingly well informed and often outrageous anti-Chaviztas can really give you the idea that "socialism" is being dragged in the gutter by C-man's politics. In these situations it is difficult to justify why leftisch organisations/groups/partys all over the world are behind Chavez. But after having spoken with quite a few anti-Chaviztas I am now of the opinion that they tend to deliver their arguments with just too little reflection. When I ask WHY their sworn enemy has made a certain proposition they explain it as if the only reason is to worsen the situation it concerns. Even if this is true, that is not the reason given by Chavez. The official reason behind a reform does not have to be in every way correct, for sure, but the explanation to why it is proposed should at least be mentioned and analysed by the people, no matter if they are pro or against Chavez.

When speaking about C-guy in public everyone lowers their voices, and poeple prefer to talk politics in private. I guess there are many individual reasons behind that, but I was told that one reason is that openly expressing your political view (pro or against) will generate such lively discussions that it is often better to keep quiet. The political dichotomy also tends to make any discussion predictable in the sense that it is already beforehand obvious that no one will change their minds. People generally know what they think they know and that is that. They don't go in to discussion with an open mind and a will to understand the opponent.
This problem is quite applicable all over the world though...

Ok, so just a few short words about my first two days in school. Well, it is a hazzle trying to understand when the courses start, where to go and who to talk to to fix everything.
Yesterday I had my first class in Ecología II, I was one hour late since the two first buses for school just passed me, without picking me up, they were full. But once I got to class I got a good feeling about the course, the teachers and the students. And I understood everything they said! Weeha. But making comments myself will have to wait a while.
Thereafter I met with my teacher in Fish Biology! It is a very nice and extremely devoted man who talked for about one hour non stop. Clearly there is much to say about fish, but then again, who ever said there wasn't?? We are only three students taking the course so it will be hard to miss out on classes without him noticing, not that I would want to do that. Three hours of fish knowledge every wednesday, smack, it's gonna be great!

Today I trained with the running team for the first time. We were doing laps at the sportsfield. The teacher wanted me to run 5 laps (2000 m) the fastest I could. Christ Almighty. I haven't done that kind of thing since I was 15 and my sports teacher "forced me" to run 800 m at the district championship. Man, I hated it then and that acid, energy draining, feeling with a taste of iron (which is blood people!!!) hasn't really grown on me since. I did my one try, but the rest (a group of lively and clearly crazy men in their 40's) did 3! Tomorrow we are doing long distance running.

Other than that, Venezuela is full of extremely nice people. All the time students at school come up to ask who you are, where you are from and why you chose to come to Venezuela. And then they invite you to join them on whatever they are up to: salsa, a trip to the beach, lunch, hiking...and so on. Well, it is very nice indeed. And the machismo that I feared so much before coming here has kept quite a low profile still.

ok, this has to end. tomorrow:
second lesson in Ecología II (7.30 am!!)
first lesson in Fish biology (I get goose bumps just writing it...)
tour of the library
running with crazy old men

can't wait!
Ciao

Feminism in a book store

2007-09-14T07:44:00.000-05:00

Just a short post this time...

I went in to a book store the other day with the intention of maybe finding some nice venezuelan female authors, or just feministic literature in spanish. So to get some assitance with this I went to the counter. The following scenario took place:

Another woman had just bought a book and was getting it wrapped in paper by the girl working in the store. As the girl is about to finish the whole wrapping project she turns to the customer and asks with a bored (this is clearly routine) voice:
- ¿Es para una hembra o un marrón? (Is it for a female or a male)
- Un marrón, the woman answers and the girl bends down and with a resolute gesture she takes out a green bow to decorate the present with.
A marvallous feeling of extreme predectability comes over me, it is like I am crying with frustration inside but with a smile on my face, because of course, of course the man should have a green bow. I can only imagine what colour it would have been if the present was for a woman... The world felt so incredibly safe in the most awful way.
Thank you and good bye. My turn.

- Hello, I am searching for any kind of feministic litterature.
A confused but still proffessional look meets my eyes, and then a short discussion with her male colleague follows. Satisfied they both turn to me and say:
- Aha, sí, literatura sobre lo feminino, sí eso tenemos. The girl showed me to one of the bookshelves further away.
- Aqui! This is what you mean, right?!

Well, what to say, except for:
- Eh...hrm, yeees, thank you!

I didn't buy no book that day.

After this I went to check out the main university in Caracas, Universidad Central, which is public (the other public university is the one I'm at). It was a huge campus and very beautiful. It had a good atmosphere and felt a whole lot more relaxed than up at Simón Bolívar (my uni). The students were older, the variation of people much greater and they have a Centro de estudios de la Mujer (women studies)!
I guess they just have a more alive and engaged activist culture, and nice wastepaper baskets like this one!

On my way home, I live in an area called Baruta, I go through Baruta center which looks like this ---->

And a little further up the road, I have to pass this:

It is a little animal shop, selling animal food, animal toys and... chickens and rabbits, living in tiny cages.

Once back at home I had a private moment with C-man, he held a speach, it lasted 2 hours.

Well, that was all for now.

I have seen him!

2007-09-11T17:59:00.000-05:00

But alló to ya

One week has past of my stay here in Venezuela. And I am more confused than ever, who is this Cavez-guy, and what does he really want??

Sunday I visited the famous Plaza Bolívar and went to a few museums. It was quite pleasant, we walked around and I got a better feeling of the city center. It is big though, as much as I like to walk to where ever I am going, Caracas is home to over 5 million people... The areas around Plaza Bolívar are known to be pro-Chavez, this gave me some hope of maybe getting a more positive picture of him, compared to what I have met so far. And immediately as I saw the famous square open up infront of me I could almost feel his presence. How strange... There is a huge statue of Simón Bolívar himself in the middle of the plaza and as it was sunday, it was filled with old people, kids and birds! Oh yes, there it is ---->

Well, walking around the square I passed something I couldn't really figure out what it's exact purpose was. Clearly it was a government thing, and I believe it was some kind of info-booth.

Maybe an efficient way of making it easy for the people to be more participatory... but then again, maybe it serves a totally different purpose. My newest co-habitee, a young girl from Venezuela, didn't know either.
Although, their looks didn't really remind me of a "service minded, come-join-the-revolution-it-is-great-and-if-you-
have-any-questions-we-are-here-to-help-you" kind of a look. No, more like "Chesuss-I-am-bored-and-it-is-hot-in-these-dark-long-sleeved-uniforms-and-
who-are-you-strange-foreign-person-who-stares-at-us, what-don't-you-sympathize-with-the-revolution?-oh-you-can-fuck-off"-
type of a laid back glare.

Once we had rounded the square we entered the Caracas museum, a little hidden museum, forgotten and bypassed by most tourists (according to the Insight Guides guide book). Knowing this I strolled in through the doors with an almost ignorant appearence. And what catches my eye?... who would have thought... I mean, in this little museum (ok it was a nice old house and historically very important politically, but still)... no one less than C-man himself.
It is true! Tamtadam!
Hello! Nice to meet you at last! We got eye contact and I could see he was thinking:
"Oh, hello Lina. I've heard nothing about you. Welcome to my country! Believe every word I say!"
It was a fine moment indeed!

Because of Chavez' newly suggested reform of the prevailing constitution, which among other things will enable a president to be re-elected more than two mandates, it is a big discussion going on here in Venezuela. Have been listening two hours on the radio today and scanned numerous homepages to try to get an idea of what it is really about. Haven't been easy, especially due to the fact that I don't know which channels and which newspapers that are for or against.

I was then overdosed with anti-Chavez-propaganda. I had a long discussion with a middle-aged person, very engaged and energetic, and with an endless storage of arguments to why the revolution and Chavez have ruined the country. It was very interesting and also quite frustrating not to have enough knowledge myself to know if there were some obvious lies or just misunderstandings being told.
A few of the arguments:

During the times before Chavez you never saw any kids begging on the streets, now there are heeps of them.

The police and the military are loyal to Chavez but they are completely corrupted. Compared to before, there are now no security at all and more than 180 people a month die in Venezuela due to acts of violence and assaults on the streets.

The last election should not have been in favour of Chavez, it was an obvious fraud. The authority, CNE (Consejo Nacional Electoral), who is responsible for the elections, is a governmental body and therefore not trustworthy as a objective party. Also there was cheating in the actual voting system. During the day of the election everyone in the voting queue was going to vote against Chavez, and still he won, how did that happen?!

The governance of the country is really bad. Economically it is being mis-treated. Before there were investments in Venezuela, but now, no private entrepreneur or big company dare to open anything. Instead companies close down, Hilton for example. They think their property and land will be public. McDonald's, Burger King and all those came before the Chavez-era. So, from where will the money come?

Chavez has changed definition of himself during his rule. In the early days when he was asked if he was a socialist or communist, he denied it. Today he claims to be both and that is not trustworthy!

The new reform is only a way to asure himself lifelong power!

Well, there were more arguments than these, but I don't even remember them all. I was just quite shocked by the rage behind the words. I suddenly felt like I am in the middle of a historical, politically decisive, timeperiod but without the sufficient means to grasp all its aspects. I had to read some pro-Chavez articles at www.venezuelanalysis.com when I got home, to regain some balance and realise that there actually exist people in this country who are in favour of C-man.

At the radio there was a really interesting discussion where they were comparing the US-backed chilean opposition against Allende during the 1970's and the opposition against Chavez today. I believe it is important to keep in mind the huge amount of resources that the opposition in Venezuela possess...

Monday was my first day at the university. I now know which courses I will be taking during this first trimestre, starting next monday. Ecology II, Introduction to Marine ecology and last but not least... Fish biology, or Biology of the fish... there is no way to say it to make it sound better. Ok, fish, I like fish, I mean I don't eat fish. But, you know, fish are important animals...they live in water, and I really like water. Well, maybe I don't really like the ocean, to swim in that is, or to drink either for that matter, but when I think about it I don't like to drink water at all, no matter what kind it is. So, I will learn a lot about fish, good! If you need to know something about fish, you come to me! Maybe I can become the leading fish expert in Sweden, expert on fish living out of the coast of Venezuela that is... I am sure I will be extremely wanted, work wise. I mean not that I don't think I won't get a job anyways, no no, I will, I am sure. Well, at least there will be vacant positions that I can apply for, or, one can hope so. And that will feel good, to know that I can apply for a job. I have lowered my expectations lately. ok.

so long.

After a visit at a Robinson beach

2007-09-08T18:17:00.000-05:00

Back in civilization, in Caracas after about two and a half days on the beach Cuyagua. Me and my fellow roomies left for the beach thursday morning at six o'clock am. What we thought would be a 4 hour trip turned out to be about 6.5 hours. We used almost all different kinds of public transport there are, except for boat. The day before we had bought a tent and so we were well prepared for some nice days on the beach.
First miscalculation:
- Should we buy food here in Ocumare de la costa (over there in that shop, right there! that has all that food) or wait until we get to the beach?
- Let's wait, surely there will be tiendas with food and fruit at the beach or at least at the little village.
Damn. As it turned out, there was not even the smallest little kiosk at the beach (because we arrived during the week), and after having walked the 30 minutes to the little village, we were very upset to notice that all it had to offer foodwise, were white toasts, tomatoes and salt.
Ok, so we accpted the fact that it would be a hungry stay at the beach, but probably a relaxing one.

Ok, here it will have to come a passus in the story, just to remind myself once again why I don't feel an overwhelming urge to have kids. The two little granddaughters of the nice Hilda (my host) are standing outside our door (two meters away) and playing a game (they just made up) called superman (or atleast that is my own interpretation of its name). The game is: the bigger girl screams (!) SUPERMAAAN and shoots her arm up in the air (just like superman, ok) trying to get the smaller girl (maybe 3 yrs old) to do the same, she soon succeeds... and the game continues for at least 20 minutes. It is in every way a nice game for the two little ones, I am sure, but one I can't understand or relate to, for me it is mostly noise, very loud and annoying noise. These kids... so hard to get.

Just so this post won't take you days to read, I here by continue the main story, the one about the beach...
Once the tents were up we could finally enjoy the sea. It was lovely temperature and great waves. Not that I am a negative soul (considering the above comment) but I do have to say that salty water not is my cup of tea. It gets into my throat and kind of stays there, and after the swim, you don't have that fresh feeling you have after a swim in a river or a lake, no, your body is covered in salt! What is that... but people seem to like it, and it wasn't like I didn't go in again.

Overall it was a very pleasant beach. Many tents were put up underneeth the coconut trees and I met some quite nice venezuelan youngsters. Some of them had been there on the beach for weeks! Crazy! So from then on there was not much to do but to read in the shade, take a swim in the ocean, talk with rasta-guys and... well not more than that actually.
Coconuts fell down from time to time and could just as well have killed someone, but as it all was so tranquil and paradise-like it was of course only charming. And so people showed how to open them up and put a straw into it to drink the water. It is like a gift from nature, and satisfied we stated that: We would survive afterall!!
Although, continuing my negative track, I hate coconuts, in every form and that disgusting water inside the nut was surely not better! Sad to admit that I would be the first to die if we were to be stranded on an deserted island.
So after two hours of this happy unproblematic life I was bored out of my head. It was just too hot and too little distraction. I think we all felt more or less the same, or atleast we all agreed to cut the trip short by one day and return saturday (today) instead! Good decision!

Friday evening I hung with some nice venezulan@s and tried to get there view on their countries political situation.
It was actually quite difficult. When I asked about Chavez they hushed and started to whisper, as something I think was a joke, but still. I do believe it is not completely unproblematic to talk freely out of your heart about C-man, if your ideas are not entirely appreciating.
Atleast from these young people I got support in my opinion about the ridicilous price on petrol. They commented on the fact that the low price is almost the same as giving the petrol away for free and how that doesn't match with our ongoing climate change problem.
I have tried to get a feeling for how big the general interest in politics is among the people here. As from where my own political understandig takes its ground, it is not sustainable to go through with a revolution in the name of "the pueblo" and not have the people engaged in what is happening. Politics and the way it is carried out should be on every ones lips, it should be thoroughly analised and discussed by every person in the country, since everyone will be affected by it.
I have failed big time in my tries to get hold of a news paper, it keeps slipping my mind. I do long for an update in what is going on in the country and how it is reported. My general feeling is that I have met over all people with quite good possibilities to do what they want in life, and they have all been negative to C-man. I'd like to meet the people who in first hand ripe the fruits of his changes. He did get about 67 % of the votings in the last election...
And then another question and concern, why put such hype on yourself while carrying through a revolution? I get the chills. But still as I said, so much remains to be understood about this country, it's politics, it's people and the revolution.
Ok, enough for now with this. There is so much more to say about it but I have written too much already.
The book tip of the month: Kvinnor på gränsen till genombrott, for you who understand swedish. I have gotten a hangup for swedish feminists from the 1920's, they were strong!

So long!

The tents at the beach!

Me on the beach. I am not sucking in the beauty of the ocean, I am thinking, damn it is hot.

The Cuyagua beach from a mountain nearby.

Me posing. I don't know from where I get all these ideas for such stylish positions, but it is quite good, isn't it?!

Arriving in Caracas

2007-09-05T15:03:00.000-05:00

And so here I am, in Caracas in Venezuela. I came yesterday afternoon, it feels very awkward to be here. I have met my two room mates, Kajsa and Petra and I have met Hilda, the lady that we rent our house from.

The night before my early morning flight to Caracas me and Cinthia went to Kastrup, bought a coffee and some chocolate to stay awake and then just waited it out. The only positive thing with leaving to enter that flight was the knowledge that a whole set of american romantic comedies awaited me, but... no. The dissapointment was immense, no film! 9 hours and 20 minutes, we crossed the whole Atlantic ocean, and not one single movie! And even worse, I had to wait about eight hours for a coffee... not that I am supposed to keep that bad bad habit up any longer, but anyways! Isn't that horrific?! Keep away from AirFrance, that's all I have to say!

And then I arrived in what is to be my home for the next months. Green high mountains was the first thing I saw when exiting the airport. And after having been harrassed by different men offering me to change dollars to bolivares I could finally go with the taxi driver who was sent to pick me up by the university. As we are in a rainy period, the rain was pooring down, it was 25 degrees and quite pleasent.

I asked the driver different things about the country and still I refer all my Venezuela-knowledge to his answers!
For example:
What fruits do you have and is it cheap?
The driver: We have all kinds! And yes it is very very cheap! If you like fruit you will love Venezuela!
Lina's comment: Well... as it turned out, fruit is bloody expensive, one apple is about one dollar, I cried blood once I realized this.
How far is Caracas from the ocean?
About 4o minutes.
Great!
How much is the petrol per litre?
Oh, it is very expensive, it costs 97 bolivares.
Hm, ok, it sure depends on what one refers to. This is about 33 öre!
Are there big differences between the different barrios in the city?
Oh yes! Many barrios are very poor. In Venezuela there is so much corruption, everyone is looking for money, that is the problem.
What about the social projcets that Chavez has initiated, are they helping at all?
Chavez is crazy, he is not fulfilling anything. Everyone dislikes him. He will probably not be re-elected. He gives alms to people, but most people don't want to be given money, they want to work to earn their money. He doesn't understand this. And he has not been able to fight the corruption.
Ok, this was when I understod he was an anti-chavista...

Well... I sure will continue my quest. The quest is simply to get an idea of what the venezulan@s think about the bolivarian revolution.

Today, we went to the university Simón Bolívar, where I will be studying biology (marine ecology, etc). It was quite nice, lots of green areas and trees. I have heard that students in Venezuela are very young when they start university, and on this specific university (technical-science and expensive) there are mainly people not supporting the big C-man. The two words within the brackets maybe explain why that is... not showing my prejudices at all.

ok... I will end this now. Tomorrow I will follow Kajsa and Petra to the beach Cuyagua, about 3 hours from Caracas, for a few days. We'll be back sunday. On monday is the introduction for exchange students which we'll be attending.

Now I will check on my kidney beans which are boiling.

The bedroom. My feet. The white door goes out to the living room.

Kajsa and Petra, my roomies. My bed is he middle one. Note the pink sheets!
_
Coming out of the bedroom. This is the living room and the kitchen. Our dining table, and internet corner. The door the entrance and the house that can be seen through the window is Hilda's house.