Sick day

I'm the worst at staying still when I am supposed to rest on a sick day. Today I only made two new things, but both were deliciosos!

Hot Lemonade: a cinnamon stick plus honey, juice from 2 lemons, 1/2 lemon sliced thin, and hot water. The hot lemon is the perfect response to a cold/sick day. And cinnamon is known for increasing both heat and hunger within the body. So that feature and plus the name Hot Lemonade makes it amazing.

Choux de bruxelles aux lardons

(Brussel sprouts with lardons and golden raisins)

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Everytime I make a dish with foreign origins, I'm going to refer to it in its native tongue. The goal of the inexperienced, insecure cook is to impress people, and when you say things in another language, people really think they're being treated, even if the translation of your creation is celery. For example, "I'm making you boeuf bourguignon" sounds slightly more enticing than, "I'm making you beef burgundy." Also, I think it shows respect for the identity of the dish. Highlighting its uniqueness in this way helps me savor a feast.

A New Lurve

I never really understood friends who stayed in and cooked all the time. I also felt condescending sympathy (the kind only a 22-year-old can feel) for women who traveled abroad, fell in love and then eventually moved back home. I couldn’t imagine when boarding a plane and waking up in an unfamiliar place could possibly trump staying in one place.

I found that exact moment: it’s when the smell of recycled plane air becomes so nauseatingly familiar that the last thing you want to do with vacation time is hand your ticket to a stewardess and bid adieu to fresh air for 14 hours to arrive hallucinating, but just awake enough to realize that your only bag with clean underwear actually boarded the connecting flight to Cote d’Ivoire.

Four years later, with half-destroyed suitcases tucked quietly under my bed, I would much rather stay in on most nights to squint at flour-dusted cookbooks, admire the fleshy redness of a tomato, and clumsily drop eggplant slices into crackling oil, all to the sound of Jacques Pépin on YouTube telling me how his fresh pesto is just Heaven.

It’s probably a mix of cold weather plus the nesting bug, a term Mom uses with restrained delight since I left a travel-heavy job that culminated with voicemails like, “I’m flying home tomorrow and can’t tell you the flight number because this phone is tapped, and I don’t want to get arrested at immigration.” But I just spent an entire Saturday reading about why lean meat would be a mistake for slow-cooked stews and why chocolate, in spite of its heaviness, rises just as effortlessly as other ingredients in a properly-orchestrated soufflé. And I lurrrrved every minute.

The Phenomenon

Many foreigners come to Caracas and are swept away by what Giulio and Miguelangel call The Phenomenon.
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The Phenomenon is, in my interpretation, an insensitive, starry-eyed fascination with this country’s president, his followers, his outrageous claims; and also the levels of crime, inflation, and other aspects of present-day Venezuela that depress locals to the point where, when people say, Did you hear what he did today!? the only response is: I don’t want to know.

Another friend says that Venezuelans have experienced crisis fatigue for a while now. They are not outraged by, but rather tired of the threats and breaches of trust bucketing down on them from their leader. So that’s why I think The Phenomenon discussions are somewhat disrespectful: its followers come to Caracas and quickly arrive at brazen and superficial conclusions about the status of things, then have a neatly wrapped story to send home about how “crazy and wrong” things are “over there.” It’s insensitive because it’s a frustrating / difficult-to-escape reality for some, and for others, a passing topic of conversation, kinda like what bar you went to last night.

It’s also too easy to criticize The Phenomenon up and down; all the “shocking” observations are predictable and all the political themes are “sexy” as we love to say in the development world.

I recently read the NYTimes’ opinion piece on Japan’s “dysfunctional and troubling” hostess culture. Below is the one comment on it that rang true for me:

Analyzing Japan’s social customs is a silly and somewhat arrogant endeavor. Lefacido (sic) Hearn’s books and comments started it all and everyone since chimes in as if their comments register with someone somewhere in Japan. They don’t.

While I think the individual plight of a human being who is forced to sell her sexuality should be made known to a wide audience, I’m bothered by criticism of a culture as it presently is, as if any single person’s standard of cultural judgment is the correct one. I myself am guilty of this all the time (see: this blog). And while all traveling humans experience culture shock in some form, this is a call to all us expats to please keep The Phenomenon discussion to a (bare) minimum. As in, please do not discuss it or I will awkwardly interupt the conversation by asking what bar you went to last night.

L'ultimo Bacio

Last night Giulio and I watched a lovely Italian movie rife with emotional running and screaming (which, as Giulio told me, is common for Italian films. Love it.). Its callled L'ultimo Bacio, a dramatic comedy with exquisitely gorgeous Italian women and their soon-to-be-a-father-angst ridden beaus, older couples lamenting their lack of passion, and other relationship/ life transition themes expressed through more screaming and running.

The actresses have luxurious names like Giovanna, and the men love yelling about their feelings in a way that's neither annoying nor threatening (lots of vaciliating between "TI AMO!!" and "TI ODIO!!"). It's the perfect mix of light--but realistic--drama plus comedy, and it inspired me to learn more Italian, if only to emulate the characters' hot-temepered convos.

1950 comes to Caracas

I just read a book that I (wishfully) thought would be a constructive critique of cuaimas, but is actually a full blown celebration of the cuaima.

If, in 300 years, an alien comes to Venezuela and reads this book, it will think that the life of a woman passes no further than her house, her child’s school, and her church; and that her self worth depends entirely on making her children lunch and ironing her husband’s shirts. The author forgets to feed herself breakfast while making elaborate meals for her husband and children, labels her plastic surgeon a “magical god,” and seeks guidance from a priest who informs her that the habits of her egoistic and alcoholic husband are something for which she needs to “be stronger.” And that the "strong" friends she really needs are the one that also cry when she goes to them with repeated sob stories about her husband’s behavior.

The narrator’s “breakthrough” moment is when she realizes that she doesn’t need to “clean what is already clean” (como se le occure hacer eso??); and that she can, in a motion of self discovery, take a walk outside with her friend, go window shopping at the mall, or go to the gym to pursue a “beauty routine.” Amazingly, even if she does not clean the house that day and pursues these “independent activities,” the house will still probably be as clean as it was yesterday--so worry not.

Throughout the book I found myself hoping for a sign that it was all a farce; that the author understood the nature of her codependent existence and wrote all that drivel as a form of mockery, or at least as the "what not to do" section of a corny advice column, or that the book was a reprinted version of the 1950 edition, but no.

I recently had a discussion with gringas and venezolanas about dating/ gender stereotypes here. Highlights:

-One friend was asked by an older woman, on three separate occasions, if her boyfriend was indeed single and not married to someone else.

-After getting a haircut, one friend was complimented that if her boyfriend was married, he would leave now indeed leave his wife for her. Congratulations.

-One friend's mother regularly tells her that if she does not stay pretty and cuidar a su novio, then he will unquestionably leave her.

But alas, things are the way they are, and no point in getting pissed off about them. Off to bed.

Craigslistia dreaming

The agua is out in my office again, making today one of the days I daydream (via craigslist ads) about life in the US of A. We still don’t have any contract news, so life in New York is the only somewhat concrete plan I have to cling to.

I idealize New York so much. I like the accessibility of anything I want to do or learn (while in the dreamy NY Public Library). And cheap dance studios in every neighborhood. And being able to walk around and get lost. And being able to flush a toilet without fearing the menacingly motionless toilet response signaling that no hay agua.

And the mix of people, from anorexic supermodels to budding actors /musicians /painters, “prairie” hipsters, geeky foreign professors, money grubbing finance guys, and people speaking languages I can’t recognize and cooking food I didn't know was edible. I have this idea that NYC has many people who are extreme versions of whatever they want to be, and they all seem to coexist on that tiny island (plus boroughs) in a hectic, but delightful, way.

I'm also still toying with the idea of a delicious and financially-irresponsible long weekend trip to Paris. My heart still irrationally beats for gay ole Paree in the way it wishes the euro would drop below $1.20 again.

Fun with names

Courtesy of the sandwich shop, the following are examples of creative Venezuelan interpretations of my name from this week:

- Herrín

- Erílyn

- Eileen

- Edy

- Helen

Silver lining to my bug

Something about recovering from my fifth (or sixth...?) stomach bug has made me feel inordinately grateful for my job and the opportunity to be in Venezuela. I was putting fresh sheets on my bed earlier (a task one can only enjoy after being horizontal in bed for 50+ hours) and heard Don Omar's latest Virtual Diva (from the album iDon) float in from a neighbor's window, when I felt a rush of nostalgia for my life here. I'm a bit heartbroken by the idea that I might be forced to move away if our contract isn't renewed in a few months.

Though I will not miss the bimonthly stomach bugs, I will miss the special things about Venezuela that have made me enjoy life more. I really like the focus on today instead of the thirty-year plan, celebration and appreciation of family, the freedom of spontaneous emotional expression, the humor that is a bit more bitingly funny than what I find at home, the attention to home-cooked meals, and the always perfectly breezy evenings.

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In any place, including my original home, there are things I want to focus on and enjoy in this culture, and other things I've simply grown to accept but not really adore. The things I've merely learned to live with include the lawlessness, lack of accountability, inflation, thick traffic, and anxiety-causing crime levels. Also, when hot tempers surface, I get awkward and bug-eyed, which totally ruins my chances of genuinely responding in kind.

Beauty school

I just returned from Giulio’s graduation and in the midst of teary parents, moving faculty speeches, and thoughts about life transition markers, my mind kept returning to one thing: judgement.

I was reminded of how important school prestige is in the U.S. And the fact that since I moved to Caracas, the question, “So where did you go to school?” has only come up amongst gringos, not locals.

Which school you attend is also important here, and people certainly judge you by it, but not nearly as ruthlessly as people in the U.S. do. It is so important in the U.S.that colleges have essentially turned into businesses—you pay (a lot) for the name—and which college you’ll attend is in some areas a serious topic of conversation as early as age 11.

Lots of people in the U.S. think they know everything about you once they learn your alma mater, or what you do for a living. So that is our superficial standard for judging strangers.

As I sat in the audience watching heads of luxuriously shiny hair proceed down the degree line, I realized that the only near-equivalent here is beauty. I’ve met many Caraqueños raised to understand that a good-looking person, especially a woman, is successful in ways that supersede her appearance alone. You can (irrationally) extrapolate information about a beautiful person in the same way people in the U.S. (irrationally) extrapolate information about a Harvard graduate.

In Caracas, people think they will get everything they want in life if they are beautiful, and it is a perfectly logical goal to do whatever you can to become more beautiful, even if that quest involves painful surgery and spending hours at a salon on a more than frequent basis.

In the U.S. the reaction to such decisions would be you must have nothing between your ears if you spend so much time on that, and therefore I don't want to talk to you, but the common response here is: good for you—you have direction in life and you must know something about how to get ahead that I don't know, so please, let's meet for a coffee. And if you don’t take care of your appearance, then you are not quite as worthy of adoration and respect; most likely poor at handling life in general.

That's not to say that you'll fail at life if you are ugly here, but Caracas is arguably the worst place in the world to be ugly, in the same way Concord, Massachusetts is the worst place in the world to not be accepted at a Top Ten college.

Office magnet

Today we’re having a special lunch at the office: pabellón criollo, a delicious and satisfying Venezuelan staple.

Around 11:30, a magnetic force seems to have drawn all men from their respective stations and into the finance room; all women towards the kitchenette. The women are immersed in a giggly flurry of arepa/rice/beans/plátano/carne mechada preparation while the men, hungry and chatting across the hallway, lean against file cabinets in an untroubled way that says “I am a man.”

Handcuffs

In an unexpected turn of events, Lost has increased my cultural awareness in Spanish-speaking countries. Sawyer was mid-arrest by the Others when the word esposas came up as a subtitle. (Huh? Alrighty. I must have missed something, because esposa means wife, and there is no wife in this scene; and nor is Sawyer married, because he would never settle down like that.)

Then it happened again: Ponle las esposas!

(Put the wives on him?? What are we talking about?)

Indeed! the translation for handcuffs is the same as the Spanish plural for "wife."

Before my brain delved into the sociological significance of this translation, it took a brief but important detour, in which I imagined two doll-sized but life-like trophy wives in red Jessica Rabbit dresses wrapped around Sawyers wrists.

Apparently, the words share the same etymological root: the latin word spondere, which means to promise.

Even with this academic explanation, I had a hard time wrapping my brain around the idea that these two words are IDENTICAL. But it actually makes some sense in Venezuela, where the term cuaima is popular.

Cuaima literally means "snake," but in Venezuela it more commonly refers to a woman who, according to my googling, is "trained since childhood to screw men over and to be suspicious, jealous, possessive, manipulative, dominating, controlling, fear-inducing."

If I, as a theoretical man, had committed my life to a wife with those traits, I might also theoretically feel imprisoned.

Jacobo

Jacobo doles out bread at the panadería on the corner of my street. The inside of his mouth reminds me of the surface of scraggle rock—jagged stones spurting from the earth and fighting for space amongst themselves. This arrangement makes him sound like he has marbles in his mouth. So in addition to the fact that he speaks very fast Spanish, each word that leaves his mouth is first subject to sound editing by the zigzag of teeth that block its exit.

When he speaks to me at the store, I squint my eyes and tighten the skin on my face, creating a buffer for words to reach my ears as directly as possible. He repeats phrases two or three times, but never changes his pace or enunciation—for example, “Ji ute ta busano ao mevisas,” which roughly translates to: “Ifa looin summin lemmenah.”

On the rare occasions when I do understand his words, they often paint the picture of a personal experience or acquaintence that I have no capacity to understand in the immediate way he implicitly requests. It reminds me of the way three-year-olds yell out to their mothers in excitement about the picture they’re drawing and ask, “Isn’t it pretty!?” when their mother is downstairs doing laundry.

Lost in traducción

A few days ago, Giulio sent me history's best on-screen bilingual interview. I've now watched it 25 times and feel a need to share with all you Spanish speakers:


What makes this interview is the confidence and authority with which the interviewer BS's her way through all translated responses. She could be saying that the sky is fuscia, and clouds are made of cotton candy; but her body language and intonations suggest she just returned from Harvard's campus, where she completed a two-week long fact-checking mission to substantiate her claim. I have no doubt she will be successful, if not annoying, in life because of that.

Upon being asked, "What is your favorite part of Venezuela?" the musician responds:

"Um.. The people, of course."

Her translation:

"Ok, he tells me that Venezuela hasn’t changed much, that what he likes the most are the landscapes and the motos thats he’s had the opportunity to see on the streets and highways of Caracas. Anyway, very little has changed and he hasn’t had the opportunity to see much."

Earth's growing pains

Last night, all of Caracas experienced a terremoto. I would describe it like being in a small ship at high sea, attacked from underneath by five sharks on sugar highs. When it happened, I was in the midst of yet another outrageous dream involving Lost characters, so it seemed appropriate at the time.

Soup

Being sick in Venezuela is not that bad, because people here are great at taking care of others, especially the weirdos like me who live alone. My boyfriend brought me lovely soup and arepas last night, and another woman made chicken soup for me today. It was so delicious that I just had to know how she made it.

As soon as she started with "you just throw in xyz..." and not "boil water for 15 minutes then add 1/4 cup of onion" I knew I had no chance of replicating this sensation of a meal. But I smiled and told her I "can't wait to make it!!" anyway.

Pintando

Friends Anais and Andreina introduced me to Caracas' regular Mercados de Diseño. Fabulous. Like everything else in Caracas, the goods at the Mercado are ridiculously overpriced, but it's a field day for crafts ideas.

We saw some really colorful painted lampshades, which caused me to run home and round up all the white lampshades in my apartment like cattle awaiting their multicolored salvation.

Painting them with watercolors is especially divertido:

Who doesn't like an unfair and biased comparison?

Its been a while since I cracked the writing whip and I’m bored as H right now, so I’m going to do a little review of life in the USA vs Caracas.

Positives about living in the USA:

1) I don’t worry my pants off upon accidentally swallowing tap water or getting a mosquito bite.
2) I can be a vegetarian without withering into a shadow of a human being for lack of imitation meat and tofu.
3) Easier to be a shady McShadster (I can walk places alone at night).
4) I can have a conversation with anyone and not wonder what exactly we are discussing.
5) U.S. prices for most goods are half the Venezuelan prices, so I can easily convince myself that I am actually SAVING money instead of spending it with every hack of the credit card.
6) Extravagant and gorgeous free public libraries.

The positives about living in Caracas are a bit more difficult to pin down and have more to do with my general sense that Venezuelans are a happier bunch than gringos.

Granted, they know how to make themselves miserable just like the rest of us. I realized on a Miami-DC plane, though, that all the gringos were mired in a cloud of their own late-winter anguish and didn’t want anyone to bother them while sitting in it (hence the blackberry/Economist/headphones combo).

Venezuelans are much more sociable—on planes, on buses, in lines, on street corners, in tow-trucks (during Carnaval, for example, Giulio got to the heart of our truck driver’s recent near death experience within 15 minutes of meeting said gentleman).

Sometimes I think they have an unlimited capacity for social interaction, which probably has to do with the fact that they live with their families until marriage. Alone time doesn’t seem to be quite as valued.

I’ve finally adjusted to most of the Venezuelan value system and the only problem is that I now severely judge others in a way I never thought possible: beau-tay.

A woman sitting in front of me on the plane had slightly unbrushed hair and no makeup. In a most shocking and upsetting moment, the following serious judgement crossed my mind: Her hair is so...not shiny.

"SI" wins

Results were announced earlier than expected last night—54.5% of voters support the removal of presidential term limits in Venezuela, while 45.6% oppose it. Chavez can now be re-elected for life.

My opposition friends seem devastated in a personal way, as if this means the loss of a country they love, because it will only lead to an increase in its negative aspects such as crime and rampant inflation. Some feel that those who voted "SI" are ignorant and naïve for giving this government so much power.

They say they're depressed, shocked, and angry--that there’s “no way back.” Everyone has Facebook here, and people are using it as an outlet to express how disappointed they are in the 32% of fellow Venezuelans who didn’t vote, lamenting that “cada pueblo tiene el gobierno que se merece.”

We saw the opposite reaction at a Chavista rally, however, right after the results were announced. People danced on top of moving SUVs, cramming into the backs of trucks and stroking passing cars with endless rows of “SI” banners. We also saw caravan after caravan of guys on motorcycles with red bandanas placed over half of their faces, revolucionario-style.

One of the older Chavista women who is always at the same corner on Ave. Francisco de Miranda was wearing a red sparkly hat and red spandex pants to compliment her bright red hair. We saw overjoyed hugs and watched reverentially silent crowds huddle around a small TV to witness their idol's post-win speech.

I was personally starting to align Chavez with really persistent men who get repeatedly rejected for dates without noticing or caring, but this was a big win for him.

Fireworks at dawn

I awoke at 5:30 a.m. to massive fireworks exploding in front of el Avila. At first, I thought it was either gunshots or the birthday of a socialite who’d gotten too drunk to set them off at a reasonable hour. Then Giulio reassured me it was the government, encouraging citizens to get up and vote because today is the Big Day.

From a foreigner's point of view, it’s exciting to see a huge capital city rallied like that in a positive way, regardless of the political side of the impetus.

Early morning fireworks over Caracas.

I am, however, secretly relishing that my immigration status relieves me of the duty to stand in line for five hours to cast my vote.

All who vote here must stick their pinky finger in purple ink that doesn’t come off for several days (I don’t know how the beauty-obsessed women deal with it). The specially-engineered ink is a way of ensuring that people don’t vote twice with fake IDs, but I think it’s also a social symbol in a country where people have such extreme views about politics. I don’t know any Venezuelans who come out of an election day without that stamp of participation, and I wouldn't want to be subject to the ridicule a non-purple pinky would spark.

It’s not raining, those who live in the poorer cerros won’t have as much trouble descending from their steeply positioned homes to voting areas. It seems participation will be high in major cities.

The decision on whether or not the president, governors, and mayors are no longer subject to term limits should come back late tonight.

Entrapment

Floating in a sea of slow walkers: this is the Caracas sidewalk. I glance around tensely and see only relaxed arms, slow gaits and drawn out conversations. I find my leader—a random stranger. But he is brave, and probably really late for work; he understands my frustration. I nearly latch onto him, a sweet freedom in this sea of oppressively slow movers. His haste creates a path of liberation as we glide through the dawdling crowd.

We arrive at the stoplight. I am silently grateful, while he is still oblivious to his role as my sidewalk leader. I smell autonomy, seconds away—the light reaches its final yellow moments. Red will come and I will launch myself onto the temporarily open road. Prepárate.

But the Chavistas smell that open road first: I am quickly enveloped by red shirts and signs instructing stopped cars to vote SI. A monstrously large poster, a horn, two jumping ralliers, five men rushing into the streeet carrying a banner: SI SI SI SI! two students with red hair shouting UH!AH!

I reach the other side, defeated and entangled once more in the languid crowd.