Crisis in Venezuela: an impudent contrast between the poor who charge $ 6 a month and the rich "trendy" – 02/02/2019

"It's for the hipsters," said Maite, softening the words with her Caribbean pace and emphasizing a special cut of meat, we poor people have only arpitas and caraotas (black beans).

His eyes danced with the event.

Caracas is an impudent contrast: no more than other cities in Latin America, although the political debate has clarified the differences.

Venezuelans do not know what to do with two presidents who load. Divided by a deep hack, of aversion and resentment, both sides despise each other.

For the Chavists, there is no Juan Guaidó, "the man of the empire". For the rest, Nicolás Maduro is "a usurper" of the office that he banned from the opposition.

There is no forgetting, there is no forgiveness. Utopias strewn with hope.

"The presidency belongs to Guaidó, as head of Parliament, because they were fraudulent elections ─ Judgment Alex González, an unemployed engineer.

I am chaviste and I deeply believe in the process that took place in Venezuela. Now we have the identity. What about Guaidó? screw supported by the United States, "said Felix Rodríguez, a university professor.

In the streets, a daily Venezuela of efforts and demonstrations resists the crisis. This can be seen in houses, bars, transport, places.

The gaps are not total, but devastate the mood of anyone.

The money has almost disappeared. The government does not issue money and ATMs only deliver 2,000 or 3,000 bolivars a day, that is to say no more than 1 dollar. They empty themselves quickly and people are exploding after half an hour of queue.

Everyone uses the debit card, "the point". Even street vendors have signs saying, "Yes, there is a point." This is the only way to sell something.

For foreigners, it is a test because there is no place to exchange dollars and very few receive them.

It's only with the variation that there is, you can not take dollars. Do not have a point?

Caracas is a beautiful city surrounded by hills and temperate climate. But deteriorating infrastructure ruins its landscape.

Shortages are accumulating and plaguing the poorest, who are not all but many … many: 70% of the population lives with a minimum wage of 18,000 bolivars. It's about 6 dollars. 230 Argentine pesos. Per month.

You have to make the comparison with the prices of the necessities to understand such a reality. When there are products, because although the shortage has been reduced, it is still present.

A kilo of potatoes costs 7,200 bolivars, a bottle of oil 1,500, a box of eggs 12,000, a kilogram of flour 3,000 …

The salary disappears in the first days of the month. That's the magic of Maduro Rit Rosamarys, black-skinned and white-toothed, while doing business in a mall.

In many pharmacies and premises, you can see the long shelves with products ingeniously placed for disguise the whites.

This is the most dramatic side. There are no supplies in hospitals (no gauze, bandages), no medicine, no baby milk.

Chronic patients live in constant fear. Renan, 68, is diabetic but lucky: he can travel to Spain once a year to buy the insulin he needs in a year. The others, the poor, have no way out.

Evelisse studied communication sciences, tourism and languages. Another chance: he works in a four-star hotel. And yet:

"Yesterday I went to the pharmacy because I needed something," he says. The shampoo, bought 1,500 bolivars last week, was 10,000. An 8,000 rinse cream, and I'd bought it at 2,000. How will I pay that with what we charge? I went home and told my mother, "I'm sad, I can not buy anything."

Miguel is 22 years old. Work in an expensive bar: each consumption of his clients doubles his salary. He serves you the sugar and quickly removes the pot. There is no place for generosity when the shortage is great.

To go to your work, take the subway:

In recent years, it is a disaster. You have to wait a lot and sometimes it stops like 10 or 15 minutes in the train stations. There are a lot of broken trains; They do not have how to fix them.

Venezuelans have already resigned themselves to the poor functioning of services. The Argentines believe us at the center of the evils of the universe, but theirs is more real and less ombliguista.

In Maracaibo, we are lit up 4 hours a day. And they turn: sometimes in the morning, sometimes in the afternoon or at night. It's like that every day, Eddie complains on his way to work. I do not have running water for one year. We buy water from the truck (tanker).

The spare parts are gone. Cars, motorcycles, machines of all kinds.

The big hotels have 3 or 4 elevators as a result. Works only 1. Or up to 2, when technicians build a spawn with used spares. The cars are stopped for months.

But there is another world in Venezuela. The one of "the plugged".

It's an ironic nickname that is said to almost spit, with contempt. They are the "new rich": Chavism-related entrepreneurs and merchants who make their fortunes through the privileges of belonging to the ruling elite.

It is they who have accepted the preferential dollars granted so long by the government, under the pretext of importing what is necessary.

One of the known operations thanks to the famous Panama Papers (the filtering of documents revealing endless financial irregularities) was to open companies in different tax havens to simulate exports. They have increased the price more and more, for the purpose of overpaying. And so they received more government dollars. The difference they made between the preferential dollar and the black market is catastrophic.

Today, they cross Caracas in imported vans, obviously shielded, and send their drivers or their caretakers to do their shopping.

In a small city of the capital, a "preferential" trader, you can see how the girls and women of "the plugged" buy pieces of meat sealed under vacuum to exclusive foreign butchers, pasta imported from Italy , Mediterranean salt, anchovies Caviar Iberian, red and black or ham from Parma; Fathers and husbands usually receive a luxurious French alcohol: bottles of Pétrus wine or champagne Möet & Chandon.

The contrasentido and the absurd, far from the Bolivarian revolution. The incongruity left by corruption. And surely for them there will be neither forgetting nor forgiveness.

Caracas. Correspondent.