Learn to fish and hunt: the fight of some Venezuelans to eat

by Margioni Bermúdez / AFP

The fish caught by Juan Maurice is so small that it can only be eaten fried. Exhausted by the Venezuelan crisis, this mason tries his luck with the melting of polluted waters of Lake Maracaibo to take something in his mouth.

Weighed 75 kilos and in the last two years said have lost 16. Of necessity, he tries with his uncle Alfredo to throw an old net that drags about 100 meters, fighting against a muddy surface.

"Today, we can be here and tomorrow, we can be in the forest looking for rabbits or iguanasJuan, 35, told AFP during his work that his emaciated face made him look older.

He had 20 "records" of baby, fish up to 30 centimeters, but his they measure barely eight. They also caught a small blue crab and three sharp fish, whose consumption is unusual.

Juan lived comfortably with his mason and welder salary in this oil-rich region, which once swam in wealth. "Before my salary gave food, to keep, to organize my house, it was for everything", he said, unraveling the fish, but with a halved economy since 2014 and inflation projected by the IMF in 10,000,000% for this year, employment is scarce and there is no pocket to hang on.

That's why she relies on "marañitas" (casual jobs) to bring food to her seven children, "all skinny," she says.

Juan and his family fish in San Francisco, neighboring municipality of Maracaibo, whose coast is covered with constant oil spills, the black gold that abounds in Venezuela as in no other country. "We do not know if that (the agujones of fish) ate or not, but because of the situation, we risk, or to solve something, we eat it"says about the elongated body species and sharp peak.

On a nearby beach, a group of children and young apprentices are also fishing. Hunting for pigeons, rabbits, báquiros or deerbefore a diversion, it is now understood before the impossibility of visiting butchers for high prices, county settlers.

"All in dollars"

Marcy Chirinos crosses the desolate streets of the center of Maracaibo, a few days after the March 7 blackout, the worst that Venezuela has ever seen. Five days of darkness have wreaked havoc in which half a thousand businesses have been looted in the state of Zulia (west).

"Now I have nothing to eatMarcy, who covers his head with an old rag to protect himself from the lacerating sun of this region where power outages represent a decade.

As sweeper of the official town hall of Maracaibo earn the minimum wage, equivalent to six dollars who reach two kilos of meat. "It's not possible for someone to live like that, I have to put dirty clothes because I do not have water and that I can not pay myself for detergent ", he complains. But his biggest burden is the lack of food. Very thin, try to help you feed yourself his five grandchildren, a task almost impossible.

"If they sell something, it's very expensive, rice, flour, so now they want to sell it for dollars, it can not be, where will I find dollars? "asks Marcy dressed in stinking clothes.

The looting has aggravated the difficulties already encountered, as most shops are closed. "The clothes do not fit me anymore," he says with wide, worn trousers. "What we hear (we get) is for children. God makes us a miracle"

"Hunger gives me a headache"

Ana Angulo is considering a row of closed stores in the once flourishing commercial heart of Maracaibo. With white hair, it is difficult to hear because of the softness of his voice. "Look at this loneliness, it's to die for," he exclaims with a sad look that points to the streets where it was once difficult to walk without stumbling. At 77, he does not remember a similar precariousness. "Hunger gives me a headache."

When Hugo Chávez, who presided over the country between 1999 and 2013, lived, he said: "It was not seen." "Chávez gave us, Chávez was very good," he said, complaining of the hunger that his family was suffering due to the intensification of the crisis under Nicolás Maduro's government.

"Hunger is killing you," he says in a muffled voice.

Jaime Romero, 31, dragged her mother into an old wheelchair looking for someone gives them a mouthful. "We have to go out and find who can feed us," he says.

Before dark, Juan Maurice will return to a beach full of trash and traces of oil to try to get a fish or a larger shrimp. "I feel bad because he has never seen me in there, everything is chaotic."