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Yes, Caracas is degraded, there are lines to buy food and indigents on the streets, drugs are missing, inflation explodes and lack of vital money is a reality that makes everyday life a martyrdom. There are also fewer people on the streets, in the image of the diaspora that has expelled more than 3 million people from the country.
This Christmas will not be defeated, however. As Dr. Tatiana Drummond says amidst the hundreds of malnourished children at the Caracas University Hospital, "Christmas is for the Venezuelans what the carnival is for the Brazilians".
"Even those in the worst conditions will find a way to celebrate."
That is why the image of the city at this time of year causes strangers to the visitor. Beside collapsed walls marked by bullets, old motorcycles flying over worn asphalt and commercial establishments – commercial activity has fallen by more than 40% over the past two years – Christmas ornaments appear on each side.
In shopping malls you will find the "luxury", with lights that illustrate the arrival of Santa Claus on his sleigh and illuminates several blocks without light at night due to power outages. But each house, rich or poor, also has a kind of ornament.
It can be a traditional tree decorated with bowls, a cardboard Santa clinging to the door, and even in the neighborhoods most affected by the crisis, drawings of Children and improvised ornaments are organized.
The celebration is not unanimous at the time. humanitarian crisis. "We should focus on more important things, catch the world's attention on the death of our children," said another doctor, Franco Uchoa, who works in a private clinic.
But the security of a busy dance house in Chuao is not in agreement. It tells the story of Folha a graffiti on the wall in front of the disco, and the second is there for a few years, where it is written: "While people are dying, you are in to dance the rumba. "
Users and site owners have already deleted the phrase dozens of times, she says, but it reappears. "It's uncomfortable for those who wait all week for fun and stop thinking about the craziness we live in. Leaving the ball and feeling insulted to dance for a few hours is a bad thing," thinks.
"In the case of Christmas, something similar happens, but as Afonso Cuerda, 42, says," no one is in the Caribbean, even in disgrace, we like to party, "the official said. who did not want to identify, wants to help, especially in front of the children ".
"They do not need to know how much horror occurs, especially at Christmas, a magical night.My parents gave it to me throughout my childhood, I will do the same for my children. "
Cuerda is a real estate agent and says his rental sector has been shut down for months. Nevertheless, on a Saturday afternoon, he was looking for gifts for his two children aged 6 and 4 in a promotional store in Libertador.
Not everyone will be present at this dinner. It is difficult to find a Venezuelan who does not have a close relative or a friend who is out of the country.
"From one side, it's fine, without the money sent by my son, he would not have hocked this year," says Luis Felipe. We read, 45 years old, private driver. And he adds that his Christmas will be "cybernetic". "We are going to spend a good part of the night, my wife and I, talking to our kids: one is in Miami, the other in Spain and the youngest is with us.
Jairo Luna is another video call. Officer of the Municipality of Sucre, in the metropolitan area of Caracas. "My wife, my children and my grandchildren are in Colombia, I will spend the night talking to them on the computer, drinking rum and sleeping."
Who can, will join the friends who are went out, like the chef Morella Atencio.
"I'm going to Europe, of course I'm excited – holidays, parties, friends – but it gives me a lot to know that I'm leaving the country as it is." It ends up giving incredible nostalgia, even knowing that things are so ugly here. "
In general, among those who leave (momentarily or momentarily), one hears mostly guilt and sadness towards parents and grandparents, something that becomes more pronounced at the end of the year.
"How am I going to take my mother, who has Alzheimer's disease, somewhere?" It will be uncomfortable for her, I will go and she will stay with the guardian. but what to do? "says filmmaker Fina Torres, whose rest of the family is in Mexico.
In a Christmas tree shop from Rio de Janeiro Avenue in Miranda, the attendant says that sales are declining year by year.
"We were selling natural and valuable trees, some imported, so we started to work with more trees in mind.Minor or plastic.The idea is that whoever comes can take at least one ornament." Christmas for the Venezuelans can not stop celebrating. "
She, who did not even want to pronounce her name, claims to be depressed when she frequents a family that can not even buy a door ornament.
"It does not matter if one compares with refugees or repression, those horrible things that Venezuela goes through, but see the sad look of an old man who realizes that he does not will not be able to decorate his house for visiting grandchildren, or a child cheated by a Santa's doll that the father explains that he does not have the money to buy, he cuts the heart "
The solution that she brought to the house. Before going to the store, she prepares with her mother some treats that she leaves on a tray at the entrance. "I say take it for free at least not to leave with a bitter taste in your mouth."
The absence of people in the streets of Caracas becomes more marked at this time of the year
during the previous Christmas holidays, it is impossible to pbad near the shopping centers in front of the mbad of buyers.
Today, the traffic is free, there are many bicycles; the stores are displaying clearance posters and more people are watching than it is needed. Most places close early for security reasons.
In a corner of Bolivar Square, the report revealed that a boy insisted on hitting a melody on a clarinet.
"My loved ones have the feeling that I do not realize that everything is wrong, but I know it," says Jeison Perera, 15, who studies in one of the orchestras of the Venezuelan public education system that is resisting crisis. "That's why I repeat, they do not know it, but I'm going to play on the 24th at dinner, I think I'm going to cheer up my parents and grandparents, that will be my gift."
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