Don´t Worry, Be Happy

Venezuelan coasts give you a direct access to lovely beaches and that blue Caribbean Sea with stunning spots - for a fantastic Tropical Holiday, take a plane to Los Roques. So Venezuela should, according to Logic, have a Caribbean spirit hovering over there.

In great part this is true. Of course, there is that conquistador thing rushing through minds and hearts..... Venezuelans on the whole are, like their other Latin brethren, easily offended. Like a coin that has two sides, so do Venezuelans, in a way very appropiate for a country at cultural crossroads. You have the Spanish influence with easily flared-up tempers (watch it at times!), but flipping the coin, you´ll find that enormous, warm smile of the Venezuelans, their happy spirits, their boisterous partying and their joking about all things in life.

In that way, they are very similiar to Cubans. Cuba has just celebrated its 50th birthday under a repressive, post-sovietic regime under the Castro brothers, who in their drive to create homo socialisticus have dipped the island into an everlasting poverty. Still, Cubans drive out the bad vibes with their fantastic music and their happy spirits. There is a Cuban song whose refrain goes like: How I´m doing? I´m older than yesterday and younger than tomorrow. For Cubans in general, today is what counts. Today is the real reality.

That pragmatic way of looking at life is found among most Venezuelans. OK, so Caracas is quickly becoming the most violent capital on the planet. And yes, Venezuela has, between military dictatorships, known few good or even decent governments. To many, the only real difference between Chavez and his bourgeois predecessors is that the latter stole and then stepped down, while the former steals and stays on.

But still, Venezuela is a happy country. Problems at home or at work? Venezuelans retreat to the beach, the countryside or that parking lot I spoke about earlier, they set up their BBQ´s, put the domino game on the table, take out that cooler box full of beer out of the 4x4 and enjoy life, guys and gals alike. No serious talk please! Joking around, fooling around, enjoy salsa tunes and find any possibilty to just have a party, or an after-party party. The more grimly reality stares at the Venezuelan, the more happily he will grin back.

How many ordinary Venezuelans are shot to death on Saturday or Sunday night coming home from parties? You read about them every week in the newspapers. It sometimes baffles me how strong the good spirits of these people can be. It must be the true strength of the Venezuelan, his hard core which no corrupt politician nor power-hungry military can ever squash to death. And as I wrote earlier, that Red Grinch has tried it so hard, fearing his Revolution may go off the boil..... still he didn´t succeed. Venezuela kept on partying as well as possible.

If you ever want to experience a country with so much poverty and violence, and yet such high spirits, come to Venezuela. If you can make it in Venezuela, you can make it anywhere. And with a Don´t Worry Be Happy smile, I wish you a pleasant evening from Caracas, the ugliest and yet most wonderful city I know.