My last entry was pretty useless, so I´ll try to write something more interesting today.
There is an indigenous population living here in Maracaibo - the Guajiros. (In the song about Cuantanamera they sing about Guajiro Cuantanamera). They have their own language and culture and live between Maracaibo and Colombia and in Colmobia. They are respected, or I've heard that it can turn ugly if you mess with the Guajiros, but they tend to be doing the low paid jobs around. Our cleaning lady, for example, is Guajiro. Their craftmaniship is highly valued, they make beautiful hammocks amongst other things, and I heard that they own land and are therefore somewhat powerful. However, the Guajiro area is the poorest in Venezuela, as far as I know. An interesting detail about the Guajiro culture is that it is the women who make the big decicions in the family, like whom the son/daughter is going to marry etc.
Maybe I'll attempt to address the higly sensitive topic of politics more thoroughly some day, but to all those unaware, there will be elections in December (13.12 I think). Basically there are two camps: those for and those against Chavez. I guess the biggest cadidate against Chavez is the governor of Zulia (Arturo Morales or something, I´m ashamed to admit that I don't know his name). Maracaibo is situated in Zulia so seems like Maracaibo might have a big role in the elections. People have said that this is the last chance to get Chavez out of power before he turn Venezuela into a communist country. Sofar no one I´ve heard has been indifferent to the topic and for sure emotions will be heated when december approaches.
Well, I better go and try to get some sleep. My landlord is redoing her bathroom so I´ll have to be prepared to the arrival of workers (and no running water) tomorrow morning. So I have to wake up early to shower and probably I´ll go straight to work instead of hanging arund the house and listen to the process off tiles being removed from the wall. In addition, as if I would not feel miserable enough with my cold, the airconditioning in my room decided to brake down. Well, I know that I´m not supposed to be sleeping with the airconditioning on but there are some nasty insects (small mosquitos) which didn't like the air condidtioning and are now settling in my room. I´ll never say that I hate airconditioning again.
There is an indigenous population living here in Maracaibo - the Guajiros. (In the song about Cuantanamera they sing about Guajiro Cuantanamera). They have their own language and culture and live between Maracaibo and Colombia and in Colmobia. They are respected, or I've heard that it can turn ugly if you mess with the Guajiros, but they tend to be doing the low paid jobs around. Our cleaning lady, for example, is Guajiro. Their craftmaniship is highly valued, they make beautiful hammocks amongst other things, and I heard that they own land and are therefore somewhat powerful. However, the Guajiro area is the poorest in Venezuela, as far as I know. An interesting detail about the Guajiro culture is that it is the women who make the big decicions in the family, like whom the son/daughter is going to marry etc.
Maybe I'll attempt to address the higly sensitive topic of politics more thoroughly some day, but to all those unaware, there will be elections in December (13.12 I think). Basically there are two camps: those for and those against Chavez. I guess the biggest cadidate against Chavez is the governor of Zulia (Arturo Morales or something, I´m ashamed to admit that I don't know his name). Maracaibo is situated in Zulia so seems like Maracaibo might have a big role in the elections. People have said that this is the last chance to get Chavez out of power before he turn Venezuela into a communist country. Sofar no one I´ve heard has been indifferent to the topic and for sure emotions will be heated when december approaches.
Well, I better go and try to get some sleep. My landlord is redoing her bathroom so I´ll have to be prepared to the arrival of workers (and no running water) tomorrow morning. So I have to wake up early to shower and probably I´ll go straight to work instead of hanging arund the house and listen to the process off tiles being removed from the wall. In addition, as if I would not feel miserable enough with my cold, the airconditioning in my room decided to brake down. Well, I know that I´m not supposed to be sleeping with the airconditioning on but there are some nasty insects (small mosquitos) which didn't like the air condidtioning and are now settling in my room. I´ll never say that I hate airconditioning again.
posted by Larubia at 6:11 PM
1 Comments:
Why are you not supposed to sleep with airconditioning? That's the only time I usually use it. Well, during the summer. I have the heat on now. :)
Ah- politics. Sometimes it's nice to be a foreigner. :)
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