Memoir Monday: As a Venezuelan, I have great faith
I was born in December 1973 and I just checked that by that year Aerosmith, Al Green and Barry White, Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen, Deep Purple, Demis Roussos, Elton John were playing on the radios of the world and according to Venezuelan history, that same year Carlos Andres Perez won the presidency, who nationalized the oil in Venezuela, which would make the economic income turn our nation into one of the most prosperous of the 70s.
My parents were among the many Venezuelans who moved from the countryside to the city for a better life. In this coastal city of the country (Cumaná) they settled their bases, formed a family of 5 children and my father tried to bring his whole family from the countryside to the city, hoping that everyone would start to have a life full of opportunities.
The country was living a time of bonanza and was a destination for citizens from other countries who saw Venezuela as the cradle of dreams. With the oil exploitation, there were jobs, business start-ups and foreign investments. Venezuelans were known in the world because when they bought anything they would say: "It's cheap, give me two".
Although we were poor, our parents' work allowed us to have food, clothing, housing and education. Everything that my parents had never had was now offered to us with effort and love. They work daily so that we lack nothing. That is why they always instilled in us that the best way to get what we wanted was through studies, through work, because there was no inheritance.
With this mentality, I studied and graduated with honors at every stage. When I graduated from college, I felt that more than achieving a personal dream, I was making my parents' dream come true: they were seeing the fruit of what they had sown. In 1999, I was becoming the first person in my family to graduate. That was a source of pride for me, but it was also a source of pride for my parents.
My parents, with their working wages, had been able to raise a whole family. My father also had a car and we had a country house to spend the summer in August. This reality made me believe that I could have more than them, according to what I started earning at the beginning as a professor in a public university. So I tried to repay them for everything they had done for me. So I gave them clothes, I gave them a down payment for another house, I paid for plane rides. I gave myself a car and traveled to all the cities in Venezuela, the ones I dreamed of visiting as a child.
But 2000 arrived and with it came the debacle in Venezuela.
With the arrival of Chavism in Venezuela, our nation went from being one of the most prosperous countries in the continent to being one of the worst economically. It is not only corruption, but also embezzlement, idleness, talent drain and hopelessness that have caused us to fall into a 25-year deep and terrifying hole.
This is a decisive year in Venezuela. This year a new president will be elected and I feel that this is the last chance we have to get out of this bad patch that already seems like a punishment. On July 28, all Venezuelans will have the opportunity to take the helm of our country and make it return to the path of prosperity, union and joy: of what we were and should never have ceased to be. Hopefully we have learned our lesson and we understand that only we, with our work and our effort, can move forward. Good times will come, I know that, but if there are prepared people, with good intentions and willing to work, those opportunities will be taken advantage of and multiplied. I have faith...
This is my participation this week for our great friend @ericvancewalton's initiative: Memoir monday. If you want to participate, here's the link to the invitation post
