Since there's no title here, there isn't a title that could possibly describe what I'm about to say.
A historic day for the world and especially for all Venezuelans; however, with this post, I’m taking a step back from the overall situation Venezuela is facing in the wake of this earthquake tragedy. Today, I’m here to tell you what a normal, unfiltered day looks like in my daily struggle to achieve personal growth.
It’s already Thursday—it seems unbelievable, but a week has already passed since the tragedy. The hours go by incredibly slowly, but the days don’t seem to move forward at all; it feels like it was just yesterday, and this pessimism, this heaviness, and a general sadness are weighing heavily on all of us. However, if you take a look at my post from over a week ago—the last 10 days, or maybe the last 15 days—you might understand the context of where I’m coming from with this, since I’ve been struggling for months with a situation I don’t know how to resolve.
You’re wondering what this is on the door—you can clearly read “Mayor’s Office” written in Spanish. Here I am at the town hall of the municipality of Ezequiel Zamora, Punta de Mata parish, where I’ve been requesting for six months that my employment be terminated so that I can receive the payment due for my two years of service as a painter—a process that was supposed to be completed so I could then apply for what we call here a “re-hire,” which would be a new contract. But it’s been six months since then, and I still haven’t received my contract or the legal termination notice.
Two months after I stopped performing my duties—because they did not give me the job immediately—they reassigned me to a new position where I worked for only one week because my paperwork had not been entered into the system yet, and working there would have meant working without being paid a single bolívar, which was not ideal for me, much less in this situation. For the past three months, I have been asking for my documents to be returned to me—which is a folder containing a photocopy of my ID, my personal tax ID number (RIF), bank account information, address, phone number, and email address—in short, all my personal information. Today, since I couldn’t continue repairing the roof of my house, I left very early in the morning to find the right people and put an end to this uncomfortable situation.
However, upon arriving at the offices, I was told that my folder is missing—that it has been lost and they have no idea where it might be. In other words, this folder never reached the person it was supposed to, and for this reason, I was never hired.
Already quite upset but trying not to be rude to the staff in charge, I went to the city hall—which you can see in the first photos I’m showing you—to request a suspension of activities once again and to report this new situation.
And there I was, my friend, waiting to be helped while the secretaries chatted among themselves—one was scrolling through TikTok on her cell phone and the other simply ignored my presence—until they finally deigned to attend to me. They asked for my personal information and my email address, told me to look for a password that had been sent to me, provided me with that information, and then had me wait for a system to load—one that, honestly, I know nothing about. I waited for the platform to say “error” after multiple failures, and I’m still waiting until they the power went out—as usual—under the excuse of rationing, which is why, obviously, I couldn’t finish the process, since, as we all know, the computer doesn’t work without electricity. And before anyone reading this thinks to ask about a generator, just imagine asking that question and getting a smile and a sarcastic laugh in response…
And where are the tools needed to remove the rubble that still covers many buried bodies?
My brothers, please forgive my pessimism, but to all those friends out there—believe me—often you get tired of living badly, of being in a bad situation, and knowing that you’re in a bad place only makes the situation worse. But then you realize it doesn’t stop there—it turns into something much worse, to the point where you start dealing with all those three situations of bad things and you start getting used to it, until it gets worse and then even worse and little by little it escalates into an even worse situation. Forgive me for being so negative, but this is the reality we’re living. I feel so tired; I feel mentally exhausted from continuing to be a cockroach in this cell.
But obviously, life goes on and on and on, and we have no other choice but to keep having faith that everything will eventually get better, and to have even greater faith and hope that we will grow—and that, little by little, we’ll take small actions and make small gestures to bring about positive change.
In this last photo, I was on my way back to spend a little money I’d set aside to buy some grease to help strengthen the cement mixture I’ll be using on the roof. I’d like to write this post with a smile, not with tears in my eyes, as I realize that simple things like buying some chicken, rice, or spaghetti have become luxuries that, deep down, we feel we don’t deserve.
It’s practically impossible not to feel so overwhelmed.
Note: All the text in this post was translated using the Deepl app. The photos were taken with my cell phone, as usual, and edited in the EPIK photo editor. And this is just another day in my life.
