DIFFICULT CHANGES | Memoir Monday (Week 16)

I was born in the mid-fifties, a time when in my country the image of progress was everywhere. Great highways and modern high-rise buildings were appearing in cities where there were only one-story houses with tile roofs.

All of this miracle was due to the boost given by the oil industry, which generated gigantic revenues. With that income, the country was being transformed every day and people were living better.

In those years the country was no longer rural, large masses of people were abandoning their traditional activities and moving to the main cities in search of better living conditions.

Caracas was the great center of attention, it was like a magnet that attracted people. The possibility of having a job and good services was the attraction for many people, including my parents, to move to the capital.

And the truth was that the possibilities were real. My father, for example, was an uneducated man, he barely went to elementary school. In the years of his youth he always held modest jobs in public administration agencies. However, that little income was enough to build the family house, educate his children, have a second-hand car and be able to travel on vacations to visit his family who lived in the interior of the country. Thanks to his salary we were never in any kind of need.

One of the most important things in those days was the feeling of security. Security was present in everything and accompanied life. We knew that with the income we received we would never go hungry or in need. It was known that there were schools, high schools and public universities of great quality to educate their children, and that there were sports facilities for leisure and recreation. It was known that in case of illness there were first class hospitals to be treated.

Having all these possibilities made people look to the future with a good face, with confidence. People had their children with the full certainty that things would be better for them, no one was afraid of what might happen in the years to come.

My country in those years was a paradise of opportunities. People came from all over the world, mainly from Europe, where the war had left great destruction. In our streets we began to hear other accents, other languages, we saw different people. The great majority of them integrated with us, many mixed marriages arose and our culture was nourished by the contribution of all of them.

In the mid-seventies I got married and had my family. The country was still kind although poverty was becoming more visible. However, it was a poverty that did not prevent people from living their lives. Even the poorest had the opportunity to have a house, to educate their family and to have quality services.

The sense of security was maintained, people continued to have confidence in the future, they knew that there would be schools, sports fields and hospitals for their children.

This sense of security extended to the elderly, they knew that when they could not fend for themselves help would come from somewhere, there would always be someone to lend a hand, it could be one of their children, a grandchild or any of their neighbors. Everyone had a plate of food and some medicine left over to care for the needy.

In the late nineties everything began to change drastically. A new political model imposed new rules of the game. Life became increasingly difficult and conflictive, and hope for a better future disappeared from our thoughts.

Today my country is completely different from the one I knew in my childhood and youth, and where I raised and educated my children.

And it is not that it has changed only in the aesthetic aspect because the urban physiognomy is different. This is normal in any place, everywhere houses are demolished to make new buildings and widen avenues, everywhere trees are cut down to gain more space for the city.

I am referring to other types of changes that have a greater impact on people's lives.

One of the terrible things that has happened to us is that in the last twenty-five years we have lost confidence in the future. As a consequence, more than eight million Venezuelans have left the country in search of a better future, including three of my children.

People have left here because they are tired of living badly, because they do not have jobs or adequate services, because they do not have schools and hospitals that work. And most seriously, because they know that our freedom is seriously compromised by an arbitrary state that interprets the law at its convenience.

For people like me who have known another way of life, it is difficult to adapt to this new situation. Getting used to living without securities of any kind is a big challenge for anyone, especially when you are getting older.

But as someone once said: here we are and here we remain, and my days are fueled with the hope of being there when things start to change for the better...

I am publishing this post motivated by the initiative proposed by my friend @ericvancewalton, Memoir Monday, in its sixteenth week. For more information click on the link.

Thank you for your time.