To my loving town Cabimas, memories of splendid times
I have read blogs of people who miss their places of birth, they talk about their towns, the cities where they were born, they talk about how beautiful they are, about their native culture, about typical foods etc ... And that tells me that they are full of family affection.
Family love has to do with the place where we have lived, where we have grown up, the place that we long for its customs and traditions, for our first friends. That is why I think that we don't miss home where we have lived because it is beautiful, or because it has the most splendid or beautiful places We associate places with experiences with our families, friends and surroundings.
We can say that a place is beautiful, that is the best in the world, but if we don't associate that place with the memory of loved ones, whether they are friends or family, it is an empty memory. Who does not remember a walk to the most beautiful beach associated with loving friends or family who accompanied you? The human factor and feelings give life to those moments. Without those two factors you just contemplated it and the place remains there, but we carry with the feelings everywhere we go.
Love has a great importance in our memories, and to be able to associate feelings with places it is crucial for our well being the rest of our life. I know of young people or even children who have had to leave the place where they were born and raised, and the main reason why they don´t want to move to another place it is always because they don´t want to leave their grandparents, uncles, teachers, friends and classmates, the river, the entertainment , the traditions etc. All these things they have enjoyed in their sphere of action, and they don´t want to abandon them because they are part of their lives.
Two of my grandchildren went to live in Mexico and the drama we experienced was not pleasant at all, they didn´t want to leave without us and they held our hands and begged us to go with them. They never cried because they left the house, the toys, their bed, they wanted to continue having the family life they have had until that moment, in fact they always ask us when we are going to move to Mexico.
It is important in a society that people will be the most important thing. We can´t miss material things as the most valuable belonging. When you go away from home you will always want to return. If you miss the arepas, you do not miss the arepas, you miss those that your grandmother prepare, and so with all things. The human part plays a very important role in family relation.
Memories from my loving Cabimas
I was born in the city Cabimas, and grew up in that place. When I was a child this place was not pretty, it was full of weeds, goats, donkeys, and it was the hiding place for people who followed the goverment of dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez, in fact my mother rented the house of one of his followers and later she bought it from the state because they never claimed it, they disappeared because the new democratic governent were persecuting them.
Cabimas was transforming into a city with the passage of time. Its houses were made of zinc and tables called ranchos. It has a big population of trees called Cabimos, and that is why the spaniards gave the name of Cabimas to the city.
The Cabimo was a tree 30 meters high, and according to historians, there were more trees of these than people, today there are left only 74 of them and they do not measure more than one and half meters, its oil has healing properties. In my house we always had a bottle full of this oil,and we used it to rub sore muscles, for coughs, etc. Nowdays the new population don't know the tree.
Brief overview of the history of Cabimas
In 1758 the Mission of San Ambrosio of Punta de Piedra was founded in the old Cabimas, by a group of Capuchin monks of which only archaeological traces remained. Its oldest inhabitants were aboriginals dedicated to hunting and collectors of seeds and roots. The city of Cabimas developed as a fishing port on the shores of Lake Maracaibo with very few inhabitants. And it is at the beginning of the 20th century, in 1917, that oil was discovered with the Santa Bárbara well, and the waters of the lake were not anymore suitable for fishing.
But on December 14, 1922, it is the blowout of the well Los Barroso 2 that called world attention, which brought many foreigners to the place. General Juan Vicente Gómez our president at that time, gave concessions to North American and Dutch companies.
I have only given a brief review of some events, these things marked the history not only of people from Cabimas and Venezuela, but they transcend beyond the border of a country.
Cabimas in the 20th century
Cabimas was organized in oil fields, to say La Concordia Field, Salinas Field, Hollywood Field and others.
The ranches and the cabimo disappeared, the oil corporations arrived, urban planning is built for the oil workers, and thus begins a boom of changes in my hometown. Shopping centers were built, new roads were constructed, people came in from all over the world and from Venezuela. Many Syrians arrived, Turks who went out on bicycles selling cloth on credit, Chinese who lived off laundries. Actually, Cabimas Malls are full of the descendants of these foreigners who came to establish here because of petrol.
The house where I grew together with my brother and sisters
The houses of foreigners belong to families from Cabimas who bought them, and new urban developments have been built, the nationalization of oil ended the presence of the north americans, I can say that the city of Cabimas belongs to Venezuelans and to some mixed races . The oil field La Salina and the oil towers still exist. Cabimas continues being an active city in the oil industry.