Back in Lima

I have spent the last 3 months in Colombia, Venezuela, Panama and Costa Rica. I have been unable to access the blog due to poor internet connections in these countries. I got to spend Christmas and New Years with my new friends in Venezuela. It was awesome meeting so many wonderful people, eating delicious food and of course talking about then President Chavez. I met tons of people everywhere who were given a prophecy that in 2013 Chavez would die, which he now has, and that a president that was God-fearing would be put into power to lead their country. A bit of politics now-the Venezuelan constitution, calls for the head of the General Assembly to become president in case of the presidents death. This man{s name is Diosdado Caballo or God-given Covering or hair. President Chavez in November placed a vice-president and said that in the event of his death he wanted Nicolas Maduro to be president. Maduro-means mature-or ripe like fruit. The president of the Assembly allowed Mr. Maduro to be president in his stead upon the death of Chavez. The people of Venezuela are among the most kindest, joyful people on the planet. They are sharply divided either 100% for or 100% against Chavez and his politics. There is much violence there. In the neighborhood I was staying in in the city of Valencia-52 people were murdered in the first 2 weeks in January. The prison system is controlled by gangs who have weapons of every kind, drugs, women, tv, cable, whatever they want. The riots are allowed to run out of control-this video adult themed shows the normal prison life. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXJQR3PR8Gk The people are very content but there are some who live in a state of panic and when the government rations food out to the various cities, some people go in and purchase all the sugar, for example, and then there is none for their friends and neighbors. The people are then sharing some of the food that has been horded. I got to stay with the man in charge of food distribution in Venezuela, a former Captain in the military, and he said that there is plenty of food but because of hording, there is a perpetual shortage in the supermarkets. The government has tried to provide good to people at a low cost but instead of stabalizing the market, the perpetual shortage has created a feeling of lack of supply. At one house I stayed at, there was no masa, the main ingredient for their arepa, a tortilla that is split open and filled, that is eaten daily as a staple. So no one in the whol neighborhood had any masa and therefore the whole neighborhood was not eating there main staple of arepas. At another house, a woman was having a party for 200 people and could not buy sugar in her town, and luckily someone gave her a 20 kg bag of it. The people all have nice blackberry cell phones, and roughly 45% have braces. The children in the school all have basic laptops to use. There is free medical care, but there are some costs not covered by the socialized medicine. Gas is super cheap. My friend filled his car with 40 liters and it costs about $.20! There are all the gas guzzeling cars there and people think nothing of filling their tank. They tip the gas attendants more than they pay for fueling their cars. The price of cars is $60,000 for a basic car. You go and put your name on a list and wait for months and whatever comes availble is what you get. The government has mainted a low rate for dollar exchange of $1 for 4 bolivares. The black market rate is $1 for 18 Bolivares, This was changed recently to $1 for 6.2 Bolivares and the black market rate is 24 Bolivares. This means if you go with dollars, you can quadruple your money with the exchange rate. The money has to be spent in Venezuela because the currency is basically worthless elsewhere. There are many houses built for the poor, a lot uncompleted unfortunately due to corruption and overcharging for government contracts. The country was beautiful, the people hospitiable and amazing and I see much good in their future and much stabiliazation in the upcoming 5 years. I got to spend a month with my mom, sister and family in Costa Rica. It was nice to walk up hills, swim, attend church with her, go to the beach and relax too. I was suppose to return thru Venezuela to continue traveling south. I kept feeling drawn back to Lima, Peru. I looked into going to Spain, Brasil and ultimatly was unable to enter Venezuela and ended up buying a ticket to Peru. I feel like for now to connect with locals, a hilighting of a 4 block area where the hostel is located. The street has 3 names, Arequipa, Wilson, Garcilaso de la Vega and actually turns into Tacnta. So I{m sure there{s a story there. It{s been a bit of a bumpy week coming back and working thru some stuff with people here. I have found a zumba class and swimming pool to keep up on my fitness and back staying strong. I think these are ways to connect to the locals also. This week I met a guy and his family and ended up having the most amazing 6 hours of conversation about God, Chavez, music and family a guy from Venezuela. So I;ll see how to be involved. M