Homeless...

Last night at around 7:30 I came back to campus from downtown in the pouring rain. I was pretty wet and ran inside to get out of the rain. The lights were out because of the weather so it was pitch black. Then, I hear some sound. I panicked a little and grabbed my flashlight thinking someone was in my house. I point my light and sigh a breath of relief, "oh its just water dripping." Wait, what? As I look all around my house my ceiling is leaking EVERYWHERE. My floor in my living room and bedroom are a lake and all of my graduate school notes and outlines and articles I had researched and printed are ruined. I went next door to EMak, who literally shares a wall with me. She' siting on her couch fine. I told her she better check her bedroom and it was just like mine, completely soaked and flooded.

From here we go to our director/landlords house explaining the situation. He doesn't even stop cooking and come look, he just says well if it's really unlivable we can put you in a hotel or you can sleep with someone else. We slept with Erin and Heather in their spare bedrooms. (Thanks so much guys!)

This morning the cleaning people came in and "cleaned" but it doesnt do much since my ceiling is still leaking so the floor is still a pond and it is still unlivable. No one has looked at my house or tried to fix anything. Marcelo hasn't even talked to us about it. Tonight is International Night so I'm sure he'll say he's been busy, but honestly, having a house for your teachers should be more important than a party. School ends in an hour and I honestly don't have anywhere to go back to yet. I will be packing everything up in suitcases and moving to Erin's house because it is the rainy season so the house is just going to continue getting worse, and personally I feel like its only a matter of time before walls and ceilings start collapsing....

Here are some pictures of my house right now:

Wet bedroom walls...

Bucket, 3/4 full of water after last night, in the middle of my living room.

Water dripping down the walls.

Wet support beam. And no my ceiling isn't two different colors, thats all water too.

Poor room... COMPLETELY soaked.

One of my tiles. That tile is actually dry right now. That mark is water damage...

Wet walls...

See the different color around the light? That is not the color it usually is; its all water. I could hear the water dripping into that metal thing this morning...

And water around my electrical things. Because that's safe.

Dereek sloshing around my bedroom this morning.

Moral of the story, I can't live in my house unless I want to get soaking wet, sick from mold and electrocuted. Still not sure where I'm living tonight/the rest of the year since my director is avoiding me...



Election Results

Last night the results of the election came out; they were released late so I went straight to bed afterwards. Polls closed at 6 and it was originally thought that by 9 we'd have results, but they were not released until much later. Maduro (Chavez successor) won with 50.7% of the votes. Caprilles has called for a recount, but it is unlikely that it will change the results. There have been many accusations of unfair activity such as the creation of fake ids that allowed Maduro supporters to vote twice. For those of you who don't know what's going on here here is what life has been like and who this man is...

Problems Venezuela has faced in the short nine months I've been here:

• Frequent power outages
• Shortages of everything and anything from milk to chicken to flour to toilet paper
• A crashing economy and official devaluation of the bolivar (When I got here it was 8.5 BsF to 1 dollar, it is now about 22-23 BsF per dollar)
• Killer inflation on anything and everything imported, my favorite wine went from 70 BsF to 144 BsF, peanut butter went from $150 BsF to $250something and a case of beer went form about $150 to $300 BsF.
• And, though it hasn't effected me personally, Venezuelan crime rates are of the worst in the world. Just so you get an idea the US homicide rate is about 4-5 people in every 100,000 while in Venezuela it is about 73 people per 100,000 and 122 in Caracas. 

And who is Maduro, this countries new "leader?"

• Well... the man claimed Chavez came and spoke to him in bird form.
• Not much is known about his background at all (unlike Chavez whose past was very open) and he was a former bus-driver, not a well-educated, informed citizen with the knowledge and capabilities of leading a country.
• I've already read in news sources that he plans on raising minimum wage, where this money is coming from I don't know and I am not economist but I'm sure this is bound to mess with inflation even more.
• He denied requests for any formal debate against Caprilles (because lets be honest even he knows he stands no chance regarding anything intellectual) 
• In a speech he named three different cities and called them states. It's pretty bad when you're president doesn't even know the states of his own country.

And finally, just a short note on the kind of people who support this man and why he even has votes... Dereek and I were talking to someone who works on campus last night and he said he voted for Maduro. When asked why the response was "well Caprilles is gay, he was caught sucking some guys cock." Like come on, really? That is the kind of decision making process that went on in the voting booths yesterday? It completely explains why this country is in the downfall that it is... 

There could be a lot of changes coming soon and I'm just waiting to see how everything goes. I am still planning on staying next year, but of course am following everything very closely because I care for my safety, my students, friends and boyfriends safety all of whom are here. I'm sure that these results are going to cause even more of an exodus of the educated Venezuelans than there already has been...

Election Weekend

First off, I lost my first student last week due to Schlumberger leaving. Schlumberger is the oil company that owns our school and half my class is children of workers of this company. Schlumberger is pulling out of Venezuela because the government hasn't been paying them and this means I am losing students. I'm only losing one this year, but my class will only be half its size next year. So, last week we said good-bye to Martina and had a little party for her.

Martina and the cake

Very happy to have chocolate cake

My class of almost kindergarteners! Can't believe how big they've gotten

Yesterday Andreina, Heather, Dereek, Dereek's brother Randy and I went out to el Saco, another island off of Puerto La Cruz. It was nice to get out of campus and enjoy the beach for a day. It wasn't the nicest beach we've been to, but can't complain since the water is still nicer than the Long Island Sound. 

Dereek and I having lunch on the beach

El Saco

The group

Funny faces

Brothers

Beach panoramic

The group drinking (even though its technically "dry" in Venezuela right now.)

Nice view of the beach.

Currently Im watching election news. Hopefully Caprilles wins, we'll see how this goes. We may or may not have school tomorrow and won't know until elections are over. If you're curious do some googling or ask me questions. I'll explain more about it in another post when I have some more time. 

Grenada

So continuing on what we did in Grenada...

On Tuesday I kind of just hung out on the beach all day. Nothing too exciting but very relaxing. Got to have some cocktails, read my book and sit by the crystal clear blue water.

My stuff on the beach by our hotel. All alone. 

Quiet morning on the beach

No one anywhere

Perfect place to read a book

Pretty blue water and a palm tree

Grenada is the Spice Island so even my pina colada had spices in it.

On Tuesday I got to go snorkeling at the underwater sculpture museum. It was really cool. The statues were placed in between coral so it felt almost like you were going down a hallway like you would at a museum, except the walls were made of coral. I went with Cat and Erin who were both scuba diving. We got to see lots of cool fish and a really big sting ray. It was probably one of the coolest things I did all week and I don't think there are adequate words to describe how awesome it was. 

Grand Anse Beach from the boat

Cat, Erin and our guide checking out what the plaques at the bottom of the statues say

Cat diving with the circle of statues in the back

Kind of hard to see, but that's a huge stingray hiding between the coral. He's a little covered in sand.

I like to ride my bicycle.

This part was kind of creepy, the statues looked almost like dead bodies because they were all laying down.

Another statue circle

At one point all the divers were too far down for me to see. I just followed their bubbles around. It looked really pretty.

School of blue fish

The fish eat algae off the statues

Statue circle.

On Thursday we took a day long tour of the island. We got to go to some waterfalls, which I jumped in; saw wild monkeys, which i held; walked around a chocolate factory, which I ate; and took a tour of a rum distillery, then I took a shot. Overall it was a pretty good day. A LOT of driving though. It takes a long time to get around Grenada because of the rainforest and mountains; lots of curvy, steep roads.

Getting ready to jump in.

Taking the leap in.

Gorgeous place to take a dip.

View of Grenada from high up on a mountain.

Oh hi monkey.

Saliha feeding the monkey

Monkey up close

Wild monkey hanging out on my shoulder

Haha, monkey climbing on me.

Chocolate factory. Making organic chocolate.

Chocolate shop.

Pretty chocolate factory estate

It was nice to walk around there.

Sugar cane at the rum distillery. 

Really old machine that takes apart the sugar cane and separates the usable part.

Boiling the sugar cane to make rum. Clearly a really old distillery. 

Our guide explaining how this machine boils and evaporates the rum then re-condenses it into liquid

All heated by a wood stove

Needs lots and lots of wood. It was really cool. This distillery has been making rum since the late 1700s

How to make rum. 

Rum. Really strong rum. Too strong to be allowed on the plane. 

75%, couldn't take it on the plane. Did bring Dereek the strongest rum that was allowed on the plane. He took a full shot and was pretty shocked at how strong it was. It was really strong but tasted good as well.

Overall it was a really fun week. The trip home was a little bit miserable though. We had to fly from Grenada to Trinidad. Had an hour layover in Trinidad, then flew from Trinidad to Porlamar. Our flight out of there was delayed so we left at 11:30 at night instead of 9:30 to fly from Porlamar to Barcelona. Then we had the hour long drive from Barcelona to Anaco. It took about 12 hours to travel the 250 from St. Georges, Grenada to Barcelona, Venezuela. Quite annoying, but the rest of the trip was good.