Country Ex-Anima: Venezuela

The news about Venezuela is as alarming as it is strange. Each day brings a new mix of tragedy and absurdity.

Every Venezuelan (or anyone who has spent time living in this country) knows that anything — however rare, excessive, unreasonable, outrageous, or illegal as it may seem — can happen.

Venezuela is no longer a country; it is a layering of misfortunes and problems with no pretty solutions.

The supermarket shelves are empty. Entire aisles are filled with air and with products selling at inaccessible prices.

The pharmacies are empty. There are people, more and more people, asking for antibiotics or blood pressure medicine, antidepressants or antihistamines. People are desperate and are searching everywhere to find medications that no longer exist anywhere.

The Venezuelan economy is destroyed. There is no cash. It is difficult to believe how very few bills are circulating. Since 2003, there have been a strict exchange-control mechanisms in place and the government has intervened in all productive activities using arbitrary takeovers and expropriations, fiscal audits and price controls. Over the last few years, the central government participated in strange and risky financial operations, the consequences of which erupted in October 2017 in the form of a fatal hyperinflation.

The day ends early. At six o' clock the streets empty out; orphaned of people and light. There are few streetlamps, few illuminated billboards, little — very little — nightlife. There is a thick silence in the air. Everyone is shut away in their homes; they sleep, cook, ponder in front of a screen, chew on their sadness and unease between the four walls of their homes. Better to be at home than in the street, that preserve of strange people, zombie-like vagabonds, forgotten and barefoot children who now go around in groups, screwing with each other, screaming at each other, begging for food at bakery doors.

In the landscape, hunger hangs between the sun and the stars — overbearing, overflowing and u