I'm Back! or What's been going on?
No, I didn't fall off the face of the earth, but I don't have any good excuses for not posting anything sooner. I guess I've just been caught up in the minutia of my mundane day-to-day existence. You know, things like the stupid refrigerator (I've had technicos to my apartment at least 7 times now and have spent over $100 on this old fridge and have finally developed a method of dealing with it, even though it is not working properly), figuring out what to do about taxes, playing Sudoku, and reading lots of other people's blogs, especially about Venezuela. Except for this week, which is holy week, I've been working as long hours as possible in the archives. I have two and a half months left in Venezuela, which is just amazing to me. So I'm starting to panic a little that I won't get everything done. But I'm focused and I'm sure I'll get enough information to put together a decent dissertation. The truth is I could be working in the archives here for a couple of years. The end result would certainly be different, but not necessarily better - or so I tell myself. Like I said above, a lot of the time in front of my computer seems to be taken up with either playing Sudoku (I've become addicted) or reading either newspapers or blogs on or about Venezuela. Although this week has been pretty quiet - I guess because it's holy week - there was in the previous weeks lots of stuff going on. So, for all of you who don't keep up with Venezuela - I can't imagine why
- here's the highlights.
The viaduct on the way to the airport from Caracas finally fell completely. Here's what it looks like now.
The really sad thing that happened a couple of weeks ago was the discovery of the bodies of three brothers (ages 17, 13, and 12) and their driver. They were kidnapped and had been missing for more than a month. It is really sad to think about what their family has had to go through for the past couple of months. The announcement of this discovery along with the death of an businessman the prior week launched a couple days of demonstrations about security and at one of these demonstrations a journalist was killed. These deaths were covered in various Venezuelan and foreign press articles. El Universal (English), Reuters, and Miami Herald are some of them and they provide at least an understandable picture of what went on.
April 11 was the anniversary of the 2004 overthrow - or coup - which removed Chavez from power for about 2 days. Although he claims that this was a CIA sponsored coup, I'm not aware of any proof to that claim. On the other hand, the US was quick to recognized the new president - who was in power for less than 48 hours. You can read about it in BBC online.
Relations between the US and Venezuela seem to be continuing on their consistently deteriorating course. Last week Ambassador Brownfield was in a poor neighborhood of Caracas distributing baseball equipment for the kids there when his car was attacked by people throwing food and stuff at it. The US, of course, issued a statement that this was unacceptable. Chavez replied that Brownfield had not informed them he was going there, that possibly he had been spying, and that maybe he would just kick Brownfield out of the country. US and British press covered it as well as the Venezuelan press.
Well, I guess that's enough of a news update for now. In case you can't tell, I'm really glad to have learned how to do those links rather than just pasting in the URL. I probably got a little carried away.
One more thing before I close for now, though I'm planning another post this evening with pictures since I've been playing tourist this week. Some of my friends ask me my thoughts about Chavez and the situation in Venezuela. I am trying to learn more so that I can have an intelligent opinion. As I said, I've been reading blogs about Venezuela, and there are quite a few in English. One of the best is Caracas Chronicles. One of the links on the site is titled Hugo Chavez FAQ and I think it's worth looking at if you are at all interested in learning more about him. The Wikipedia entry for Hugo Chavez is also pretty interesting.
OK, well I'm off to visit a friend for a bit and then I promise a post that's more about what I've been doing and less a press coverage report.
Saludos from Caracas.
- here's the highlights.The viaduct on the way to the airport from Caracas finally fell completely. Here's what it looks like now.
The really sad thing that happened a couple of weeks ago was the discovery of the bodies of three brothers (ages 17, 13, and 12) and their driver. They were kidnapped and had been missing for more than a month. It is really sad to think about what their family has had to go through for the past couple of months. The announcement of this discovery along with the death of an businessman the prior week launched a couple days of demonstrations about security and at one of these demonstrations a journalist was killed. These deaths were covered in various Venezuelan and foreign press articles. El Universal (English), Reuters, and Miami Herald are some of them and they provide at least an understandable picture of what went on.
April 11 was the anniversary of the 2004 overthrow - or coup - which removed Chavez from power for about 2 days. Although he claims that this was a CIA sponsored coup, I'm not aware of any proof to that claim. On the other hand, the US was quick to recognized the new president - who was in power for less than 48 hours. You can read about it in BBC online.
Relations between the US and Venezuela seem to be continuing on their consistently deteriorating course. Last week Ambassador Brownfield was in a poor neighborhood of Caracas distributing baseball equipment for the kids there when his car was attacked by people throwing food and stuff at it. The US, of course, issued a statement that this was unacceptable. Chavez replied that Brownfield had not informed them he was going there, that possibly he had been spying, and that maybe he would just kick Brownfield out of the country. US and British press covered it as well as the Venezuelan press.
Well, I guess that's enough of a news update for now. In case you can't tell, I'm really glad to have learned how to do those links rather than just pasting in the URL. I probably got a little carried away.
One more thing before I close for now, though I'm planning another post this evening with pictures since I've been playing tourist this week. Some of my friends ask me my thoughts about Chavez and the situation in Venezuela. I am trying to learn more so that I can have an intelligent opinion. As I said, I've been reading blogs about Venezuela, and there are quite a few in English. One of the best is Caracas Chronicles. One of the links on the site is titled Hugo Chavez FAQ and I think it's worth looking at if you are at all interested in learning more about him. The Wikipedia entry for Hugo Chavez is also pretty interesting.
OK, well I'm off to visit a friend for a bit and then I promise a post that's more about what I've been doing and less a press coverage report.
Saludos from Caracas.
posted by Sue Taylor at 3:30 PM
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