Living history

Its an amazing thing, to be sitting here in Venzuela while Hugo basically changes the country in his image. There is no other way to say it. He is completely altering a democracy and I fear changing it into a dictatorship. He keeps on grabbing for power and his legislators continue to give it to him. He claims that it is meant to promote his socialist revolution but time will tell if this is real or not. History has shown us what happens when to much power is concentrated into the hands of one man. Stalin, Castro, Peron, Pinochet, Bush, Sadaam, Taliban, Hitler, most African rulers, the Saudi royal family, and may others for an example. I am scared for this country because you can literally watch the prices rise with every announcement that the government is taking over an industry. Poor seem happy but as far as I can tell and from what i have heard, they are not any better off now then they were before Chavez. Venezuela could be a great stable country but it continues to squander its resources. This year the city of Maracaibo has been short on drinkiing water. The school I work at, EBV, has been without a steady water source since we opened our doors on January 8th. We rotate bathrooms and working drinking fountains, they supply water coolers at random spots with water that taste like I drank it out of the garden hose when the hose has been sitting out in the sun. Overall, it is not to bad, my apartment has water tanks to use as back up, which is helpful, because my building only runs water through the pipes approx. 3 hours a day.

Anyway, we will see what effects Chavez has on Venezuela, and I hope that I am wrong about this modern socialism. I really do love this country and would love to return and live someday with Janina. The pictures in this posting are from an event that Janina and I volunteered to give gifts and food to the poorer families of Maracaibo, this event was hosted by a student and her family.