Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela: Resilient and Resourceful Venezuelan People

Venezuela’s full name is actually the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. It's shaped like an upside-down triangle with 352,143 square miles, making it about twice the size of California. “The country has a coastline 1,740 miles long and is bounded by the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean”.

Venezuela is located between Colombia and Guyana. The country has many varying landscapes such as the white sand beaches and clear water along the Caribbean coastline, the Orinoco River and its glistening waterfalls, the towering Andes mountains, swampy grasslands in central Venezuela, and the dense rain forests. Venezuela has four distinct regions: the northern mountains along the Colombian border, the Maracaibo Lowlands in the northwest, the Orinoco River plains in central Venezuela, and the Guiana Highlands in the southeast.

In Venezuela, the world’s highest waterfall flows. It has a staggering height of 3,212 feet and a plunge of 2,648 feet. It's named after an American pilot Jimmie Angel whose plane crashed in the area in 1937. He and his passengers survived, but they had to trek eleven days through the jungle and down cliffs before reaching a village. Even now there is no road that leads to the fall in Canaima National Park, so the only way to see it is by a 24-hour journey by plane or boat.

Even though Venezuela exists in the Tropics, its weather and temperature vary from humid to alpine (really cold). The elevation and direction of the wind usually determine the climate. Venezuela only has 2 seasons, and they are recognized by the amount of rainfall instead of temperature. The majority of Venezuela undergoes a wet and rainy season (May through November), which is their winter. The dry season between December and April is their summer.

The first Venezuelans who lived in Venezuela were there between 13,000 and 6,000 BC. These people were from the Carib and Arawak Amerindian tribes that had originally lived in Guyana. Their people did all sorts of things; they were farmers, hunters, fishermen, and warriors.

Christopher Columbus landed on the coast of Venezuela on his third voyage on August 1, 1498. He later described Venezuela as a paradise. Originally thinking he landed on an island, he named the territory Isla de Garcia. A second expedition followed one year later led by Alonso de Ojeda, a Spaniard, and Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian. The natives' houses were suspended in the air using wooden poles to stay above the many rivers and canals. This reminded Vespucci of Venice, so he renamed the territory Venezuela - or, “Little Venice”.

As the Spaniards colonized Venezuela, they enslaved the indigenous people and traded them in Panama and the Caribbean islands. The natives fought back, but with no strong leader to unite them, their villages and cultures disappeared. Many of them died under the harsh treatment of their masters. Spanish settlers had to look elsewhere for their laborers. They began importing African slaves to fulfill their needs instead.

Simon Bolivar was born to one of the wealthiest families in Venezuela in 1783. He was orphaned at age 9, so relatives took him to Europe to live with them there. As a young man, he announced his ambition and passion to liberate all of Latin America from Spanish rule and unite them. He gathered an army in 1816 and vowed to force Spanish dictators out of his beloved Venezuela. He led his army over the Andes and captured Caracas, the capital. In the city, he was proclaimed “El Liberatador” (the Liberator) and was placed at the head of Venezuela’s Second Republic. After that, he went on to free the rest of Latin America from the Spanish throne.

In 1829, Jose Antonio Paez came to power in Venezuela and sent Bolivar into exile for no good reason. Simon Bolivar died at age 47 on December 17, 1830, in Santa Marta, Colombia. After Paez’s reign, the Monagas brothers ruled. They were forced from power, and a time of chaos settled in Venezuela. Caudillos, strong local leaders, fought each other for power in what is called the Federal War.

Antonio Guzman Blanco became dictator in 1870. He was tyrannical and used his power to amass a fortune for himself. However, under his leadership, Venezuela built railroads and underwent huge educational reforms. For many more years, Venezuela was under dictatorship after the dictatorship. Their democracy didn’t begin until 1959, under President Romulo Betancourt.

Currently, Venezuela’s government is experiencing confusion and dysfunction. There is confusion about who exactly the president is, as two men - Juan Guaidó and Nicolás Maduro - are both claiming to be the country’s president.

Socialist Nicolás Maduro threatened and even imprisoned those who challenged him when he ran for another term as president. Some people suspect that Maduro may even have the ballots. Because of all this, many people did not recognize him as acting president. Juan Guaidó, from an opposing political group, then pronounced himself the president.

Over 50 countries recognize Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s president, including the US and most of the Latin American countries. Russia and China, among other countries, consider Nicolás Maduro the president.

“Venezuela possesses enormous natural resources”. Their first big export was the cocoa bean that they sold to Europe. Then coffee surpassed cocoa exports in the 1800s. The coffee boom in the 1830s made Venezuela the 3rd largest coffee exporter in the world.

The first drilling for petroleum was in 1917. By the 1920s, coffee’s reign had ended. Oil profits made Venezuela Latin America’s wealthiest state. In 1928, Venezuela became the world’s leading exporter of oil and 2nd in total petroleum production. In the 1930s oil represented over 90% of all exports in Venezuela. Venezuela became one of the founding members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in 1960. Venezuela remained the world’s leading oil exporter until 1970, the peak of their oil production.

Oil prices quadrupled in 1973, which led to the largest spending spree in all of Venezuelan history. Amazingly, the government spent more money from 1974 to 1979 than it had from 1830 to 1973. Hundreds of thousands of government jobs suddenly became available. Many new companies were created in all sorts of different fields such as mining and petrochemicals. “Fortunes were made overnight”. But it wouldn’t last. Tax revenues couldn’t keep up with the increased government spending, especially after oil prices dropped by 50% in 1986. Venezuela’s economy then began a downward spiral. The government was forced to lay off workers, close businesses, and cut public services.

“Since the early 1990s, the country has been trying to make its economy healthier in two ways: by reducing Venezuela’s debts in foreign countries and by removing price controls”.

The economy in modern-day Venezuela still heavily relies on oil. They’ve also discovered huge natural gas reserves. Minerals such as diamonds, gold, silver, platinum, and copper are commercially mined. Their main crops include coffee, sugarcane, rice, and fruits such as bananas, plantains, and oranges. Even though one-third of Venezuela is covered with forests, the timber industry is a small one because not many good roads lead into the deep forests. Commercial fisheries primarily catch shrimp, tuna, and sardines.

“One of the goals of the Venezuelan government is to increase manufacturing in the country”. The leading manufacturers of Venezuela are steel, aluminum, fertilizer, cement, tires, motor vehicles, processed foods, beverages, and clothing.

Most Venezuelans live more comfortably than their neighboring countries. The GDP per capita, a measure of the average annual income of individuals, is $12,200 ranking 87th in the world (which is much higher than nearby Brazil, Colombia, and Guyana).

Venezuelans like to say they are a cafe con Leche (coffee with milk) society.

68% of the population is mixed European Native American, 21% is European, 9% is African American and 2% is unmixed Native American. The majority of the population lives condensed in the urban areas, while the remaining rural areas are sparsely occupied, some reports say as low as 5%.

2% of the population is indigenous; surprisingly, that 2% includes 27 different languages and cultures, among which are the Yanomami who make their home in the Amazon region, and the Bare who reside in the mountainous northwest region. Venezuelans also like to say racism is not a problem in their country, but in fact, most black Venezuelans have poorly paid jobs and live in poverty, but the indigenous people are by far the poorest of the people groups. Most of the country’s power and wealth belong to the white minority.

On a brighter note, education in Venezuela is free for children from 6 to 15, and the adult literacy rate is a surprising 93%, which is high for Latin America. During the 1990s, around 500,000 students enrolled in newly opened colleges and universities like the Central University of Venezuela, and Andres Bello Catholic University, which are both located in Caracas.

Although there is no official religion in Venezuela, most of the people would say that they are Roman Catholic, but only a few actually attend mass regularly. The same is true of Protestantism in Venezuela.

Christian holidays are widely celebrated in Venezuela. The activities are not exclusively religious; sometimes they include parades, carnivals, and dancing. Here are the major holidays in Venezuela:

• Epiphany January 6
• Holy Thursday Spring
• Good Friday Spring
• Easter Spring
• Ascension Late Spring
• Corpus Christi Early Summer
• Assumption August 15
• All Saint’s Day November 1
• Immaculate Conception December 8
• Christmas December 25

Beauty pageants are a big deal in Venezuela. Caracas is actually home to a beauty pageant school where young women learn things like pageant secrets, how to conduct themselves on stage, and the like. But expensive training only lasts a couple of months. Most of the young women who win these competitions go on to become actors or models, but some Venezuelan women have used their fame as a jumping-off point into other careers. “In the past three decades, more women crowned Miss Venezuela has gone on to win international titles than representatives from any other country. These include six Miss Universe, six Miss World, and six Miss International crowns”.

The most popular and traditional Venezuelan music is joropo. It’s fast-paced and led by an arapa llanra, or plains harp. Traditional joropo music has a traditional dance that goes with it, which is also called joropo. Venezuelans tend to enjoy salsa music like the rest of Latin America, but in addition to that, they have their own unique rustic folk and urban pop. Instruments that are popular in Venezuela include maracas, and the cuatro, which is like a small guitar.

Probably the most popular food in Venezuela would be arepa - a thick cornmeal pancake the size of a fist. Inexpensive and filling, they can be sliced open and filled with all sorts of food. Usually, for breakfast, they’re filled with Perico - scrambled eggs, tomatoes, and onions. Sometimes they’re spread with natilla - light cream cheese. In the evenings they’re filled with the national dish pabellion criollo - shredded beef spiced with onions, green peppers, tomato, coriander, garlic, rice, fried plantain, and black beans. Popular fruit in Venezuela would include lechosa (a type of papaya), mangoes, guava, oranges, pears, breadfruit, coconuts, lemons, and avocado.

Venezuela’s national sport is baseball, which was introduced to Venezuela by American oil workers in the 1920s. Some Venezuelans have even played for major leagues in the United States. Basketball is also popular in Venezuela, with teams in every town and city. Surprisingly, futbol (soccer), a favorite sport in most of Latin America, is not as popular in Venezuela.

“Nothing in Venezuelan life showcases the difference between rich and poor than housing does”. The wealthy live in grand houses in safe, gated communities on the edges of cities. The middle-class people generally reside in nice apartments in the cities. The majority of poor Venezuelans live in what they call ranchos, houses they built themselves out of corrugated steel, cement, or clay.

Venezuela sustained serious flooding in 2010. More than 130,000 people were left homeless as a result. Many of them went to Caracas, a city that already had an unfortunately large homeless population. Following the catastrophic flooding, the government began what they call the Great Housing Mission. This program builds 200,000 homes at the cost of $16 billion, and it continues to provide housing for the poor today.

Considering all they’ve undergone, with their tyrannical dictators, economic crisis, and recent government affairs, the Venezuelan people should be considered resilient and resourceful. They and their country are an inspiration to the rest of the world.