A Letter to Hugo Chavez, Venezuala

Hi Hugo

You don’t mind if I call you “Hugo” ? I feel as if I know you like an old friend after seeing you shouting on at least 10 different channels last night.

I think they must alter the volume upward just for you!

Can you tell me something? What is all that shouting really about? I get it, that you have just managed to con a whole nation into letting you stay another decade or two in power but it is all a bit noisy, if you don’t mind my saying so. I saw you standing on the podium with your brain-dead disciples chanting “Si Va” but don’t they know that you couldn’t add 1+1 never mind lead a nation properly? Cracking jokes then singing, I mean what sort of horse did you ride into town on?

I have learnt a few things during my lengthy stay here in Puerto Cabello. The first being that I shouldn’t expect the ship to come into port anytime soon; in other words that the port authorities couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery never mind turn ships around.

I learnt that most of the population are too frightened to say “no” to you and that they are scared to vote for anybody else except you. Our taxi driver certainly doesn’t like you but he keeps his “No Va” sign hidden from view and a red t-shirt to hand should some of your brain dead supporters happen along!

I have also come to the conclusion that your policies don’t quite add-up! I see a glaring and endless hole (the size of a plug to drain the sea) in your speeches and wisdom. No, don’t stop reading, please wait until I explain myself. Most of your support comes from the poor people right? Intellectual and wealthy people don’t really like you but they are in the minority, stop me if I’m wrong! The poor people who are of course the majority vote for you because you promise to give them wealth and hope based upon the money gleamed from selling oil? Am I right or am I right? Where this ‘hole’ comes in is here! If you perchance make all the poor people rich then they enter that bracket of people who don’t really like you very much at all! So the only way that you can keep in power is to keep the masses poor and just dribble them hope in small and useless quantities.

Sorry, I shouldn’t really get into politics as it always ends in an argument.

When I drove here from Caracas and between my prayers to god that I didn’t end up smashed into smithereens like the many I passed (cars upside down, buses squashed like tin cans and lorries sitting on top of rusted hulks as if they had just laid a rotten egg) I noticed how beautiful the scenery is! Lush mountains covered in bountiful greenery! What I couldn’t understand is why all those people who live in shacks and tin-roofed hovels along the motorway don’t take better care of the environment. I don’t know what these precarious ill-fitted jigsaws of houses are like inside but why on earth doesn’t anybody clean up the rubbish! From the doorstep and around the house lie many years’ worth of rubbish and plastic discarded from the broken windows and thrown carelessly outward by those very people who live inside. I understand that it is not easy to be poor but it’s no excuse to live like a dog.

I haven’t left the hotel for five days! My brief foray one day, to the tourist sites, ended pretty quickly when a friendly policeman told me not to walk in a certain direction as it was too dangerous. I started to walk in the other direction but another friendly yet heavily armed policeman told me that it was also unsafe to continue further. Yesterday I stood outside of the hotel, on the doorstep no less, when suddenly the manager appeared and advised me to step back inside. Wow, that’s hard living!

Hugo, I don’t want to complain so much! I appreciate that to have gotten so far into this letter has taken patience and stamina and I understand that perhaps you haven’t got the time to read a foreigners view on your country! I’m nearly finished. I just wanted to mention something about the price of this hotel! It’s costing me nearly 160 US dollars per night plus another 100 US for the food! I mean breakfast is nearly 20 US dollars alone! I just don’t understand why it is so expensive! The place is a dump! If I had a cat I couldn’t even swing it in my room without bashing its head on the horribly coloured pink walls or on the thinnest chipboard and plastic coated desk that I have ever seen!

I do have rather a lot to say but will perhaps continue later. One thing though, what was all that about stopping the alcohol during the referendum? It was only by chance that I found this out before it was too late! There I was enjoying a lunch time beer when the barman said “no more”. Through sign language and desperation I then found out that you had prohibited the sale of alcohol from 2pm on Friday until 2pm on the following Monday! It worked out well for me as I managed to purchase a couple of crates from the bemused barman before 2pm struck but ……… did he have to poor the remainder of my beer into a plastic cup?

Anyway, I must get some sleep before these crazy housekeepers start singing again. They keep me annoyed all day – even the “no molester” sign outside doesn’t stop them from knocking on my door ten times everyday. They also call my room and then don’t speak when they realise I am English! One girl delivers the soap at 10am. The towel girl arrives at 11am, the floor cleaner at 12am and so on. Then at around 3pm the checks start as the towel checker checks that the towel girls has delivered the towels and then at 4pm the floor checker sniffs the floor to check that the floor cleaner has cleaned the floor. Hugo, you have done well to create jobs for the masses but don’t you see that they are all extremely poor. If perhaps there were fewer workers here they might be able to earn more money – of, I forgot, you want to keep them all poor don’t you!

Anyway, I must dash! I want to sit beside the swimming pool that sits next to the five lane motorway with my bottle of beer (that I must hide from prying eyes) and to listen to that awful music that they play over and over again. In the six days I have been here I have only heard six songs but the music has never stopped.

Talk to you later me old mate!

Rgds

Ieuan



PS: When I left your country I was stopped at the airport by some police who had only recently stopped wearing diapers. The young goon in a uniform stopped me and asked me to put out my tongue. Through sign language and frequent finger and retching actions he mimicked being sick, he pointed to his stomach as if he was pregnant and he ably proved to half the airport that his ego was flying far higher than the pea in his head.

I think he was asking me if I was taking drugs! I'm sorry but I ignored him which hurt his large ego. The only reason why I gave him 100 US dollars was because my flight was leaving soon but had it not I would have kept that game going until the pea shriveled and died and the ego had come crashing down like your economy is doing now.

Yes, you owe me 400 US dollars. One hundred for the clown at the airport and 300 on other bribes over the course of the week. In US dollars please.