VENEZUELA: “I HAVE SACRIFICED BUYING FOOD TO BUY GASOLINE”

By: Marcos David Valeverde

Guayana City. Is there a date to point out? Yes: April 21, 2019. Monday after Holy Week. It is not a date that marks, appealing to a common experience, a before and an after around a crisis. Because the crisis was already there. But it was the date from which all the factors that highlight that crisis were left in the background and moved to the gas stations in Bolívar state.

From that April day on, the residents of the border state in southern Venezuela must spend hours and, most recently, days to do something as filling the car’s gas tank.

Why isn’t there a beore and after? In Bolívar state, this is not the first crisis in this matter. In late 2016, when Nicolás Maduro banned the circulation of the 100 bolívar bill (a measure that led to looting in several cities and towns in the region), the people of Bolívar experienced something similar: protests and curfews prevented the arrival of gasoline trucks. Therefore, they had to wait in line for several hours to get some fuel.

It was not, then, a crisis, but everyday life. This is what the whole state is experiencing today. Until now, there has been no official explanation.

The life of Ana Milena Castillo, 43, has changed in the last nine weeks. Her rituals have been disrupted. Her daily life has been distorted. One of the most “absurd” moments, as she describes it, took place between June 11 and 14: she waited in line for gasoline all those days.

That week the plan announced by the state governor, Justo Noguera Pietri, to sell gasoline according to final plate numbers was implemented. The even, on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  The odd, on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

She was due on Wednesday 12. That is why she got in line at a gas station on Tuesday 11. But the next day, as the line advanced, she got the news: the fuel had run out.  She was not discouraged and decided to stay in line until Friday the 14th. That day, at 10 a.m., she was able to buy gasoline: only 30 liters.

“This is horrible. On Friday, after we were able to get gas at noon, I had a terrible feeling of anxiety. It’s like it’s all over, but you also feel like they’re going to take your spot.  It’s absurd, but those four days, you leave your house, your pets... everything. It was quite traumatic: the sun, the rain, the heat. Wasting your days to get gasoline. It’s not sleeping at the time you should, it’s not cleaning, it’s eating badly, it’s bathing at odd times because you’re in line all day. And in the end they give you only 30 liters of gasoline, which last nothing,” she complains.

One of her daughters, Camila, was with her during those days. “It was horrible and uncomfortable. To be there without a bathroom, without being able to eat well, with the flies getting into the cars. Now, when we want to go out, we consider it carefully because we don’t want to spend gas,” she says.

In light of the failure of that plan to control the chaos that has taken over gas stations and their surroundings (some reports describe lines several kilometers long), Noguera announced two new plans. The first was banning lines at gas stations between 6:00 pm and 4:00 am.  The second was selling gasoline also by final plate numbers, but no longer in the “even and odd“ scheme. Now the system is: from 0 to 3, on Mondays and Thursdays; from 4 to 6, Tuesdays and Fridays; and from 7 to 9, Wednesdays and Saturdays.

Everything has been the same. That is why those who cannot even imagine spending three days waiting in line have resorted to resellers, who charge a dollar per liter of gasoline. Rosa Peñalver has preferred to pay for that and sacrifice other expenses, such as food.

Some prefer not to sacrifice food. Like Josefina Hernández, 69, a San Félix resident, who despite her kidney stones and spikes in blood pressure waited in line for two days:

“I got in line on Monday at 5:00 a.m. and filled up the tank on Wednesday at 10:00 a.m. How did I do that? I befriended four guys there, offered them food. They looked after my place, they watched my car. I brought them coffee and water and they, delighted, looked after my place for me. After that, I was in bed all day, feeling terrible.”

After nine weeks in crisis, with militarized gas stations and hints of repression, there are no signs that the lines for gasoline are going to stop.

“One night, the police came and wanted to get us out of line. We stayed put, there was a struggle and they threatened to tow the cars. We told them they were going to have to tow 200 cars and that’s how they left us alone,” said Carlos Ortiz, a university professor who waited in line for four days.

In Bolívar state, in the second to last week of June, many await the end of the school year because then, at least, they will not have to spend gasoline on getting their children to school.

Some envy other states not affected by fuel shortages, but they remember that there are no blackouts here. Or not as many as in other regions.

So they resign themselves to thinking that this is the price to be paid by Bolívar state. And they also resign themselves to thinking that there is no solution. The Venezuelan oil industry does not offer solutions. The national and state authorities do not offer solutions. Each person, then, tries to figure out their own days. It is the era of survival in Venezuela.