Venezuela is a vast country, but its population is very unevenly spread, with more than 90 percent living in urban environments, and 80 percent in the five largest cities. The mass migration from the countryside to the urban centers began in the late 1940s as investment shifted away from traditional exports of plantation crops like coffee, sugar, and cocoa to the rapidly expanding oil industry.
Oil earnings were used by the dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez to finance an ambitious program of public works that saw Caracas transformed from the “city of red roofs” as it was known, to a concrete metropolis designed for cars and vertical living. Work on constructing the new highways, hotels, overpasses, and sports stadiums attracted both rural migrants from the interior and foreign immigrants from Spain and Italy, who came to start a new life in a land of opportunity. However, mass migration also saw the rise of the slums, most of which were well established in Caracas and other cities by the 1960s.
Fairy Tale of Caracas
For many foreigners arriving in Venezuela, their first experience of the country is seeing the flickering lights on the hillsides as they are driven up the highway from Maiquetia airport to Caracas. “How quaint is that?” a friend once said, “It looks like a little nativity scene with those fairy lights twinkling on the mountainside.” The reality set in the next day, when we drove back down to the beach and my friend saw the red cinder blocks and zinc roofs of the shantytowns, the upper stories of the rickety ranchos so close they nearly touch, and the spaghetti-tangle of electricity and phone cables strung out between them. The “fairy lights” of the night before were the bare bulbs that illuminate the narrow streets and crumbling concrete steps that run up and down the hillside like a surreal image by M. C. Escher—but for the poor in Caracas the image is all too real.
Where you live in Venezuela, and your family background, still has an impact on daily life. Life in the city is very different from life in the countryside, and there is a great difference between rich and poor. In 2010 President Chávez hailed a report by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) that stated that Venezuela had reduced extreme poverty from 27 percent in 1999 to 7 percent. But, despite government attempts to tackle poverty and increase access to education, medical care, and subsidized groceries, a huge wealth gap still remains.
Venezuelans live in all sorts of houses, from the Beverly Hills–type mansions of the mega-rich, who live in gated communities, to the high-rise apartment blocks of the middle classes, and the straw shabono dwellings of the Yanomami Indians deep in the rain forest. Wherever they live, whether in mansions or cinder-block shacks, Venezuelans are united by a love of family, especially children, a desire to improve their lot, and an optimism for the future.
Pressure on urban space in a country where so many people live in cities has led to vertical solutions in city centers, where high-rise buildings are the norm, and satellite towns of two-story houses for middle- and working-class commuters.
Some traditional colonial housing does exist, notably in the city of Coro, which was founded in 1527 and is one of the oldest towns in Venezuela. A UN World Heritage Site, it has well-preserved adobewalled houses built around central open courtyards, often with a mango or papaya tree for shade. In Caracas, there are a number of important colonial houses around Plaza Bolívar, including the nearby house in which Simón Bolívar was born. The best-preserved eighteenth-century house in Caracas is the Quinta Anauco.
On a more modest scale, in the countryside and along the coast, many small towns and fishing villages have colonial-style buildings, one-story houses with small windows, concrete or packed-earth floors, and an open courtyard at the back to take advantage of the breeze and keep the house cool.
When Venezuelans talk about “la gente del cerro” (the people on the hillside), they aren’t referring to the privileged inhabitants of luxury hillside apartments, who live far from the traffic, noise, and overcrowding of downtown Caracas. The hills where expensive apartment buildings with security guards are located are called lomas. The cerros are the sprawling shantytowns built by poor people with their own hands that cling precariously to the hillsides surrounding the valley and provide shelter for some 50 percent of the city’s residents.
Roughly half of all urban dwellers live in unplanned shantytowns, or barrios. Some barrios are enormous. The Jose Felix Ribas barrio, in the east of Caracas, is considered one of the largest shantytowns in Latin America, home to an estimated 120,000 people crammed into 237 acres. Only the Ávila Mountain that separates Caracas from the Caribbean Sea—declared a national park in 1958—has managed to escape the encroachment of ranchos—cinder-block shacks with zinc roofs.
Most established barrios have access to gas, water, and electricity, but in some of the newest settlements on the highest slopes residents of the ranchos have no running water or sewage facilities. They have to hook up to the electricity grid illegally and bring fresh water up—or garbage down—the steep concrete steps that interconnect the streets of the barrio with the city below.
A major consequence of living where cars can’t pass and where the police are sometimes afraid to go is that crime is rampant in poorer areas and many people are afraid to leave their houses after dark. A large percentage of the weekend death toll can be traced to the barrios and the young gangs of malandros (thugs) and drug dealers who fight it out with guns for dominance of the streets.
Family life is built around the home and the extended family. As we have seen, elderly relatives stay with their families rather than go into old people’s homes, and young adults remain at home for some years.
Children are doted upon. Some visitors react with terror when strangers come up and touch their children in the street, or make comments like, “Tu niña es tan linda quiero comerla a besos” (“Your child is so pretty, I want to eat her up with kisses”), but Venezuelans are used to it, growing up in large families with young children and babies around.
A WAY WITH NAMES
Some Venezuelans like to invent unique names for their children. They may combine their own names to create hybrids like Nelmar (Nelson and María), or reverse a name to get Susej (Jesús) or Aseret (Teresa). Anglo-Saxon names assume strange spellings, such as Jhon, Jhonni, Chirly (Shirley), and Yeferson (Jefferson). There was a fad in the 1960s and ’70s for political names such as Stalin, Maolenin, and Hochemin. Popular names today are Leididi, a tribute to Diana, Princess of Wales, and Maickolyakson. Yesaidú is a girl’s name taken from the English “yes I do.”
Life can be a real struggle for poorer families, which generally have more mouths to feed and a greater reliance on public rather than expensive private health care. A macho attitude prevails among some men who believe the number of children they have is a sign of their virility. A failure to take on responsibility for the children they father with multiple partners means that much child rearing in poor and rural areas is done by single women with the help of their family. If a woman can’t cope with a child, or if a child is orphaned, it is not unusual for it to be brought up by a grandmother or aunt.
High inflation and rising costs means that many poorer women are forced to work two jobs to make ends meet—a situation known as “matando tigre” (killing a tiger)—or work in the informal economy selling sweets and cakes or setting up street stalls. Some children have to work shining shoes or looking after parked cars to raise extra cash for the family.
That doesn’t mean Venezuelans aren’t generous. Even the poorest family will invite a visitor in for coffee and a bite to eat. A popular saying is “Donde comen dos comen tres,” which means that if there’s food for two there’s food for three.
For both rich and poor, family life revolves around holidays and family celebrations. There are plenty of occasions for Venezuelans to let their hair down, forget the bad times, crack a smile, and party like there’s no tomorrow.
Wealthy and upper-middle-class families generally have one or more servants living in the house to clean, cook, make beds, look after the children, and do the shopping. They may also have a gardener, a chauffeur, and a security guard. The number of servants in a house is seen as an indication of status.
Live-in maids typically have to wear a uniform provided by their employer, and are given a strict roster of chores. The word cachifa will often be heard in Venezuela to describe a live-in maid, although it is considered impolite to use in front of a maid.
A recurring story line in Venezuelan soap operas is the rags-to-riches tale of a maid who falls in love with her employer’s son and, after many trials and tribulations, becomes the lady of the house. This rather romantic view of life, which is pitched at maids having a post-lunch break while their employers enjoy a siesta, is far from the reality. Most women in service earn very little money, sleep in a small room off the kitchen, and have limited contact with their families—including their children—who might live miles away in the countryside.
Servants who have lived with their employers for many years may be treated as part of the family and live-in nannies often establish strong bonds with the children they care for that blur the usual divisions between family and servant.
Among the middle and professional classes it is typical for women with high-powered jobs to have some kind of home help, but they are more likely to employ a house cleaner for a few days a week than have a live-in maid. Contracting cleaners or nannies is generally done through personal recommendation or through an agency, due to security fears.
It is quite common even for poor families to pay somebody from the neighborhood to come in and look after the children or help with washing and cooking on an ad hoc basis. This reflects the lack of employment opportunities and low wages for many Venezuelans.
Venezuelans often travel far to work or study, and weekdays can start early, at about 5:00 a.m. Desayuno (breakfast) is usually an arepa with scrambled eggs or ham and cheese, or a bowl of cereal, and coffee. Those in a rush will grab a quick snack from a bakery, and wash it down with fruit juice or coffee. Children will walk or take a bus or the Metro to school, starting early because of the heat. Commuters from the satellite towns around Caracas have to start especially early to beat the traffic.
Offices open at about 7:00 or 8:00 a.m., and there is usually a coffee machine or a nearby kiosk or bakery for a mid-morning break. Lunch is taken in the two hours between midday and 2:00 p.m., and is usually an hour long, although people stretch it to two hours when they can. The siesta is rare these days in Venezuela, so the days of the long almuerzo (lunch) are over, and heavy traffic makes it hard for people to get home for a meal. Most workers will bring a home-made meal, or go out for pasta or pabellon criollo at one of the cheap restaurants offering a menú ejecutivo or menú del día, where you get a two-course meal an a drink for a fixed price.
In some places, however, especially in laid-back rural areas, shops might close until 3:00 p.m. for a siesta. Offices close at about 6:00 p.m., and many people have coffee or a drink with colleagues or do some shopping before heading home to avoid the worst of the rush hour traffic.
The evening meal (cena) is usually at home, with the whole family seated at the table, and is generally taken between 7:00 and 9.00 p.m. It will probably consist of soup followed by a main course of meat, chicken, or fish with rice, black beans, or mashed potato, and a side of salad.
Even if they live in big cities, Venezuelans will do their shopping as if they lived in a small town, buying groceries in little stores close to home and building a personal relationship with local shopkeepers. Most groceries can be found in the local abasto, the equivalent of a mom-and-pop shop and typically run by Portuguese owners. Every town and village in Venezuela, no matter how small, will have at least one abasto, licorería (liquor store), and farmacia (pharmacy). The other important stop on the daily shopping trip is the panadería (bakery), which not only sells canillas (baguettes) but is a good place to have coffee and a chat and buy cold cuts and cheese from the deli counter.
This concept of “buying local” extends to the barrios, where many homes sell sweets, cakes, savory snacks, or beer from the front windows of their houses to earn some extra cash. When the alternative of visiting the local abasto involves a long walk up and down steep steps, paying a few BsF more for essentials makes sense.
Another aspect of the informal economy is the selling of fruit and vegetables on the street from trucks that come direct from the countryside. These compete with the many street vendors who set up stalls selling everything from fresh food to clothes, and established markets, where prices might be higher. Pirated CDs and DVDs are also sold on the street for a fraction of the store prices.
There are several large chain supermarkets that stock all the usual things you would find in the USA or the UK. A recent phenomenon, the Mercales are government-subsidized shops that sell basic foods at discounted prices. Some have blamed these for distorting the market, undercutting private stores, and leading to shortages of some basics, such as coffee, powdered milk, beef, and chicken. When faced with a shortage of an essential item, Venezuelan housewives travel from store to store until they find it, leading to long lines in some supermarkets as word spreads.
The other major shopping destinations are the mega-malls found in the big cities, like the Sambil chain of shopping centers, where people go to window-shop and hang out as much as to buy clothes and gadgets.
There are few festive occasions in Venezuela as joyous as a wedding. Guests dress up in their best, and the couple, best man, and bridesmaids wear rented tuxedos and dresses. The ceremony takes place in the cool of the evening, and is followed by canapés or a buffet, and dancing to a live band or DJ.
Well-off couples will go whole hog and have an extravagant church wedding and reception, and post their photographs in the society pages of the newspapers. Less lavish celebrations are the norm for those with more modest resources, but three things you can always expect at a Venezuelan wedding are the rice that guests throw over the happy couple, the whiskey served at the reception, and the hora loca (crazy hour), when hats and masks are handed out to guests at midnight and the dancing starts in earnest.
Civil ceremonies are held in front of a justice of the peace and can take place in the register offices or at home. Many Venezuelans decorate their house or apartment, invite their friends, and have a party after saying their vows and signing the register.
Divorce has been legal since 1909, and is not a complicated process.
Although a Catholic country, Venezuela has quite high rates of concubinato (consensual union), particularly in rural areas and inner city barrios, in which couples live together as husband and wife without going through a civil or church wedding. Some go on to tie the knot in a civil ceremony, but many do not. As children are given both paternal and maternal surnames, there is no real stigma in being the offspring of a consensual union. Once registered, these relationships have the status of civil partnerships under the law.
Venezuela has a system of free education open to all, and a parallel system of fee-paying private schools and colleges.
School attendance is compulsory from the age of six to seventeen years. Although some children start their education in private institutions, the majority start at a preescolar (pre-school) between the ages of three and six. Primaria (primary school) is from age six to twelve, and Secundaria (high school) up to seventeen. The last year of high school is called Quinto Año, when students have the chance to take the Bachillerato (Baccalaureate).
A recent campaign by the government, called Misión Robinson, has had great success in virtually eradicating adult illiteracy, which stood at 11 percent of the population in 1992. As part of the program, teachers were dispatched all over the country, including to remote indigenous communities, and more than a million adults learned to read and write between 2003 and 2005. Misión Ribas is another government program that gives adults who never finished high school the chance to gain their high school certificates and apply for university admission.
There are more than thirty-two universities and more than ninety technical institutes. Women take up 52 percent of university enrollment.
The oldest and largest public university is the Universidad Central de Venezuela (UCV), which occupies a huge campus in the center of Caracas and teaches about 58,000 students. It was designed by Venezuelan architect Carlos Raúl Villanueva between 1944 and 1960. Recognized as a masterpiece of modernist architecture, it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Murals and sculptures by Alexander Calder are dotted around the campus.
The other major university is the Universidad de los Andes in Mérida, which dates back to 1810 and has some 40,000 students.
Living in crowded barrios, dealing with gridlocked traffic, and holding sometimes two or more jobs to make ends meet, Venezuelan city dwellers love to head for the park or the beach on weekends.
Parks are the perfect places for families to hang up a papier-maché piñata to celebrate a child’s birthday, cook some meat on a barbecue, and enjoy some fresh air. They are also perfect for practicing sports, and you’ll find softball teams, joggers, judo classes, and yoga groups taking full advantage of the space, alongside young lovers who live at home and need somewhere to hold hands and smooch.
You can spend all day in some Caracas parks, like Parque Generalísimo Francisco de Miranda in Altamira, which has an acoustic shell for concerts, a mini-zoo of tropical birds and animals, a boating lake, and a re-creation of Christopher Columbus’s ship La Santa María.
The beach is another typical weekend destination for many Venezuelans, as so many people live in the cities near the coast. Venezuelans will usually travel to the beach en masse, with extended family or large groups of friends taking food, drinks, and music along to give a day at the beach a party atmosphere.
In Caracas, the middle classes will be found walking the mountain trail from Altamira up to the ranger station at Sabas Nieves on Cerro El Ávila, the impressive mountain that separates the city from the Caribbean Sea and dominates the skyline. An extension of the Andes, the Ávila rises to a height of 8,990 ft (2,740 meters) at Pico Naiguata, its highest point. Declared a national park in 1958 to stop the encroachment of slum dwellings and preserve the forest, the Ávila is known as “the lungs of Caracas.” The trail to Sabas Nieves is a place for the city’s beautiful people to see and be seen, and some hikers dress to impress in spandex and full makeup.
Those who can’t make the three-hour trek to the top of the mountain take the cable car for fifteen minutes up to the spectacular Humboldt Hotel—a pet project of the dictator Marcos Pérez Jimenez in the 1950s. The area around the hotel offers cool respite from the heat of the valley, magnificent views of the sea, and stalls selling blackberries and other fruits grown on the mountain slopes of Galipan.
The other great leisure pursuit in the cities is spending a day at one of the massive shopping malls, such as the Sambil in Caracas, where you can shop or window-shop, eat a snack or a full meal at a range of local and US franchises, have a few beers, watch a game at a sports bar, and take in a movie at the multiplex.
The main draw of the shopping malls is that they allow people of all social classes to hang out in a safe environment. That’s an important benefit in a country where insecurity is a big factor in determining where you feel safe to go and where you don’t.
