Poor indeed

This is a follow-up to my previous post.

Let me start this out by saying that there was a period of a few years when I couldn't tolerate the thought of eating an egg.

Since I didn't find a Venezuelan family to "bond" with in the summer of 1986 by moving in with a family, it was decided that I, along with my co-worker, Brent, should accompany a man in the neighborhood on a trip to his hometown in the interior of Venezuela.

We must have met Chuy during our first couple of days upon arrival in Venezuela. Chuy is the diminutive name in Latin America used for men named Jesus. Chuy was probably close to 60 years-old, a peasant man from the Andean mountain town of Merida. He and his wife were house-sitting in a mansion up the street from ours while the family who lived there were on an extended tour of Europe.

It so happened that a few weeks after our arrival, Chuy was going home to Merida for a few days. He didn't speak a lick of English so we'd be forced to communicate with him only in Spanish. We were to go there by bus, about an 18 hour ride.

So we arrived at the bus terminal in Caracas very early in the morning. That's my memory at least. It could have been as late as 9:00 a.m., which I still consider early. The bus to Merida was modern and clean and air-conditioned. We were the first to board and there weren't many people on when we left Caracas. This was the local bus, meaning that it stopped along the way at every city and town along the route.

I was so smart. I decided we should sit in the front because everyone knows the back of the bus can be uncomfortable, especially on bumpy, windy roads. What I didn't know is that the radio speaker was just above our heads and played what I would call Mariachi music for 18 hours straight except for the occasional 70s American pop song, which was always the same song, "ouga chaka, ouga chaka, ouga ouga ouga chaka...I can't fight this feeling" by Blue Swede. I like the song. I like it once every few months. Or years. It seemed to be on an hour loop. But I have to say, at this point, I loved it.

To be honest, I don't remember much about the trip during the day. I remember after dark, we stopped at someplace to eat. It seemed like a truck stop high in the mountains. And it seemed scary to me. But I think it was just that everything was completely unknown. We were given a menu but it quickly became clear that there was only one thing left, some kind of beef. It came served with black beans (caraotas), an arepa and it was delicious. It was like my mom and aunts cook when they cook a cheap cut of meat and slow cook it forever until it falls apart and is served with a rich gravy.

After dinner, the bus slowly emptied out at what seemed to be random stops in the middle of nowhere and there were some empty double seats. I decided to try to curl up and sleep. What I didn't realize is that by now, we were in the Andes. And the roads must have been hairpin, because every time I would get close to sleep, we'd round a curve and I'd practically be thrown out of my seat. It also appeared that the driver probably wanted to get to our destination very soon.

It was midnight by the time we arrived in Merida. Chuy splurged to take a cab to his home. We went up and up and up. And then the cab could go no further and we got out and walked up and up and up another ten or fifteen minutes.

When we arrived at his home, it was clear that Chuy was poorer than we had imagined. It was July but we were high in the mountains and it was cold, very cold, shivering cold, I-didn't-dress-for-this cold. There was no heat. He showed Brent and me to a double bed and we quickly crawled under the covers. It was like going to bed in my grandma's house when I was little. The bedrooms were cold in the winter and you just get under the covers and warm the space you're in and try not to move. But we were tired so we passed out.

In the morning we woke up to an empty house. Chuy was nowhere to be found. I found a bathroom. There was a long pipe sticking out of the wall with water pouring out of it. I wanted to wake up and get rid of my bed head. Without thinking, I stuck my head under it. Whoa! Immediate brain freeze. That water was freezing. I looked out the window and realized we were high in Alpine terrain. That water was coming right out of the mountain.

It had been weeks since I'd had cold, fresh water that hadn't been treated or boiled. So I drank that cold water for a long time. More brain freeze.

I then went to the front of the house and went out onto the front porch. Wow! This was a stunning view of snow peaked mountains as far as you could see. We were basically in a slum with a millionaire's view.

Chuy came home and brought us into the kitchen. He made us fresh arepas and fried eggs. Dread filled me. "Please don't eat with us," I was thinking. He served us each two eggs, very over easy, an arepa with a nice dollop of Underwood Deviled Ham.

Chuy didn't stay to eat with us or make sure that we ate every bite. I offered Brent my eggs and, being one of the nicest guys in the world, he took one. But I just couldn't bear to eat the other. What luck! A cat slinked into the kitchen. I "accidentally" dropped the egg on the floor which the cat made quick work of, with not a trace left. A ate the arepa and deviled ham, which was like ambrosia to me. In fact, I wish I had a can of it to eat right now.

Chuy had come home to Merida for some kind of business. Looking back, it now appears that it was probably some kind of legal issue so he was busy during the day and we were free to roam.

But as we accompanied Chuy from home to the city center, it appeared that this poor peasant must have been the most popular man in town. Everyone knew him and obviously loved him. People came out of their homes and businesses to greet him.

Merida has a cable car, the longest in the world by one way of counting, that takes you high into the Andes, higher than anywhere in the continental U.S. or Europe. Brent and I spent a day up there.

Our Spanish was not terrible for beginners. On one of the cable cars, we happened to be on a car with just two other people, two girls about our age. They assumed we didn't speak Spanish, which was a fairly good assumption and not completely inaccurate. But they were talking about us and how one could have one and one the other. This went on for awhile because the first segment up the mountain is pretty long. When we left them at the next stop, we made sure to say farewell to them in our best Spanish. They were mortified. Needless to say they did not get in the cable car with us for the next segment.

We were not with Chuy during the daytimes so we ate on our own, probably pasta or pizza, always easy to find in Venezuela. But at breakfast and dinner we were with him and it was always the dreaded egg, a freshly fried arepa and some sort of canned meat product. I know that Chuy was giving us the best that he could afford. I wonder if he noticed the cat getting fatter. But I still crave Underwood Deviled Ham on an arepa.

I don't know exactly how long we stayed with Chuy, I think three full days. We met some of his family. If I remember correctly, he had eight children.

Most of the population of Merida lived in the valley. But poor Chuy lived high up on the mountain with a view of the highest peaks of the Andes and fresh mountain air and cold pure water running right into his house. Poor indeed!

On the trip home, which I dreaded terribly, Chuy suggested that we go by taxi. It isn't uncommon in Latin America to hire a taxi to take you very long distances. It was a shorter trip but I'm not sure it was more comfortable. I sat on the hump the entire 700 miles.