Greetings, everyone
Hope everybody is safe and sound. This is my entry to 
View of Cumaná from the Araya Peninsula
What are the first three activities you'll do when the coronavirus is over, and why?
I’m going to have to agree with my wife on this question:
1
I plan to continue wearing mask and gloves. We live in a very polluted city with tons of garbage on every corner. I have felt quite relieved when I have to walk the streets now and I am wearing masks. I had not done it before lest people would see me as a weirdo, but now that everybody was forced to wear masks I won’t feel so out of place, even if I am the only one wearing them after this is over, which I doubt.
2
I plan to go visit my mother and give her a big hug. She has had a very hard quarantine. When this bomb exploded 4 weeks ago, she was in our hometown. She had been away for many months after some violent events forced her to leave (criminal bands, violent grand children). She had spent some months on the western end of the country when she decided it was time to go back home. We insisted that she should stay at one of my brother’s, who lives one hour drive away from her home; the town was not safe. End of the story.
But you know how old people are. They want their place. They can’t be comfortable living at someone else’s house, even if it is their own children. After a couple of days at this one brother, she expressed some desire to go visit her home, just for a couple of days. My elder brother, who was also forced to leave his own home after this band of criminals started to kill in broad day light whoever refused to pay for their protection, now in his 60s, also affected by nostalgia and his inability to adapt to other places, decided that he too wanted to check on his place. Well, he decided to pick my mother up and take her with him. He dropped her at her place and he stayed at his and some days later he got this call. The band was at him again and wanted money, or else. He got so scared he left the very same moment and left my mother behind (allegedly she was not ready and he could not wait).
So, there she was left alone with a daughter who gives her purgatory and some grand children who give her hell. On top of that, there was an infestation of a certain moth (palometa peluda) that causes a horrible allergy and forces people to stay indoors in the dark. That was the easy part because they had constant blackouts. Food was in short supply, they had no phone we could call her to, and road blocks by authorities made it very difficult for anyone to move around. On top of that, we had a serious gasoline shortage that left every car owner stranded. It was impossible to rescue my mother from our hometown. Until a couple of days ago that one of my nephews got a safe passage from a local doctor, which allowed him to pass the controls and get her out of town and back to my brother’s house one hour away from that hell.
I’d love to stay some days with her. Listen to her stories, even if they are the same old stories she likes to tell. She has been through a lot and this pandemic has made us all feel any day will be our last day. It would be great to be able to enjoy her company once more.
3
I plan to go to the beach. We have to visit Araya again or maybe Mochima (these are all located in the State of Sucre, Ve), which is even more beautiful and has more facilities. We need to relax somehow and that would be the perfect way to do it. We need to feel alive again, free of worries. And even though I know things may not be the same after this pandemic, the risks may be around for a while, and our own particular political situation may be far from a resolution, we need to be around nature and beauty lest we forget what living feels like.
Araya. The ruins of the fortress in the background, left. Images from personal files
Thanks for your visit
