Schools no longer have milk or meals to feed their children with. Private institutions are constantly being harassed and many are taken over by the government. It is normal for children to miss school because they faint from malnourishment. And now the subjects taught at school have been modified and reformed to echo the government’s way of thinking.

I got sick not so long ago; bad bacteria made a home inside my large intestine. It was very difficult for me to find a specialist for treatment; I had to run many errands to get the 3 basic medications that the doctor prescribed me. Had I not had family living overseas who could help me with the process and the costs, I really don’t know what would have happened.

The cost of meds in this country is ridiculously high and that’s if you are able to find them. It’s impossible to afford them on a salary in Venezuela. All basic State services here are chaotic. There are blackouts all the time, sometimes lasting even hours, which causes patients to die during surgical procedures, including babies in the neo-natal care unit, while, in the best case scenario, it is common for the blackouts to damage all electronic devices, which cannot be replaced once they’re broken.

As for water, it doesn’t run every day. There are parts of the country with no water for weeks. Can you imagine what this is like for over 20 days? How do you drink, shower, cook or wash your clothes or hands? Dear God! And the same goes for all the services that the States provide: communication, public transportation, agencies, banks; trust me, it is all chaos in this country.

As I said before, I’m a senior citizen; I’m retired. But not in the sense that I no longer work. I actually cannot see how that can even be possible for me. I’m retired simply because I get my pension as it has always been stated by law for people my age who worked every day for many years and paid year after year our taxes to the IVSS, also known as the Venezuelan Institute of Social Security.

Can you imagine for a second what that’s like? To work your whole life, for more than 30 years, contributing to the development and growth of your country for so many…many years, to receive misery in return? Which isn’t even enough to get you properly fed or taken care of?

The amount of money we, the elderly, receive from our retirement pensions are not enough to buy the medication we need, and we are not even talking about food, clothing, rent or utilities.

(…to be continued…)

In the Middle – An International Transposition (Fiction)

Introduction to In the Middle – An International Transposition, edited by Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey

January: Forgetting – Turkey, by Seyit Ali Dastan

February: The Unreal in Real – Armenia, by Armine Asryan

March: Catching Water – Argentina, by Javier Gómez

April: Unwanted – South Africa, by Toni Wallis

May: House with a Stucco Ship – Ukraine, by Gennady Bondarenko

June: A Girl Pedaling – Cuba, by Marilin Guerrero Casas

July: The Last Day – Poland, by Pawel Awdejuk

August: Through my Hands – Venezuela, by Veronica Cordido

September: Amelia’s Euphemism – Spain, by Jonay Quintero Hernández

October: Until Love Do Us Part – Uruguay, by Alejandra Baccino

November: A Journey to the Edge – Lebanon, by Rayan Harake

December: I Used to Smoke – Russia, by Kate Korneeva

Background – Context

Peripatetic Alterity: A Philosophical Treatise on the Spectrum of Being – Romantics and Pragmatists by Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2019)

La Syncrétion of Polarization and Extremes Transposée, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2019)

The Codex of Uncertainty Transposed, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2018)

L’anthologie of Global Instability Transpuesta, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2017)

From Wahnsinnig to the Loony Bin: German and Russian Stories Transposed to Modern-day America, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2013)

More work by Veronica Cordido

The Crib of Uncertainty – Veronica Cordido (transposing emblem)

Instability, A Stable Reality – Veronica Cordido (transposing emblem)

Hanging by Extremes – Veronica Cordido (transposing emblem)

Emblems and stories on the international community

Perception by country – Transposing emblems, articles, short stories and reports from around the world

Credits

Cover photo: Caracas, Venezuela – La Araña – Eddvlp (Shutterstock)

Source: The Codex of Uncertainty Transposed