The Spirit of Faith and Joy

By Eric Hanna, S. J.

I left Maracaibo, near Venezuela's northern coast, early in the morning and set out with my hosts in the direction of the Colombian border. We were heading for an area near the Rio Limon, home to a branch of Venezuela's indigenous people: the Wayuu. My trip's destination was a primary school run by a Jesuit education organization called Fe y Alegría (faith and joy).

The journey took about an hour and a half. The landscape slowly transitioned from dense forests into flat, white plains of sandy soil. We rolled past copses of hardy, dry trees and herds of skinny cows. After crossing the bridge over the wide, rolling river we quickly arrived at the school. It is a school for the children of the Wayuu community, composed of a few hundred students from grades one to six.

Impressions from Venezuela IV

By Adam Hincks, S.J.

Early two Saturdays ago, Eric and I boarded the bus for Maracaibo. (Daniel left later in the day for Guasdualito). It was a fourteen hour ride and ten o’clock when we arrived and were picked up by our hosts.

The length of our journey underscores the historic isolation of Maracaibo from the rest of the country, as it is on the west coast of the huge Lake Maracaibo. Indeed, with its sprawling geography, slower pace, heavy sun and dry, dusty terrain, the city does feel far from Caracas. As advertised, Maracaibo is hot: daytime temperatures are consistently in the mid-thirties with a fair amount of humidity. Contrary to my expectations, however, pretty much everything is air conditioned. But this does not stop all the locals from asking us, somewhat eagerly, with the same kind of idiosyncratic pride that some Canadians display at their cold winters, how we are handling the heat: a standard refrain to which we have learned simply to smile and nod politely.

Venezuela: A Prose Poem

By Eric Hanna, S.J.

I have drunk deeply from the cup of life!
Outside my windows, people sing.
At dinner, tiny Sister Wilma cackled like a wicked witch at the jests of young scholastics.

The white walls of the Casa Praetoria were sprayed with neat, red letters spelling "con los trabajados y Chavez!"

The woman who worked at Fe y Alegria explained that there were three hundred thousand students being educated for free or for voluntary donations.

The one who worked at JRS said that they have to bend over backwards with politeness to a mistrusting government in order to change the word 'refugee' to 'person' in the minds of policy makers.