June 2019 – The Pull Of The Land

Life In An American Camp II — Gone Fishin’

June 29, 2019June 30, 2019 Richard Barnes

A boyhood friend returned with his family to the United States several years before it was my turn to leave. Back in the USA, he was so homesick for El Pao that he “ran away from home” to find his way back to Venezuela.

“I’m going to El Pao! [pronounced ‘pow!’]” That’s the explanation he gave to the baffled policeman (“What’s ‘L Pow?'”) who picked him up and returned him to his parents.

What would make him miss the place so much for so long? What kept pulling him back?

Well, you might refer to an earlier post (Life In An American Camp) to begin getting an idea of the “why”.

Perhaps a reason might be the community life, which yielded solid friendships.

The reality was, for anyone looking from the outside in, El Pao’s was an active social life. There were many dinner engagements, which may have been “dull” to the men, who would (this would be heard off and on, usually in lighthearted bantering humor) rather be doing something else, like reading the newspaper or listening to Voice of America on shortwave radio.

Nevertheless, these formal and semi-formal activities served to polish and sharpen the adults’ interpersonal skills while developing the children’s. Years later, as a young man invited to cocktail gatherings or full course dinners, a boy from El Pao would generally know how to behave with decent etiquette in settings among folks who, in theory at least, had had far more opportunities to have developed social graces than families in a South American mine.

Perhaps an enclosed community creates its own pressures to conform to proper behavior and manners, especially if its inhabitants are mostly of the same or similar upbringing, culture, tradition, general religion, and understanding of what is the good, the permanent. Whereas those in large settings, with multiple options, lacking the self-discipline, or the encouragement, to seek to develop such skills, find it easier to take the path of least resistance, which is to avoid such opportunities.

The hosts and hostesses never expressed thinking about a “purpose” behind their hospitality; they simply brought “continental” habits to a small colony in the forest and proceeded as if they were still in Chicago, New York, Bethlehem, Kalamazoo, or whatnot. In this, they were apt heirs of their mostly British ancestors who had their silverware brought to Kenya or Rhodesia and served tea at tea time, no matter where the location. Given the smallness of the place, these events, no matter how formal, had an intimacy which yielded a greater, longer lasting personal impact than they would have in larger, more impersonal settings.

Consequently, these activities also forged, over a few short years, strong familial chains between folks who, back in the States would most likely have remained strangers for the most part. But here, after visiting one another’s homes and sharing each other’s bread and wine, not to mention working hard jointly as teams, they formed kinships stronger than that of many families. These bonds persevered for decades beyond the end of their pilgrimage in the Venezuelan interior. In some cases, they’ve persevered for life.

Non-work-or-school-related activities in El Pao were many and varied: Bowling nights; volleyball nights; movie nights; Christmas season nights; “free nights” which invariably meant calls on friends’ homes — meaning, over time, everyone’s home. There were also special nights, when, for instance, a magician would be brought in by the company to entertain and educate both children and adults; or some would deliver lectures on eclectic subjects or events. There was a Spaniard who was an outstanding pianist who would regale those in the club, usually on a spontaneous basis.

All this occurred in an Amazonian jungle.

Some wives complained about being so far from “civilization”. Some sons and daughters would echo those gripes. These were laments the boy never heard at home and never understood. How could anyone not feel lucky to be here? Well, as he once heard it said, there are people who, when viewing the Grand Canyon, will ignore the breathtaking vistas and focus their gaze on the back of a vulture which may be flying below.

The good news is that most folks bloomed where they were planted.

As for the runaway friend in the States, while the boy joined in the hearty laughter when told the story, he also felt the same yearning in his heart that his buddy had felt in his.

Home in El Pao. Many of the early homes in the camp were principally prefabricated steel, which would tremble when dynamite went off in the nearby mines.

Recess in the camp school. The boyhood friend in the anecdote above is second from the left.

Gone Fishin’ (1951) was a sunny little ditty performed by Bing Crosby and Louis Armstrong. I link it here as an example of the type popular music played in the club that I recall from my early childhood. The juke box contents changed in later years along with the composition of the camp.

Above link is to a movie trailer of the popular High Society (1956) (Bing Crosby and Louis Armstrong also starred) seen on a movie night in El Pao in the 1950’s, When The Going Was Good, as the late Professor Jeffrey Hart put it.

Whatever Happened to That Malaysian Airliner?

June 22, 2019June 22, 2019 Richard Barnes

This will mark the first blog post that is not directly related to Venezuela. It relates to an event which occurred while I was on an assignment that had me often in Singapore, off the southern tip of the Malaysian peninsula, and you can imagine the consternation in those parts when the Malaysian airline disappeared en route to Beijing.

When one reads something that is well done and superbly researched and vetted, one’s desire is to share with friends, no?

So, dear reader, if you have any interest in that haunting episode of five years ago (has it been that long?), you might want to dedicate 15 to 20 minutes to this in depth article courtesy of The Atlantic. Well written and the product of thorough research and investigation.

If you have an Indiana Jones spirit or a Roy Chapman Andrews or Hiram Bingham spirit (for those of you who prefer non-fiction) or a historian’s heart or a sense of adventure or a regard for science (knowledge) or a love of good writing or investigation, or are intrigued by the social media’s influence on depression, or would like to note in your files yet another example of the negative impact of infidelity, you should take the time to read this.

I recommend you have a tab open to a map of Asia and East Africa. That will be helpful and, as the article mentions names of places you might be unfamiliar with, you can simply tab to the map and know where it is.

(The article has a helpful map, but you’ll want to refer to your own map before you get to the one in the article.)

If you are interested (I suspect most readers will be) but do not have the time now, just file it with a reminder to come to it at a given time.

We’ll return to Venezuela with next week’s post.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/07/mh370-malaysia-airlines/590653/

Playa Hicacos, 1966

June 15, 2019June 15, 2019 Richard Barnes

Towards the end of my childhood life in Venezuela, my father took us to Puerto la Cruz. Back then, this was a 5 or 6-hour drive but Puerto la Cruz was the closest city with an American consulate. She sits on the northeast coast of Venezuela, east of Caracas, west of Cumaná.

We always looked forward to trips there because such trips would invariably include at least one visit to the spectacular beaches on the coast of Sucre to the east of the city. That trip, in 1966, marked the last time I ever visited a beach in Venezuela, not counting those in Canaima, which are river beaches.

Childhood memories are notoriously unreliable. However, over the years I’ve had the pleasure of meeting a few “round-the-world” sailors who agree that this area of Venezuela contains some of the world’s most picturesque, but unknown, ocean spots.

On that visit, my father drove us for what seemed like hours snaking our way through the high coastal mountain ranges over some unpaved roads affording us breathtaking vistas of this striking cordillera and crystalline seas far below. We eventually arrived at Playa Hicacos. We had it all to ourselves. The water was cold (not cool but cold). However, we quickly warmed up and enjoyed our day at the beach. That last beach outing has remained indelible in my memory and I’ve judged all other beaches by that standard. Most others fall short — unfair, I know, to judge the rest by a childhood memory, but indulge me on this, please.

I had little idea that year was a tumultuous one for South America. Signs of political agitation were almost everywhere, not only in Venezuela but in practically all large cities of the continent. Scrawlings on walls — this I do recall — ranged from “Castro is a traitor!” to “Vote Communist!” and, of course the ubiquitous, “Yanqui go home!”

That was the year of The Beatles’ Rubber Soul and I remember hearing “Michelle” here and there at stops during this and other trips — including the one to Maracay alluded to in an earlier post (“Coffee”). That was also the year the same Beatles released an album cover posing as butchers with mutilated dolls and cut meat. It was later pulled, which reflects the fact that, even in 1966, an anteroom year for the Hippies and Woodstock shenanigans, sensibilities were more respectful than today.

I also recall lots of ruckus about a gal named Peggy Fleming who skated on ice, spectacularly. I now understand that she was a key figure (no pun intended) envisaging the return of the USA to figure skating dominance after the entire 18-member team was killed in a plane crash in 1961.

And large scale anti-Vietnam War protests also began to take shape that year.

But news from South America was sparse. You had to be living there to hear about Communist guerrilla bands attacking landowners in Peru or the rumors of Juan Peron’s return to Argentina and the upheavals that led to the military coup, with labor support (!), which deposed its president.

In Chile, Eduardo Frei was president. He downplayed the Communist threat and, like many South American intellectuals, would chide the Americans for being so “childishly afraid” of a non-threat. It was a turbulent year in Chile culminating 4 years later with the election of Salvador Allende with 36% of the vote; an election which had to be decided by the legislature who voted him in, after receiving assurances by Allende that he would not go full Communist. Assurances which went promptly out the window. Such was the shock and such was the disaster, that Eduardo Frei himself came to support Allende’s ouster by a military coup in 1973. The Chile situation did get press in the United States in the 1970’s, but as usual it was very incomplete and much too colored by Hollywood.

In Colombia, lawlessness had its own peculiar name: La Violencia. In 1966, as in prior years, President Guillermo Valencia sought to explain to US diplomats and legislators and dubious journalists that the violent guerrillas causing havoc in the country were Communist-inspired and supported (there was plenty of evidence for this, including Cubans embedded with the guerillas and pamphlets espousing the Communist line).

Perhaps La Violencia’s most despicable exponent was Pedro Antonio Marín, known as Tiro Fijo (Sure Shot). The prior year he had waylaid a bus, and killed thirteen of its passengers (including two nuns). This was followed by an attack on a nearby village. He and his men murdered the mayor and police chief and then preached revolution to the stunned villagers. Marín was the chief leader of the Communist FARC, which he founded in 1966. His toll of known murders exceeded 200 by the end of the 1960’s, then grew exponentially thereafter.

In Venezuela President Betancourt, a former Communist who had been betrayed by Castro (here, besides written propaganda, the evidence included weapons, explosives, and ammunition smuggled in from Cuba), had denounced Castro to the Organization of American States (OAS) and demanded sanctions, thereby earning the eternal hatred of his erstwhile comrades. The FALN (a Communist group akin to Colombia’s FARC) was active, but Betancourt clamped down, hard, in the early 60’s including outlawing the Communist Party. The damage to infrastructure and commerce, including oil pipelines, was great; however, by 1966, things were somewhat calm, business was good, travel was open, and the National Guard checkpoints along critical highways gave us a sense of security. Acts of violence still occurred, but not as seriously as earlier in the decade.

It was an intense year. But as a child, I knew little of all that and certainly had no premonition of the storms which were about to burst in the few short years that followed.

My only concern (whenever I would think of it, butterflies would fly in my gut) was that this would be my last year living at home. That day in Playa Hicacos was fun and peaceful and strikingly beautiful; sort of an oasis, a recreational rest midst the gathering storms. Looking back, I now suspect my father’s desire was to provide opportunities to create memories to cherish in the years ahead. Not only for me, but for him as well.

In September of 1966, at the end of annual family leave in Miami, I bid farewell to my mother and father and siblings as they boarded the Pan American jet which would transport them back to Venezuela. I remained in Miami, Florida for schooling, as did most of my cousins.

As for Playa Hicacos, I later learned that, in 1973, the entire area was designated a national park, Mochima, and I hear it’s as beautiful now as it was back in the day when I visited.

There are some things that never change.

The Beatles’ original *Yesterday and Today* album cover. Later pulled.

The Beatles’ highly influential *Rubber Soul*, which included the song, “Michelle”

Peggy Fleming on a South American postage stamp in 1983, commemorating her gold medal in the 1968 Olympics.

Arturo Illia, President of Argentina, deposed by military coup in 1966.

Eduardo Frei, president of Chile in 1966. He came to support the military coup against Salvador Allende in 1973.

Salvador Allende deposed by military coup in 1973; committed suicide before he could be removed. He was president of the senate from 1966 to 1970. A doctrinaire Communist who betrayed his assurances to the Chile legislature. They would not have supported his appointment as president otherwise.

Pedro Antonio Marín (Tiro Fijo). A most despicable murderer. The United States State Department eventually put a price of $5 million on him. It is said he died, in Colombia, of a heart attack in 2008.

Guillermo León Valencia, president of Colombia until August, 1966. He at least understood much of the instigation of *La Violencia*.

President Rómulo Betancourt and Fidel Castro in 1959. The relationship soon soured.

One of the countless beaches in the Mochima area

All beach photos are from the Mochima area.

The boy and his sister at Playa Hicacos, 1966

Envy

June 7, 2019June 7, 2019 Richard Barnes

“He was the greatest Argentine since San Martín. But two things can never be forgiven him. He created class hatred in a country that had never had it, and he ruined agriculture by siphoning off labor into the towns.” — Inside South America, p. 184

“Los débiles invocan la justicia: déseles la justicia: déseles la fuerza, y serán tan injustos como sus opresores.” [The weak invoke justice. Give them justice; give them force, and they will be as unjust as their oppressors.] — Andrés Bello, Estudios de Crítica Histórica

The former quote was spoken by an Argentine when asked for his opinion about Juan Perón. The quote is most perceptive and applies not only to Perón but to a majority of western 20th and 21st century politicians. Like the more successful ones, Perón was — to Peronistas — charismatic, with big teeth and a wide, easy smile. His method was to preach unity while inciting class hatred. In this regard, class includes wealth, race, religion, sex, fill-in-the-blank. The method also requires perpetuating a permanent sense of guilt for events that may have taken place long before the current generation was a twinkle in its parents’ eyes. Guilt weakens a people and also destroys their love for their country. It makes a people more easily manipulated by politicians. The unscrupulous know this. It would behoove the rest of us to know it too.

Have you noticed that this “method”, the inciting of class envy (although it is rarely, if ever, reported as envy), is intensely promoted by Socialist and Communist politicians? Those ideologies cannot survive without an incentive to “get even” or to create discord among a people. That alone ought to warn us to be wary of non-Socialist politicians who labor along the same path.

In the case of Venezuela, as alluded in prior posts, the country’s problems did not begin with Chavez. That gives him too much credit. The issues predated him by generations by men and women who prepared the way for him.

Venezuela was one of the most prosperous South American countries. Refer to the earlier post, Chile vs. Venezuela, for a 2-minute précis on this. She enjoyed great economic freedom, and this, under military dictatorships. I was born under one of those, the Pérez Jimenez regime. I remember in childhood rubbing shoulders with friends from all social and economic strata of society. I do not recall folks fomenting class warfare or envy.

Later in life I came to realize that under the dictatorship, we did not enjoy a free press nor did we have universal suffrage. However, we did enjoy high levels of freedom, including freedom of mobility, freedom of commerce, freedom in society, and, certainly, freedom in our homes. We had nowhere near the restrictions the peoples of Eastern Europe or Mao’s China, both atheistic regimes, were struggling under.

In the first half of the 20th century Venezuela became an economic powerhouse. As the petroleum, and later the iron ore, industries surged, Venezuela ensured it remained in private hands. The dictators understood that the state did not have the expertise to manage such vast, far flung operations; they left them in the hands of the international companies but did charge royalties and obtained other concessions in return. This arrangement ensured increasing prosperity for her people as well as great advances in local technology and culture. This was a period of phenomenal progress in research and discovery. To cite just one example, the diamond knife (or scalpel) was invented in the 1950’s by Venezuelan Humberto Fernández-Morán Villalobos (1924-1999). This “significantly advanced the development of electromagnetic lenses for electron microscopy based on superconductor technology and many other scientific contributions.”

As for state spending, it was mostly focused on the country’s roads, airports, schools, and universities. The Caracas skyline and the country’s expressways became the envy of South America. State-owned companies were few.

Nevertheless, the state began to encroach in the early 50’s, expropriating the telephone and other companies. This was very limited, but the seeds of intervention were sown and when Venezuela became a democracy, the whirlwind began to be reaped. Rómulo Betancourt, Venezuela’s first democratically elected president, one who is revered in Venezuela, was first a Communist who then forsook Communism and became a Socialist, although he spurned that label. Folks do not like to recall that he founded the Communist Party in Costa Rica when in exile there and had a hand in founding the Communist Party in Colombia as well.

We should not be surprised that he immediately proposed, and the legislature approved, price and rent controls, something previously unheard of in Venezuela; a solution seeking for a problem. He worked to create a new constitution which was not friendly to private property.

It’s easy to forget all of that because we had so much more economic and other freedoms back then than what is the case today. But it is necessary to remember that the process began generations ago. Hugo Chavez merely took it to the next level. Speaking philosophically, he was epistemologically consistent, unafraid to take his faith to its logical conclusion.

And his successor, Nicolás Maduro (or his regime’s philosophy) will remain in power so long as his “opponents” refuse to honestly declare their own complicity in what has happened to that stricken land. And an ugly manifestation of that power is the murdering of youth who are resisting what is happening to their homes and country.

A new regime will not arise so long as the opposition refuses to denounce its own love affair with Socialism and its accompanying appeal to envy.

During my last visit to Venezuela, in 2005, I conversed with a taxi driver who expressed satisfaction that the Chavez government had expropriated property that belonged to the Roman Catholic Church. The taxi driver was a protestant and was pleased with Chavez’ denunciation of that Church. I asked him whether Protestants did not care for the Ten Commandments. “Of course we do!” he replied.

“Well, I am also a Protestant. However, theft is wrong, regardless whether the state steals from atheists, or Protestants, or even Roman Catholics. Don’t you agree?”

He, of course, saw the point. But the fact I had to point it out to him, was ominous. Chavez, with a wide smile and ingratiating style, was superb in fomenting envy and class hatred, even among the religious.

The country of my birth needs to re-discover its Christian roots and look beyond politics to the Creator and Redeemer God, to whom all allegiance belongs. She must, once again, see that salvation is not in the State or, heaven forbid(!), in politicians, who, like little Caesars, revel in usurping what belongs to God.

Meanwhile, we are left with the unhappy fact that Venezuelans struggle every single day. “The collapse of Venezuela has been the worst recorded for any nation in nearly 50 years, outside of war.”

Andrés Bello (see blog post “Simón Bolivar III — Influences”), was prescient when he wrote the above quoted citation, circa 1830, decades before the publication of Das Kapital and eighteen years before that of The Communist Manifesto. He understood the human heart and its wickedness and he knew that the politics of envy would never satisfy but rather foment anger and discontent. No ideology will fix man’s heart, which is the source of all human misery.

My heart yearns for and is pained for the land of my birth.

Rómulo Betancourt (center), Venezuela’s first democratically elected president after Marcos Pérez Jimenez, meets with Fidel Castro in 1959, also the first year of Castro’s dictatorship. He later denounced Castro, who, true to form, had betrayed Betancourt by fomenting guerrilla activities in Venezuela. Presciently, Pérez Jimenez, in 1958, had declared, when asked about Castro, “If that gentleman enters our land with his ideas and opprobrium and misery, ideas which can only come from a Communist, you will detain him and you will try him and, if convicted, you will execute him….”

Juan Perón of Argentina (also of Evita Perón “Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina” fame).

Andrés Bello as a young man and shortly before his death in 1865. Refer to post, *Simón Bolivar III — Influences*.

El Rosal neighborhood in Caracas, 1950. Venezuela boasted a rapidly growing middle class

Grocery shopping in Caracas, circa 1950. This is not to deny there was very real poverty in areas of the country’s interior. Future posts will address this dichotomy.

Construction of Centro Simón Bolivar (Torres del Silencio) in 1952.

Opened to the public in 1954. Functionalist architecture, suspended in air on stilts allowing the public to travel underneath unhindered.

Señor Gregorio

June 3, 2019June 7, 2019 Richard Barnes

This post is another fictionalized yet true-to-life account of the reality of hospitality in the Venezuelan interior. People and place names are fiction, but based on true experiences. El Duo is an obvious reference to El Pao.

Lunch was the major meal of the day in Venezuela then – a cultural reality to which Americans quickly adapted. The boy’s father, like most other men in the mines and offices of the El Duo mining camp, came home for lunch and returned to his labors an hour later.

“Adam, he is such a good man; we should feel privileged to be of some help. Surely lunch is no big deal. Remember, we are commanded to hospitality.”

“Yes, and we’re also commanded to work for our food!”

“Adam! He is 78 years old!”

“And he can walk 5 kilometers to our home. And, besides his telling you, how do you know that? He doesn’t look a day over 50 to me.”

“I can’t believe this! You would have me ask for ‘his papers’, as if I were some … some … Nazi official? Mr. Gregorio is an old man; a widower. He is not asking for charity. In fact, Mildred has told me that he works people’s gardens in the labor camp, and….”

“And why don’t they feed him, then?”

“Well, Adam, he works without pay! Don’t be such a…a…such a … garlickeater!”

He raised his eyebrows, looked sideways at her, “Don’t tell me: Johnson, right?”

The running gag in the household was that the boy’s mother read Samuel Johnson, but only to carefully annotate the words the great man of letters would use as snubs. She admired the “Age of Johnson,” which his father referred to as the “Age of Insults.”

She nodded deeply, deliberately, but stayed on point, “He does this as a service for them. Anyway, I have no doubt they do feed him. And without grumbling too! And, you know what? Many of those families accompany him to church on Sundays. I feel we have a part in that and the least we can do is invite him for lunch. For Pete’s sake!”

“Well, you don’t exactly ‘invite’ him to lunch; he just ‘shows up’ for lunch.”

“OK. You are trying to provoke me, right? I mean, I cannot believe my husband would be so … giddybrained he would throw an old man, who is beloved of many and who has been a blessing to many, out on the street. Tell me you are not urging me to do that.”

“Giddybrained?” with barely suppressed laughter.

“I know you are not being serious. Here, have some chicken and rice and shut your mouth.”

“Shall I eat with you and my son and daughter, or with him?”

“If you can stand the smell, go out and eat with him!”

This conversation, with multiple variations, took place at least once each week, much to the boy’s delight, for he enjoyed and laughed at his parents’ repartee. His little sister, Louise, was too young to understand intellectually, but she caught the spirit of it all and laughed along with the boy.

Mr. Gregorio was unusually tall for Venezuelans in that part of the country: about 5 feet 10 inches. He walked slowly, with a barely noticeable limp. He dressed, like most, in khakis. He had thick eyebrows and bright, black eyes. What the boy most remembered about him was his full, thick head of black hair, combed straight back and with barely any streaks of gray. He would also eventually remember his calm speaking: a trait not too common in the Venezuela southeastern interior.

“Adam, seriously, did you know he was diagnosed with cancer 5 years ago and the doctors gave him about 6 months to live?”

“And he’s still alive 5 years later…”

“You are being sarcastic again, and unbelieving, but I’ll let that pass. His story is quite moving, actually. He kept visiting the doctors according to their instructions up at the hospital ….”

Adam was about to insert another needling remark, but knew he was about to pass beyond that convivial pettifoggery, which is usually appreciated among intimates and friends, and into the dangerous realm of cynical fatuousness, which is not. He began to listen intently, quietly, as Margaret handed a steaming pot to Eleana, the housemaid-nanny-and-indispensable-help around the house, and sat next to him.

“After a year of visits, he asked his doctor, ‘Can you explain why I’m still living? I mean, about a year ago, you told me I had about 6 months to live.’

“The doctor could not explain; and Mr. Gregorio said, ‘Well, I’d like to offer you a possible explanation. You see, when you told me that, I went home and I knelt and I asked God to show you that you do not control life. Only God controls life. He alone determines who lives, and for how long, and He alone determines who dies. I am ready to meet my Maker and Redeemer. But I don’t think you are. So, I prayed for you, doctor. And I believe the Good Lord has kept me alive for your sake.’

“Adam, it’s now been 5 years and that doctor has been going to church every Sunday. That doctor is, of course, Dr. Ramirez.”

Everyone in El Duo knew that the doctor’s wife and children had been killed on the El Duo road near Las Posas. In that area, the road has what Adam called a “dead man’s curve,” which is dangerous enough; however, in this case an added danger is that the curve is at the edge of a precipice. Their car careened off that cliff. The bodies were found because of the buzzards seen flying overhead a day or two later.

“Mr. Gregorio knows he will die soon, Adam, and he, more than anyone else, is astonished that he is still living and kicking. He knows he’s on borrowed time and he wants to do all he can with what he has left.

“You are right: he does ‘show up’ every week. But you know what? He’s a joy to all of us. We enjoy his company and his stories. There is a sort of intangible ‘comfort’ that we all sense when he’s here, sitting at that table in the car port. Little Louise, who doesn’t understand nor mind unpleasant smells or body odors, spends the most uninterrupted time in his presence. I like people with whom children are comfortable.

“I think we need him more than he needs our lunches. In a sort of strange way, he probably knows that, and so he comes to us to accompany us every once in a while. He amply fulfills that old English proverb: the company makes the feast.”

“I’ve been having fun with you, honey,” the boy’s father said, unnecessarily but with a warm smile, after a few moments of silence. “Of course, he’s welcomed in this house as often and as long as he wants.”

After lunch, more conversation, and a short nap, it was time for him to return to the office. He headed for the carport. A few minutes later, not having heard the car drive away, the boy stepped out and saw his father talking with Mr. Gregorio and, after a while, offering him his hand. He then walked to the car, a red, 1952 Oldsmobile 88, turned the ignition, backed out of the carport, and drove away.

As it turned out, Mr. Gregorio did not live beyond that year. And the boy accompanied his parents to his funeral, held at the little cemetery in a jungle clearing in the outskirts of the labor camp, known as the Otro Campo. Dr. Ramirez was there too.

An American cattleman with business interests in Venezuela once wrote his personal impression of Venezuelan society saying that it was the most open and cordial in all of South America. He further noted that, unlike the Argentines and Brazilians, who used hotels or restaurants or clubs to entertain visitors, the Venezuelans entertained in their own homes; in that respect, he concluded, they were very much like the Americans. We will have occasion in future posts to tell of what Americans in the early to mid-20^thcentury came to know as “Latin Hospitality”.