San Felix – The Pull Of The Land

El Loco

April 17, 2020 Richard Barnes

El Loco’s haunts were unknown. For the most part.

Mining camp residents spotted him occasionally, and only when they journeyed to or from San Felix, the port town on the banks of the Orinoco River, about 40 kilometers north. If they were lucky, their trip would coincide with an El Loco sighting. He’d be seen walking jauntily, swinging his arms in an exaggerated, yet nonmilitary-type, arc; unmindful of the storms of dust raised by cars or trucks as they passed him, always slowly, because everybody wanted to see El Loco and laugh with him, and the sightings seemed too few and too far between.

He’d always laugh and lift his arms in childlike, yet firm salute; one hand always gripping a staff, as if some sort of rudderless Moses wandering the El Pao – San Felix road for generations.

Probably no American had seen him up close. But, judging from 30 or 40 feet away, a consensus of sorts had developed among them affirming El Loco was probably in his early thirties

He seemed to be much taller than average in that era and in those regions, maybe five feet nine or ten inches; wiry, strong, virile, and with huge hands. These judgments-from-afar were about as much as could assuredly be said about him, as the distance did not permit inspection of his physiognomic features. More on that further below.

Of course, everybody understood that someone had to be “taking care of” El Loco, else he could not survive. Here, perhaps, the legendary Venezuelan hospitality played a critical but hidden role.

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.

That observation was true, though too limited. Venezuelans didn’t invite only known, or business, guests to their homes; they compelled strangers, especially the poor, and the “locos”, apparently mindful that, at times, some, unawares, had entertained angels.

Then weeks would go by with no one having seen him. Where was he? At such times I would hear speculation when accompanying my mother at the commissary in the Otro Campo (known to the Americans as the labor camp), or with my father in the American Camp bar. Some voices affirmed, as if they were eye-witnesses, that El Loco was still on the road, but, in fact, no drivers or passengers had seen him. Others rumored El Loco was on jungle paths, headed temporarily for other destinations, as if looking for side adventures to spice up his El Pao – San Felix routine. Still others did not really care or think about it, and just assumed El Loco would reappear on his favorite road soon enough. And he eventually did, as if he had been nowhere else. As if he would live forever.

Regardless of opinions as to his whereabouts, the Venezuelans along the El Duo road just shrugged, confident in the truth of the old Spanish aphorism, “God takes care of the widows, the orphans, and the crazies.” It did not occur to them that God used them to do the caring.

El Loco walked with a swinging gait, a long, thick staff in one hand. His dusty jet-black hair shagged over his collar and a bit over his ears. He always walked with, never against, the traffic. Whenever I heard or read about a man in rags, I’d picture El Loco. His rags were always in khaki, just like the men in El Pao, only very worn and torn. And, instead of a dull yellow, El Loco’s khakis seemed rusty red.

Once, on a drive to San Felix, we saw him up close.

As we approached him in our car, to my utter, indescribable delight, El Loco swung round and stopped, looking toward the Oldsmobile as it slowly approached. El Loco began jumping in place, raising his arms and waving them. He was strong; he could wave the arm carrying that staff as easily as the other. Then he yelled a loud, croaking-like cheer as he laughed. His entire face laughed. And his teeth shone a bright white.

To me, laughing with my parents as we all saluted El Loco, it seemed even the Oldsmobile laughed. We drove slowly by El Loco, as we waved at him while he waved back, croaking, yelling, laughing, screaming, jumping. His cheeks’ bony arches seemed like sharp hills guarding his oviform eyes, whose color matched his hair, only brighter. And they seemed, to the boy, to be looking right into his own eyes.

Unlike most adults, El Loco was able, with absolutely no awkward self-consciousness, to look at someone in the eye, no matter what the age, and sustain that look until naturally broken. I just knew El Loco looked only at me, as if he knew me. As if we’d met before. Somewhere. There was no fear in me. On the contrary, like all children, I considered El Loco as very approachable, a dear friend and protector.

I stuck my head out the back window resting it on my arms on the frame as I looked back at El Loco, who was still jumping and yelling and laughing, forming a striking, puppet-like silhouette against the green, as the dust rose behind the car.

What most knew about El Loco was limited to the fact that he spent his days and years striding between El Pao and San Felix. Clearly folks cared for him; after all, it was assumed, he ate and slept. The I recall once, and only once, during an unusual mid-day drive to San Felix, seeing El Loco sitting peaceably in a chair in the front, porch-like structure of one of the cabins off the road. The farmer sat across from him, as the wife served him lunch and the children stood by. Sometimes El Loco would not be seen for what seemed to be weeks, before he’d reappear again on the road bringing joy to folks, especially children, who drove by.

I don’t remember the last time I saw him. He just melted away, like a mirage, into the jungle and before I knew it, I realized I had not seen him in years, maybe decades.

But I think about him. I can see him walking firmly, soldier-like, on the right side of the road, gripping his staff with his right hand, wildly swinging the left. El Loco whirls round and there is that wide grin once again, mouth way open, white teeth flashing. He lets off that loud cheer as he raises his hand and staff, pointing to the heavens.

1959 Oldsmobile Delta 88. Ours was white, not two-toned. As my father used to say, “Se come la carretera.”[Roughly translated, “She swallows the road.”]

Picture a cross between Henry Silva and Anthony Perkins in old, raggedy khakis, with hair more like Perkins’, but a bit longer, and you’d have an approximation of *El Loco* as I remember him from early childhood.

Clearing and building the El Pao-San Felix road. The period I remember most about El Loco was when the road was unpaved.

Alas! Alas! Puerto Ordaz!

January 20, 2020January 20, 2020 Richard Barnes

The following is a post by Rafael Marrón González which is making the rounds in Venezuela. For a refresher on Puerto Ordaz (sometimes incorrectly referred to as Ciudad Guayana) refer to posts, Life in an American Camp and Mining II and Guayana: The Reverse Miracle.

I came to Puerto Ordaz in December, 1963, and here I stayed.

I have witnessed the rise and the fall of one of the greatest cities of Venezuela. In the era when I arrived, Puerto Ordaz was beginning to “see the world” and, in its intimacy, due to it’s noble call to lead the development of great swathes of the country, it generated the 20th century’s last harmonious, multi-racial community on the planet.

I saw, day after day, the wonder of its architectural growth, both commercial and industrial. In her bosom, arose the most significant and complex metallurgical industry of Latin America. In those days, to go to America from Europe was to board a ship or plane to Puerto Ordaz to seek one’s fortune. She was sort of a modern Babel, that wonderful Puerto Ordaz, composed of an adolescent population that persists in the memories of those of us who populated its streets with the dizzying dynamic of youth. How it hurts to see her today, prematurely aged, poorly bathed, and worstly dressed, with her depressed facades and her sidewalks burst through by unpruned trees with abandoned coronas infested with guatepajarito [parasitic bush: untranslatable].

Walking about the lonely streets, empty joints, closed malls, centers, and streets abandoned for fear as soon as the sun begins to set, I do not recognize that city that never used to sleep but rather led a loud and long night until sunrise. Her best views have been invaded by the misery severely imposed by demagogic powers. A city now disrespected in her privileged spaces. There is no limit to the degradation of her expected end. Chaos is her daily bread.

Begging for food is now ubiquitous and neighbors on street corners despair for any transportation. Ignorance imposes preferences of poor taste; long held cultural practices now abandoned; ancient crafts are gone; and foolishness is now dressed up, crowned with titles on the anemic social pages. The cretinism of the newly (and suspiciously) rich, is heard by their loud applause at trashy performances, as they demand another grilled meat with cassava in the flea market of gastronomic decadence.

Her once florid freeway gardens have withered and a swarm of bars shout out the uncertainty that life has now become. A city that in her day, not so long ago, gathered the best in thought and technical expertise, both national and international, now displays its toothless ruins in Matanzas [the site of the city’s teeming, massive industrial works], its enthusiasm now overwhelmed, shut down, and known by the flapping of bats’ wings in its giant industrial sheds.

The ancient stacks that once announced prosperity, today herald diseases of the skin and lungs. Their toxic excretions poison the waters of the Orinoco. Children are born with aluminum inside their skulls; neurological effects camp nearby.

Her basic enterprises, Venezuela’s pride, undulate — like a canoe in rough waters — between the impact of intermittently paid salaries, technological obsolescence, and dashed productivity. Her laboring class now become engrossed in parasitic sadness in the service of an empowered ignominy which has emptied it of any conscience. Her history hides that tab that once she ostentatiously paid for suits and parties but now cowers with the embarrassment of being a have been. A swarm of damnable, protected thieves imposes sentences against dignity and permeates what’s left of the night life with their nauseating presence, while those who labor and have labored for lifetimes, stand aside.

I am not sure if I have succeeded in manifesting my indignation.

What intolerable infamy! What ugliness! What filth! Dirt, grime, and grease are now the identity cards of “equality.” Mold is now the strident patina of false brotherhood.

Alas! Alas! Puerto Ordaz! Now a mere gibberish of yellow pages and abandonment. A site of processions of thugs and murderers; of rude and gross speculators and carpetbaggers all looking for quick and easy money, of misery rooted in deplorable suburbs. A city of late awakening and shortened evenings. Of crime imposed for any posible error of interpretation. Of dead traffic lights, announcing at top volume the irresponsibility of brutish governors who accuse those who challenge them for their strident ineptitude. Like the underworld, they cannot be called out. There is no real authority. Only a payroll that demands paid vacations.

Alas! Alas! Puerto Ordaz!

I have lived 53 years in her and refuse to exile myself. But when I drive its desolate streets, as I pass each corner or enter a long forgotten passageway, I oft recall the intensity of it’s snatched life. She did not deserve this assault of inmoral and inept rulers. This violent aggression of barbarians and savages in taxis, motorcycles, and trucks, all dubiously acquired.

How much they hated a city that was on its way to being another Germany! Now reduced to a solitary shack, run over by caretakers focused on the furious selling and transportation of gems on gondolas carrying riches from the proud north of Brazil. Not only isolated, but dependent!

Alas! Alas! Puerto Ordaz!

One of the bridges crossing the Caroní River from San Félix (foreground) to Puerto Ordaz (background)

One of the many commercial/residential centers that began to dot Puerto Ordaz in the 1970’s and beyond.

Puerto Ordaz is in background, across the Caroní River, the “blueish”, darker color waters. San Félix is in the foreground, with Palúa, the Bethlehem Steel port, ships awaiting loading, in center of photo. The Orinoco is the “muddy” colored river. It runs about 200 miles from here to the Atlantic Ocean.

Through the early 1960’s, the Caroni was crossed to Puerto Ordaz via ferry. Photo shows Caroni River crossing from San Félix to the Puerto Ordaz site. Puerto Ordaz was, in effect, founded by the US Steel Corporation in 1952 for shipping ore from it’s operations in Cerro Bolivar to the United States. San Félix was founded in 1724. Both were “united” in 1961 to form Ciudad Guayana.

Puerto Ordaz began to rise in the 1960’s.

The owners of the jewelry store (with Omega signage) were very kind to us.

I do not know who this is. But I include the photo as an example of the type housing that US Steel built in the Puerto Ordaz area. Similar to 1950’s United States suburbs. Above photo is from the mid-1960’s.

Memories of San Tomé

November 2, 2019November 2, 2019 Richard Barnes

The video posted below is 15 minutes, and if you are interested in an American’s reflections about camp life in Venezuela, you’ll appreciate it. You will find Mr. Howland’s commentary low key but compelling. He reminds me much of that generation of men I grew up with.

The camp was built by the Mene Grande Oil Company, a subsidiary of the Gulf Oil Company. It was located near the town of El Tigre, about 60 miles north of Ciudad Bolivar which lies on the Orinoco River, and about 120 miles northwest of San Félix, which is also also on the Orinoco, only further east. It was about 160 miles northwest of El Pao.

He mentions the South Camp. In Mene Grande the North Camp was the “staff” camp, mostly populated by Americans in its early history. The South Camp was the labor camp. But both were well run and fondly remembered by its inhabitants.

This was “nationalized” in 1975 along with the rest of the oil and iron ore industries.

Some comments below the video say much:

“I was born in Caripito Monagas State in January 1959 and 6 months after being born we arrived in San Tomé where I grew up. Many are the good memories of a town that I consider was an example of society. I thank Mr. Howland for that beautiful video [which goes back over] 80 years of existence.” [emphasis mine]

“Hello Mr. Howland. Your videos bring back many wonderful memories. I lived with my parents in El Tigrito and graduated from San Tomé Staff School in 1953. I saved a little boy’s life in the club pool for which Mene Grande gave me a watch when I graduated.”

“Jake — amazing video. As the Venezuelans would say, it was “muy emocionante” to see such old footage of our beloved camp.”

I have an email that was forwarded to me and am hoping to receive permission to post it. Meanwhile, I’ll only post the mildly sardonic conclusion:

“As you can see, it was very difficult living with those American imperialists.”

To learn just a tad of the massive American investment in Venezuela and a time when conservative outlooks and mores somewhat ruled the day, you might want to parcel out the 15 minutes it takes to watch

Some “ground level” photos of areas alluded to in the film (am a bit surprised at the dearth of readily available photos, as this was well-known site):

Life in an American Camp

May 18, 2019May 18, 2019 Richard Barnes

In the initial euforia of concessions by the Venezuelan government to American oil and iron ore companies, was any thought given to where these companies’ employees, many of whom would come from countries other than Venezuela, would live?

As it turns out, President Marcos Pérez Jimenez had given it much thought and had requested such companies establish “open cities” wherever possible. Puerto Ordaz, the crown jewel of Ciudad Guayana, whose impetus was The US Steel Company, was one result of the open city policy.

El Pao, where I was born, was more of what most folks think of when they conjure up images of an “American Camp.”

Jimenez understood that not all camps could be open cities. El Pao was deep in the Venezuelan jungle, relatively shut off from potential commercial centers, such as a major river, highway, airport, railway, etc.

On the other hand, the future Puerto Ordaz was situated at the confluence of two major rivers, one of which is the mighty Orinoco, the third or fourth largest in the world, measured by average discharge, meaning the river’s flow rate. I had to look this up and, from a layman’s perspective, this is probably the best illustration: “The volume of an Olympic-size swimming pool is 2,500 cubic meters. So the flow rate at the mouth of the Amazon [the world’s largest] is sufficient to fill more than 83 such pools each second.”

The flow rate at the mouth of the Congo and the Orinoco (second and third largest rivers) would each fill 16 such pools per second.

By the way, of the 10 largest rivers in the world, 5 are in South America.

As for El Pao, this area was explored by the Spanish 5 centuries ago. The Indians told them about a mountain which, when struck by lightning, would give off bright flashes. The Spanish investigated for themselves and confirmed the tales. They named the mountain, El Florero, meaning, Flower Pot, since the flashes looked like flowers on the mountain peak.

Actually, the area was rich in orchids and also an abundance of “purguo”, a tree which yielded very high quality rubber. In fact, the era in which the ore was discovered, was known as “la fiebre del balatá” (the balatá fever). Balatá refers to a natural gum of high quality found in the purguo. Mr. Aturo Vera, whom, years later, my father would often contract to drive us to fishing spots on the Caroní River, explored that area with his own father in the 1920’s. On one such journey, father and son espied a splendid ore specimen and took it with them to their home near the Caroní.

Word spread quickly and a miner, Simón Piñero, accompanied by his boss, entrepreneur Eduardo Boccardo, also explored and contracted an engineer, Frank Paglucci, to stake a claim. Mr. Vera, seeing all the excitement, also staked his claim, and rightfully so.

The ore was analyzed by American laboratories, found to be of extraordinary quality, and the Bethlehem Steel Company assigned their geologist, Earl H. Nixon, to the site.

On June 3, 1944 (3 days before D Day) , The New York Times reported, “The Bethlehem Steel Corporation’s big Venezuelan iron ore development, first disclosed as a prospect a few weeks ago, is now under way. Twenty American engineers and technicians are in charge, with some 600 native Venezuelans, skilled and unskilled, at work on the big project.” This project represented capital investments of $50 million ($1 billion in today’s money) and more in Puerto de Hierro (Iron Port), their deep sea port on the Atlantic.

By July, 1950, the first train load of ore was transported from El Pao to Palúa, the company’s river port on the Orinoco for transshipment to Puerto de Hierro. And in 1951, the seaport yielded its first shipment to the United States. The March 23 New York Times headline read: “First Cargo of Venezuela Iron Ore Arrives for Bethlehem Steel Plant; Sparrows Point Pier in Maryland Is Scene of Significant Ceremony Marking Start of 3,000,000-Ton-a-Year Shipments.” The article’s lead sentence read, “Vessels laden with iron ore have docked here for decades, but special significance attached to the arrival of an ore boat this morning.”

We’ll speak more of life in an American camp in future posts. For now, I’ll end this post by quoting some recent comments by folks who, when children, lived in Puerto de Hierro. This will give an idea of life in an American camp in Venezuela and also the pull of the land.

“That is the place of enchantment and he who has lived or even visited it will remember it for all of life. And I had the fortune of having been born there. Those good years of the 1950’s, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s…. The best …?”

“My! All those wonderful people who worked there are beautiful I tell you! I salute that wonderful and dear place and people!”

“The best town and the most beautiful place in Venezuela; the only beach with a diving board in the ocean. I developed my life there along with my parents and siblings. Eternal memories and the best times of my childhood and my youth. My best friends of my life were from there.”

“My beautiful town. I can never forget you, although all is different now.”

“What wonderful memories of my childhood, of my parents, of my siblings, of my neighbors who once lived and those who still live. I embrace you all!”

“My beautiful town. Now, it is not even the shadow of what it once was. How much sadness it brings me to see the ruin that it is now!”

“My town! I was born there in 1961. How I long to go and run there again. My adored land. Venezuela, how much sadness you bring me now! My dear Lord!”

“I could not have asked for a better childhood.”

Neither could I.

Puerto de Hierro on the Atlantic coast, in the state of Sucre. The Bethlehem Steel ceded this to the Venezuelan government and it is now a Venezuelan navy base.

The loading bridge over the Orinoco in the company port of Palúa. My father used to dive off that into the river. Folks called him Tarzan.

El Pao under construction in the 1940’s. Men carved a modern road and railroad out of this jungle.

Above is a 1940’s map. You’ll not see Puerto Ordaz thereon. It would grow across the Caroní from San Félix, at the spot between the Caroní and the Orinoco (the Caroní is that river which runs into the Orinoco at San Félix). El Pao is the spot denoted as “Iron Mining Area”.

The confluence of the Caroní and the Orinoco rivers. Yes, at this point, the Orinoco is carrying much soil as it continues its journey to the Atlantic. It clears up again miles downriver. Puerto Ordaz grew on the right. Notice the ore ships on the right. Before the bridges were built, we’d cross by ferry.

As the Caroní approaches the Orinoco the change in topography yields several series of rapids and falls. Above are the Cachamay Falls. An Intercontinental hotel was built here in the 1970’s.

Ciudad Guayana. Foreground is San Felix (Old Town); background, across the Caroní, is Puerto Ordaz (New Town).

Arturo Vera, second from right, accompanies Bethlehem Steel engineers arriving in 1934, in Ciudad Bolivar, the closest major city. Photo source: El Pao Yacimiento Pionero.

Arturo Vera. Died in 1990, age 88. I vividly remember him. As a child, I used to think he was a great driver as he’d drive us over seemingly impassable paths to places I could never find again, even if my life depended on it. My father would often remind me that Mr. Vera owned part of the area which became El Pao. He was an unassuming and kindly man. And a great driver!

Santiago Smith: The camp had many men like him: unusual backgrounds, hard workers, colorful, sometimes mysterious. I was privileged to know them in my childhood. Mr. Smith was born of English parents in the gold mining area. In the late 40’s that area began to be shut down and he and some companions had to look elsewhere for work. They came to El Pao. He worked and lived there until his death in 2010. He was close to a century by most estimates. Photo Source: El Pao Yacimiento Pionero.

Simón Bolivar II

May 4, 2019May 4, 2019 Richard Barnes

This post complements the prior, doing so in the form of excerpts of a dialogue between an ex-patriate employee of an American company and a young Venezuelan who, having pursued higher education in Caracas, had returned to the interior with something to say. The conversation took place in the mid-1950’s on a street in a town on the shores of the Orinoco River during a hot period of the Cold War.

The trigger was an altercation where an older, American executive had been attacked by a mob. Adam had intervened by flooring the leader. He then escorted the elderly man to a company truck and came back to talk with Enrique, who had remained after the group had dispersed.

Any names are fictitious, including any states of origin.

“But, Sr. Adam, you are ignoring America’s malevolence towards Latin America as a whole. Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson thought we were about a scale or two lower than the Araguato [Howling Monkey]. They insisted on telling us how to live and govern ourselves. As if we were ignorant beasts, recently arrived from the stone age. They never acknowledged that we had a thriving civilization for centuries before your Pilgrims arrived up north!”

“I have never denied our faults, Enrique. And you must remember that the American people come from 48 sovereign states. We do not necessarily agree with the Roosevelts and Wilsons in Washington. Lord knows I don’t. I am first an Illinois man; then, an American. Anyway, since you know your history, you will remember that the American people rejected Wilson’s utopian designs on us and on the rest of the world.”

“No great comfort to us, Sr. Adam.”

“Many Americans have a genuine affinity for Latin America, you surely know that. Wilson and Roosevelt may presume to tell Latin Americans how to live and how to govern themselves, but many Americans do not agree with them on that. I would have thought you knew that too. When we pave roads and build schools, churches, swimming pools, clubs, baseball fields, bowling alleys, and who knows what else, do you see us telling you how to live? No, you do not. When you see us distributing food and offering excursions to historic sites, do you see us propagandizing for the United States government? No, you don’t see us doing that either.

“And yet, we hear radicalized teachers and professors, and, sad to say, even priests, maintain a constant drumbeat of propaganda designed to blacken the United States.”

“But, I guess I shouldn’t feel like the Lone Ranger, should I, Enrique? You not only dislike Americans, you also dislike Spain, don’t you? And the irony of this hatred is that the American elite and his English cousins had a hand in spreading the worldwide anti-Spain propaganda. Something for which I am not proud at all. And yet, you also believe the black propaganda, even though we Americans had a hand in spreading it.”

“Now, there’s an area where you could work to dispel bad history and where you could, rightly, accuse Americans of spreading falsehoods. All this we readily admit and stipulate. And, I’ll go even further: The United States are reaping the whirlwind as France now takes the lead in blackening our own reputation. We don’t like the lies being said of us; but, sadly, we spread many lies about Spain. So, you would be justified in saying to us, ‘As you brew, so shall you bake.’ All this I readily grant to you, Enrique.”

“But none of it justifies your actions and your attitudes towards me and towards my countrymen.”

“It is not that I dislike Spain, Sr. Adam. It is that I admire French philosophy and culture and literature, which is far superior to both Spain’s and America’s.”

“Well, I’m not so sure about that, Enrique. I think you would agree that Don Quixote, written about a century before either Voltaire or Rousseau, is a masterpiece. And it is far more rooted in reality than anything those two twits ever said or wrote. I will not even pretend to appreciate those two hypocrites. Rousseau left, what? 4, or was it 5 children in foundling homes because he refused to care for his own. And yet he insisted on telling the rest of us how to live! Oh! Wait! Isn’t that what you fault the Americans for?”

“I’ve always been impressed with your knowledge, Sr. Adam….”

“Stop the flattery, Enrique; I don’t like it at all.”

“My apologies,” this with extended vowels, highlighting that skin-crawling sarcasm, which Adam ignored.

“And if Rousseau was evil, Sartre is the devil incarnate. And yet you admire them, Enrique. Don’t you? You admire them because Paris is your Mecca, not Madrid. And Paris is no friend of the United States; certainly not in her existentialist literature and attitudes which are antithetical to the American traditional view of history and purposefulness and belief in a Creator Who rules and providentially cares….”

“Are you saying the Libertador was evil for preferring France to Spain, Sr. Adam?” Enrique impatiently interrupted. “As you know, Simón Bolivar was actually expelled from Madrid. So, yes, our founding owes much to France, especially 19^thcentury Paris where Bolivar lived and imbibed the spirit of liberty. “

“It was in France, Sr. Adam, where the Libertador absorbed the revolutionary spirit which would come to free our lands from Spanish oppression. It was in France where he gained the courage to cast everything aside for the sake of liberty from Spain and from any oppressor. So, respectfully, if you expect me to apologize for my preference for French literature and philosophy over Spanish obscurantism and American superficiality, you will be disappointed, Señor Adam.”

“Enrique, I do not expect you to apologize for what is the foundation of your hatred for America and also, by the way, for thousands of Venezuelans who disagree with your attitude and predilections against us.”

“Of course, I fully understand that the revolutionaries of France and South America, despite being physically separated by a vast ocean, nevertheless shared the same ideals: ‘utter, blind faith in a political ideal over an ancient regime; the belief that the past was to be buried, not honored; an unquestioning assurance that the world was being transformed and that process of transformation was opening new paths to new men, new ideas, new ambitions.’ In other words, man was being born again; however, not from above.”

“But, I wonder if you’ve ever paused to consider another thing the French Revolution and South Americans had in common: incredible bloodshed and heinous tortures. Venezuela alone lost over one third of her population. One third!”

“And it was in Venezuela where one of the bloodiest racial wars of all time took place. A little while ago you were criticizing my country for its supposed despising of “lower” classes, and this despite our private and public philanthropic work to all classes of peoples around the world. But have you ever paused to consider the blood that was spilt in Venezuela, much of it on the basis of class and race?”

“And as for the Libertador, you’ll forgive me for not being an uncritical fanatic. I agree he was a heroic figure. Surely the great treks across the Andes Mountains and through much of South America will, for ages, grace the annals of history. But he also needlessly spilled much blood.”

“You must also know he was a great admirer of Napoleon. He was in Paris when Napoleon was crowned; but he refused to attend because he felt Napoleon — whom he had adored up to that moment — had betrayed the revolutionary spirit. But Bolivar blithely, and ominously for Venezuela, ignored Napoleon’s rationale: the tendency of a people who cannot govern themselves is sanguinary anarchy; therefore, a king is necessary. Mr. Bolivar did not even pause to ponder why Napoleon allowed himself to be crowned.

“But you are right, in its terrible 19^thcentury Revolution, Venezuela was closer to France, philosophically, than to Spain. I would not consider that a compliment. But it is true.”

Enrique did not have any desire to continue the faux Socratic dialogue. “Sr. Adam, I am not interested in your opinions about the great Libertador. To you, everything is either black or white. A cut and dry sort of thing! You come to another country and expect us to behave or to believe as you do in North America. We have a different culture; a different history. You would be wise if you recognized that!”

Adam turned, “I agree that our cultures have differences. However, you must agree, in turn, that some things are universal: murder is bad; cowardice is bad; disrespect to elders is bad; attacking an older, defenseless man is bad! Do not be such a fool as to hide behind the ‘class’ or ‘culture’ fig leaf to justify the unjustifiable. You should be ashamed of yourself, Enrique. Good-bye.”

Enrique stood, as if rooted in the dirt street, one of three running through the center of the town.

He looked at Adam’s back, suppressing the urge to assault him.

“One day, it will be you lying in the dirt, eating your own blood and vomit,” he hissed, thinking Adam could not hear him.