Getting into Caracas and First Days

Hey everyone, so I bet you’re wondering how things are going. I can say with enthusiasm that everything is going great. I arrived in Caracas on Sunday in late morning and someone was there to meet me at the gate with my name on a sign as promised. Before that though, I managed to change some of my American money with Bolivar Fuertes while waiting for my bags at the carousel. I’m not sure if the bank was run by the government or not, but I got the standard rate $1 = 2.15 Bs. F.

The guy I met took me into the city which was about a half hour away. Apparently there was some miscommunication though so he did a rendezvous with my adoptive father who then proceeded to drive right back to the airport. We waited there for an hour as his wife and son (age 16) landed allowing us all to greet one another for the first time.

We then went to their apartment which is on the 4th floor of a tall residential complex--there are tons of them here. This one was a better looking and had little if any graffiti in contrast to some of the others. The apartment itself has 3 small bedrooms, a kitchen, and living room. It’s very cozy. They gave me my very own room and, surprisingly, my very own full bathroom. The accommodations are more than adequate making me comfortable, but feeling a bit undeserving and overly privileged.

This is still a developing country. There are perhaps four immediately identifiable classes I’ve observed so far: Families who have their own homes and live comfortably, families who live in these many tall residential apartment complexes (often not too nice itself with graffiti all over and urban decay), families who in the small (maybe 1 room?) barrios that carpet the outskirts of the city, and families who have no home at all. Here I’m in the 2nd tier with my own room. I must say that I haven’t explored much yet in the 3 days I’ve been here though.

My adoptive family could not be more kind. Not only do I get housing, but they feed me delicious vegetarian food when I’m at home. The father doesn’t speak any English as far as I can tell. The mother is (or was?) a Chemistry and Biology teacher, but I she could not carry on a conversation in English although she understands some words. The son can speak a good deal of English but is not perfect. No matter though because I came here to learn Spanish. I do most of my interaction with the Mom. She is wonderful and just like a good teacher, repeats things a few times and in different ways so I can generally understand with my (very) limited Spanish vocabulary.

The first day of school she guided me step by step from the bus to the metro to the school. It takes about an hour (I think). We bought tickets together and went through the whole process like a Mom taking her kid to his first day of school—except in this case the kid can barely understand his mom and nobody else around in a completely foreign environment. Yeah, it’s a little scary.

The school is on the 15th floor of a building and is pretty small as far as I could tell. There seemed to be more staff than students, but maybe that will change. After a quick test in which I (expectingly) sucked at, I was given one-on-one basic Spanish instruction the rest of the day. I can’t say it’s the best instruction because the teacher barely spoke any English which understandably made it very difficult to explain a Spanish word I didn’t know. It was more than a little frustrating at first, but I think I’m starting to get used to it.

During lunch I went down to the local Subway and ordered myself the vegetariano sandwich with todos options. Even while keeping my Spanish to the very minimum I got a few funny looks while as I butchering the words. No one could tell I was a foreigner until I open my mouth. Even then, I think the attendant thought I was speaking French.

After school I went home alone on the metro and then the bus. This was probably the scariest part of my trip as I could barely remember where to get off the bus. I picked a corner and luckily it was the right one. As I opened the door to the apartment, a sigh of relief visibility came from both my adoptive mom and I. It was apparently getting late and she was about to come out to try and find me.

The next day I had off because of a national Venezuelan holiday. It is this holiday that I sit here to type this. I’ve been studying my Spanish all day. Tomorrow (Wednesday), I look forward to yet another adventure.