Aji picante

OK everyone don't worry. There is real milk - well, either skimmed or full fat, but real. Although I accidentally bought Chichero the other day instead which is like really thick, sweet milk. Weird. But kind of helped bring sanity back to my mouth after the insance stir fry I made (Dec & Thom, this trumped anything the Spottiswoode flat saw. We couldn't even finish it). Note to self: the reasonably big chili peppers with the black seeds are actually insanely hot.

And I got my phone back! It was in someone's car. So I've only had one thing stolen :-)

Crazy mall

Sambil Mall

Sambil Mall in Caracas is about the craziest, most-crowded mall I've ever seen. (actually South America's largest shopping mall). Not very nice, but they do have a Sony store where I've been trying to negociate in Spanish to get a laptop case. I don't think they have them.

Also, this is where I bought phone #2 (after having the first one stolen on the metro). Unbelievelably, this one went mysteriously missing about 2 days after I bought it! So frustrating!

Other updates. The mosquitoes really let loose since that last post. I think they must have got me about 100 times now. Have upped the DEET percentage to hopefully fend them off.

And there is real milk! So that's good.

On Monday I had two meetings. One the guy wasn't in the city, maybe a bit of a communication problem there, but I did pick up a Daily Journal (English language newspaper) so was so nice to read the news! The other meeting was excellent though, really really good. Fantastic to be getting into the swing of things with the job.

Yesterday, the 5th (of 6) member of our MC team arrived, RIchard, from Slovakia, via a year in Ecuador, and on his 32nd birthday. We went to TGI Friday's which is very, very expensive but all the staff did a huge song and dance with drums and everything. So well worth it! Richard is convinced porridge is a Slovakian invention and not Scottish, but apart from that I look forward to working with him.

Just been talking to Laura about her visit here. Very excited about it. People visiting means I have a good excuse to actually go out and see this amazing country!

Time to brave the rain and go get pizza and cerveza now.

6 beds, 25 bites, 2 "robberies"

Caracas

7th August, 2006

Mosquito Bite Count: 25
Robbery Count: 2
Kidnapping Count: 0
Bed Count: 6

Well, the mosquitoes are easing off a bit now. Caracas is about 800m (or maybe ft) above sea level so I imagine that keeps them away a bit.

The first robbery actually might have happened before I arrived. I left duty free in Edinburgh with a nice bottle of aftershave and arrived in Caracas without. Nothing terribly dramatic then, just some opportunistic baggage handlers. The second robbery was on my first trip on the Metro. It gets stupidly busy at peak times (as do the roads), as in you have to wait for about 4 trains until you can squeeze yourself on. So amidst that chaos on Monday morning, my phone was nabbed from my pocket. Just after I'd got the SIM unblocked and bought an international phone card. Grrr.

So far I seem to have almost slept in a different bed every night. But it is quite interesting seeing how different people live here. There is such a diversity of cultures, and then they're all mixed up so every home is completely different - in style, customs, food (apparently "tengo hambre" - I'm hungry - is something I say far too much).

Bed 1. Jorge's house. Set in the lovely Los Naranjos (Orange Trees) neighbourhood of Caracas, set slightly away from the madness. Jorge is an AIESEC alumni who lives with his parents and is moving to London in December. Where I first experienced Latin American Idol and enjoyed Arepas, Scrambled Eggs and Maltin (very malty non-alcoholic beer) for breakfast.

Bed 2. Rita's house. Rita loves reggaton and gets the communitica to work every day to listen to it. She was on last year's national team and lives with her mum and sister. Her mum speaks only a strange Portuguese-style Spanish, which resulted in me almost getting a cup of tea when I was going to brush my teeth. Big fans of china and other strange ornaments. Breakfast was fried ham and cheese toasties, and coffee.

Bed 3. My apartment. Italian MC member Nino was here for a while, but left on Friday after imparting much wisdom on me and bidding farewell to his many "chicas". Now it's just me, Mario, Leonardo and at least one big bitch of a cockroach. Mario is an AIESEC alumni who has hosted just about everyone involved with AIESEC for the last 10 years. He works for a bank and doesn't like it when people leave vegetables in bags in the fridge. Leo is his brother who watches the TV from about 12 inches away and mostly just walks about in boxer shorts. Neither of them speak English much which is great for me!! Food so far has been quite a bit of espresso, some carbonara and some kind of stange but tasty shellfish. Also I went to the supermarket the other day (big mistake at the start of the month when everyone's been paid!) and got a massive hunk of swordfish for about 2 quid.

Biggest culture shock so far. They have no real milk!!!! Everyone just uses condensed powdered milk, which tastes like custard, or UHT 1% milk which tastes like water. I suppose I will have to get used to that.

Bed 4. Francisco's house. Since I only got my own keys when Nino left on Friday, I got locked out of my apartment a couple times. Frank is the national president of AIESEC in Venezuela. Frank hates Reggaton. He likes to listen to happy pop music in his car to distract himself from the deadlocked traffic of Caracas in the mornings.

Bed 5. Religous santuary at Los Teques (?) Last weekend was spent at the conference in a very nice venue which was actually some kind of religious sanctuary. But not in a totally over the top way. Just quite peaceful with a few inspirational messages on the walls. Nice to be out of the madness of the city!

Bed 6. The very, very nice and big apartment of Damelis, an AIESEC member in Valencia who really, really likes to go out dancing.

This weekend Francisco and me went to Valencia to facilitate a local planning day for the committee in Valencia, which is about 2 hours West of Caracas. Again, reasonably peaceful compared to Caracas. The best bit on the journey there was a robotic roadwork man signalling the traffic. The planning went well, except for the crap Nescafe coffee being the only thing available. We are planning a big event there in October so it was exciting to talk with the team about that, and I'll be back there next weekend for more preparations. After all that, and a fantastic "Perro Caliente" (Hot Dog) - on which one should put absolutely as much toppings and sauces as will physically fit, and then more - it was time to party. Some very good mojitoes were had in a pirate-themed Ronateria (rum bar) then to a club where we danced all night (or in some cases, tried to) to techno, pop, salsa, merrengue and reggaton. Then a late-night Spanish lesson over a dubious cup of tea involving powdered "milk".

The next morning breakfast was hot chocolate and tapanadas (or something?) which are like pastries with ham and cheese. Then I learned all about all the varieties of Arepas that can be made, with regional variations in size, shape, corn/wheat flour, hard/soft and just about any filling you can think of. I think I need to make a list of foods I need to try. Man, I really do only think about one thing. My only complaint about the food is that the meat is always too salty. Everything seems to be oversalted. Maybe some reason to do with preserving it in the heat? But I'm sure that's not very healthy. Still, maybe the fresh passion fruit (Parjeta) juice made up for that today. Let's hope so.

What else? El Avila on Monday was spectacular. Went to the Opera this evening. Which was free!! And in an extremely pleasant, attractive and modern opera theatre paid for by the ministry of culture. Honestly I'm not quite sure why so many people are opposed to the government. So far I've met either people who are totally against the government ("they're destroying Venezuela, there are no jobs, etc.") or just a bit apathetic about it because there is no really good alternative. Of course there's propaganda everywhere. Lovely posters of people together smiling because of some government initiative (like a free opera house, or educating the people in the barrios, or the excellent metro service) and the slogan "Ahora es de todos" (Now is for everyone). Well, maybe the propaganda is getting to me.

Although officially our term began on August 1st (yay!!!) we're having a transition and planning week this week when Risho and Mario - the two Ecuadorians - arrive. Planning is going to be at the beach, for team-building reasons of course :-) Going to be another very busy week.

Thanks for reading. Night night!