Leisure / inspiration

Leaving Venezuela to Colombia - My Odyssey

Have you ever felt the body without a soul? I have felt it lately. The organism becomes an inert entity that you only feel is living because it breathes. I know it must be difficult to understand, and even more so when before I tended to brag about myself as a positive person, full of spiritual and emotional peace. But, when all those characteristics fade, you start to feel like nothing hurts or matters to you.

Outside of ideological, political or contextual aspects, just to respond to Golgi's request I tell this. Everyone can interpret what the media tells them, especially internationally. Here, I just leave you how my odyssey was to leave Venezuela for Colombia.

As it was everything for me in Venezuela, before this crisis.

My peace ended when everything began to change in Venezuela, although I could not determine when it collapsed, with this invasion of problems that I never imagined would happen. Nor do I know how it was evolving in my mind like an epiphany, the decision to leave my country and my family; which, until the sun today, has been the hardest thing that I have had to live.
I will tell you how it was my journey to leave Venezuela, but first, I will begin by describing how I lived in my country. It was like any normal country; You could feel free to do whatever it takes, earn your bread working hard, live your land and your spaces. I was raised on the basis of a united family, where even your friends are your brothers and you understand that the bonds of friendship become practically blood ties.
My grandmother was the one who commanded, she was the pillar of the family, for it is that we all become productive men, as they say in my land echaos pa 'lante. My four uncles are my source of admiration, and my first cousins ​​-who are more brothers than cousins- and my mother, my reason for living. I woke up grateful every day to belong to that family. The decision to leave came to my mind, not only because of the need to progress, but because of the future of my son. In Venezuela, even though my back was busted every day and I did a thousand things to be better, everything was still worse than before, I felt that I was in a Survivor competition, where only the living, the abuser and the bachaquero was the winner.

The decision to leave Venezuela

I understood the blows that in Venezuela, the opportunities do not exist, even the most basic has faults: lack of electric service, potable water, transportation and food. The crisis came to the loss of values ​​in people, you could see people who only lived thinking how to harm others. Sometimes, I would sit and think if everything that happened was because God abandoned us.
I had a few months planning the trip in my head, little by little I was able to gather around 200 dollars. Nobody knew it, nor were they expected to be surprised. Two days before I left, I called my mother and told her that I was going to Peru with some friends (friends), and that I would be at the terminal that day buying the bus ticket that would arrive at my first stop, Colombia.
Here the torture began, there as many will know, nothing works like in other countries, it is impossible to buy a ticket or travel ticket at any time you want. I spent the two days sleeping in the terminal, waiting for one of the buses to arrive, since the fleet only had two cars due to the shortage of spare parts. The owners of the line passed a list every 4 hours for people to secure the position, with their phrase:

"He who is not here when he passes list, loses his seat"

The departure from Venezuela

It was amazing to be in a sea of ​​people who were going to take the same path as me, men, women and children in that terminal; which I certainly have to highlight, it was horrible, it smelled bad and that crowd of people made you feel claustrophobic.

I waited for my two days there, standing in line to buy the ticket. I hadn't started and that feeling of pessimism that the crisis led to made me want to give up, but I didn't. It helped that I had friends by my side and we all supported each other to make us feel better; between jokes and calls from my relatives. Then it was time to finally board the bus to San Cristóbal - State of Táchira. The ticket price were 1.000.000 of Bolívares Fuertes, almost the 70% of a minimum salary at that time.

They spent hours sitting on the bus, the good thing is that at least I had Wi-Fi to connect, I saw how in several sections there were checkpoints of the national guard, and the driver made a very short stop, where he gave money to be able to continue. When I got to San Cristóbal it was already 8 in the morning, I had to find another transport to get to Cúcuta. We waited and waited, there was no type of transport, we saw people walking by with suitcases, however, we did not risk and decided to stay there. The wait took two days, everyone sleeping in a square, until we could take a shared taxi, each one paid 100.000 Bolívares Fuertes.

We left for 8 in the morning on this stretch to Cúcuta, which was the most dangerous, we had to go through 3 alcabalas, one from the CICPC, another from the Bolivarian National Police and the last from the National Guard. In each alcabala, they searched us as if we were delinquents; looking for what they could take away, I only had few belongings, nothing of value and the 200 $; that I kept in a practically inaccessible place

Upon arrival, it was already 10 in the morning, and you could see people calling themselves advisers. These -supposedly- expedited the exit stamping process charging between 30 and 50 $, but I did not pay attention to any, we stopped at the bridge to make the queue and finally enter Cúcuta. It was until the next day at the 9 of the night that we were able to seal the exit passport.

They told us that in order to stamp the Colombian immigration passport we had to have the ticket to the next destination, and since it was 9 o'clock at night, there were no open ticket offices to buy the ticket to my next destination. People shouted.

they are going to close the border, those who do not have a ticket have to stay here, they will not be able to go to the next control point.

The situation became more intense and worrisome, we saw frightened people picking up informal positions, and they told us:

They have to decide quickly what to do, after the 10 of the night the paramilitary guerrillas pass asking for money and taking everything from everyone.

Miraculously, in my despair for not knowing what to do, an adviser appeared who turned out to be a friend from where I lived in Caracas, took me and my friends to the office of the owner of one of the bus lines, they sold us each passage in 105 $ and they resolved us a space to sleep, until the next day.  

That night I could not rest, I think that the moments that I spent all those days had me in nervous alert state, when the morning arrived, we made the queue to seal the passport in immigration from Colombia, and finally we were able to enter.  

Not everyone has the happiness of passing, like me. Those who are thinking of emigrating should take precautions; This journey seems short, but it is not easy to go through any of the situations that I experienced and that I also saw. There are things that I prefer to just forget.

One would like to say the best of their country, because patriotism is carried by everyone, love for the land where we were born, by a flag that makes you cry when you see it on someone's shirt asking for coins in a corner of Bogotá. 

This feeling is hard, for wanting to be close to your family. I was always optimistic, even in difficulties; And although I have faith, all this takes away a hope in the short term. The only thing that is not lost is the love for family. For now, I just want my son to have a better future.

Golgi Alvarez

Writer, researcher, specialist in Land Management Models. He has participated in the conceptualization and implementation of models such as: National Property Administration System SINAP in Honduras, Management Model of Joint Municipalities in Honduras, Integrated Cadastre-Registry Management Model in Nicaragua, Territory Administration System SAT in Colombia . Editor of the Geofumadas knowledge blog since 2007 and creator of the AulaGEO Academy that includes more than 100 courses on GIS - CAD - BIM - Digital Twins topics.

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