Pretty uneventful week of school, homework, scuba classes, tennis lessons cut short due to calf muscle cramps and work....oh and Chavez visited. He didn't speak, which is unbelievable...just drove around poor neighborhoods and causing traffic jams all over the city and "paid day mandatory" rallies for national company employees. Yup, people who want to keep their jobs, are required to go to rallies. Since there are so many rallies, they go in shifts (whether they are chavistas or not) from, for example, Victor's offices at the national oil company. Whatever your leanings, you go or you get some kind of stink-eye demerit. The girls have Friday and Monday off due to professional day for teachers. Sunday is the parliament elections so they close the school for security reasons in case things get out of hand....or not. Could be rallies, could be protests, could be....everybody just goes to work and thinks about something else.
We of course, had/have an action packed weekend planned out. Well, that was the "plan". The girls had parties and sleepovers for Thursday/Friday plus tennis lessons and homework. Today, we were suppose to go up into the mountains to go to a little artisania village and shop and eat but it was raining up there so the roads are too dangerous to come down. It is fine to go UP but coming down, the roads are so steep and slippery that people won't drive DOWN. So, I decided to take the family around my life. Fish market, fruitstands and we found a gourmet pasta and chocolate shop. AMAZING truffles, fresh made pasta and treats. The rest of the day was in the pool waiting to see if the sun would come out.
ELECTIONS are tomorrow so all Chevron expats are mandated to stay home. Of course, we are not with a company so no lockdown for us. We are HOPEFULLY going out with some friends of Victor's on their boat for the day as we hope to rent the boat from them on weekends. No business has been discussed. We go as guests tomorrow (AGAIN, HOPEFULLY) and then sometime we can find out what the deal will be. We are going after they vote......they say10am..... ahhhhhhhh we shall see........as in countries like this, EVERYBODY votes so lines can be 8 hours long. I really wonder if we will make it on the boat???? Monday is scuba day for Xela, Bella and me. I get to go along but will dive while they do lessons. These are important elections but not like the one coming up in 2 years for El Presidente. The nice thing about elections are the elecricity and the water have not been cut in TWO WHOLE WEEKS. Gotta get the votes.
Our building is raising funds through their HOA for a private power plant (so we can have electricity beyond our extension cord from outside). It will cost 600,000 bolivares. The HOA has collected 183k bs. They put a "list of shame" up in the lobby for owners who have not paid up......really, no one cares. I don't know when we will ever get to 600,000bs.
So, we are healthy and happy. Xela is playing some great bball. The boys are pretty rough but she sticks it to 'em. Isabella has her first Vball tourny this coming weekend. She officially made the traveling A team so that will be fun for her. They take a flight to a host city and play all the international schools in the country. (that's like 6 schools so don't get too excited :)
See pics below......
