Against All Odds

by R. A. Lang

  Once the holidays were over and I was back in the office, I heard Jorge explaining to one of the Filipino workers what a great weekend he’d had in Puerto de la Cruz with his wife and her sister. Jorge didn’t have any children!

  Because it was my first time in Venezuela, I didn’t know that the vast majority of Venezuelans lie, have no respect, and never return money to foreigners or anyone else for that matter.

  After not learning a damn thing from my cryogenic wife, I met spouse number two, Carolina, while helping the contractor’s quality manager. Unlike cryogenic wife, she was better suited for high-temperature service and I’d met her in my very first week on site. Carolina worked for the contractor on the other side of the site which was a long twenty minute walk in the intense heat and humidity.

  I spent quite a lot of time with her in my first few weeks because I was busy preparing all the welding procedures for the contractor. Evidently, they didn’t have anyone else capable of writing or qualifying them.

  Carolina explained, with the help from another girl from Trinidad, that there was a riot on the site the previous year and the office had been burnt down. Latin Americans are hot-blooded people with fiery tempers; and it didn’t take much to start them off. Apparently, the armoured salary van was late one Friday, early in 1996, so the workforce became impatient and started a riot outside her office.

  Things quickly got out of control, and the office was set on fire. Everyone managed to escape through the back door, and they could do nothing more but wait outside and watch their office burn down, except for Carolina. When she couldn’t be accounted for, the site safety woman told the project manager that one of the men should go and look for her. The project manager refused. He said, “If anyone were still inside, it would be too late to help them in any case.”

  With that said, and no time to waste, the safety woman jumped into a Toyota Hilux and reversed it straight through the wooden office wall near to where Carolina’s desk was situated and found her frozen at her desk. Carolina, stricken with fear, couldn’t move, so the safety woman had to physically push her into the truck and drive out, minutes before the entire office was ablaze.

  The men watching her heroic action looked quite pathetic when the salary van arrived a few minutes later.

  During those early days on the project, I noticed a business card left on a desk in the contractor’s office. What caught my attention was that the business card had the Welsh dragon on it. First, I was somewhat angry, thinking a Venezuelan had taken a fancy to my little country’s flag. I told the contractor that I wanted the guy who left the business card to see me in my office.

  Later the same day, I couldn’t believe my eyes when a fellow Welsh man introduced himself. It transpired that Richard Jones didn’t just come from Wales, he came from Swansea and the Mumbles where I was from!

  Richie had lived in Venezuela for almost twenty years by that time, and he had a lot to tell me, including advice that I shouldn’t fall for the beautiful women there. Richie had the contract for the underground firewater piping, so he needed to return to Puerto Ordaz regularly to check on the progress and his workforce.

  Each time Richie returned, we met in a local Tasca restaurant for a few beers and a game of pool. There, we’d play pool and have something to eat, inevitably a popular dish called ‘mar y tierra’ (ocean and ground) in true Venezuelan style.

  I continued to spend quite a lot of time with Carolina. Her job was to paste her company’s logo on the page headers I was busy writing. While she was busy doing that, I continued preparing the welding procedures. I think she pasted more than the logos, because we got married in her parents’ house seven months later.

  At the time, my Spanish was practically non-existent, and Carolina didn’t speak any English. To me it sounded like a perfect marriage because she couldn’t argue or complain about anything.

  All wedding plans were arranged in super-fast time, before I could change my mind, and off we went to Ciudad Bolívar, where Carolina’s parents lived. We spent the whole day filling up their house with more food and alcohol than there was space for.

  Ciudad Bolívar was formally called Angostura, where the famous bitters originated. Ciudad Bolívar is the capital of Venezuela’s south-eastern Bolívar State. It was founded as Angostura in 1764 and renamed in 1846 after the death of Simón Bolívar in 1830. Simón Bolívar was the key force behind Latin America’s successful struggle for independence from the Spanish Empire. He is still considered one of the most influential politicians in the history of Venezuela.

  Later in the afternoon, Carolina went to a salon to have her hair entwined with plastic strings of pearls and plaits and a few other things while I waited for her in a nearby bar.

  Something kept telling me to get a taxi back to Puerto Ordaz, but I was quite comfortable where I was in the bar. There was a man they called a vigilante standing at the door with a sawn-off shotgun to protect the customers, so I felt quite safe there.

  After three hours of waiting for her to meet me in the bar, I was feeling wonderful. I was losing interest in meeting her family, let alone having a second wedding.

  I eventually weakened and agreed to jump into a taxi and return to her parents’ house. I’m sure that had I remained sober, I would have returned to Puerto Ordaz, still a single man.

  As soon as I arrived, her father and I took his taxi so I could buy even more ice in readiness for the evening. We arrived at the Venezuelan Polar brewery and bought two more blocks of ice. He managed to borrow an ice pick that would allow him to break it up back at the house. Amazing, really, that they allowed him to borrow the ice pick; I guess they must have trusted or known him very well.

  We also found some special music CDs especially for weddings and had arranged for a DJ to play for us. There was enough food to cover the seventy-nine family-only guests, and we purchased enough alcohol to knock out the entire street.

  In Venezuela, it is customary for every man attending the wedding to dance with the bride, and for every woman to dance with the groom, but this was not what happened at this wedding.

  Yes, every man succeeded in keeping my new wife well occupied while her father kept her away from me the entire wedding night. I, however, spent the whole night being completely ignored. I was left sitting all alone at a table near the road just watching everyone enjoying themselves at my expense.

  As I turned around every five minutes to watch wife number two having a wonderful wedding, I could only wonder why on earth I had not taken a taxi back to Puerto Ordaz.

  As I watched the family drinking, eating, talking, dancing, and having a wonderful time, my frustration and anger reached an explosive level that was about to escape into the open. I thought those ignorant people were finally going to get a Welsh wake-up call.

  I remember asking one lady to dance with me so I could participate in my own wedding, but she flatly refused me, and then another … and another. The only woman who could actually speak a little English took pity on my frustration and loneliness and explained to me that no lady wanted to dance with a man who didn’t know how to dance salsa or merengue very well.

  That was it for me. I told all of them to go back to the hell they came from. I was shaking with anger. My new wife’s cousin, who was a nurse, went to his car and brought a syringe filled with some kind of tranquilliser, which he had stolen from the clinic where he worked.

  The first injection had absolutely no effect on me, so he gave me a second dose. That dose did something, but only enough to stop me from physically throwing each and every Venezuelan guest into the street.

  They decided that it would be better for us newly-weds to return to my apartment in Puerto Ordaz that night instead of staying the night in an aggravating environment. We went to take our wedding CDs, but someone had already stolen them.

  When Carolina came back from her bedroom where she’d kept her handbag out of sight from her family guests, she was in tears. Someone had stolen all her new make-up, which I’d bo
ught for her the weekend before. I had hidden my wallet in her bag, which someone had also emptied. My new family, I thought.

  A few days after we got married, her parents presented me with their electricity bill, water bill, telephone bill, and any other bills they could find. I was now family. Carolina had a seven year old daughter who also moved into my apartment in Puerto Ordaz.

  Another two weeks passed until I returned home from work one Saturday lunchtime, only to see my apartment’s balcony full of Venezuelans drinking!

  I was together with an American and German colleague at the time and they agreed to help cover me while the three of us went into the private club in the centre of the complex. We all figured that I wouldn’t react too well to my welcome committee, so we went for a few beers with the hope that they’d have gone by the time I got home.

  After half an hour, Carolina called me to ask where I was, as I was late getting home. I told her that I’d seen all her relatives and their family friends all along my balcony with beers in their hands and thought it best I didn’t arrive while they were still there.

  I did all my weekly shopping on Friday nights, and had made several trips back and fore in my truck in all the heat and humidity so I’d be well stocked for the following week, and could just relax after getting home after work. The night before, I’d bought three kilos of fresh prawns, which I was looking forward to cooking that afternoon. With my fridge fully stocked with beers and a few bottles of the finest rum, I wanted to invite both the American and German to share it with me.

  After seeing all the Venezuelans along my balcony, I knew there would be absolutely nothing left to return home to.

  I told Carolina to call me once they’d all gone home, but she insisted I return as they all wanted to meet me! How would they expect me to react, I thought, seeing them helping themselves to all my stocks?

  It wasn’t until five in the afternoon that they finally left. I knew that meant they’d finished everything there was to eat and drink so it wasn’t worth them hanging around any longer. Anything that was left over would have been carried out with them as they left in any case. That was their style.

  As soon as the last freeloader had left, Carolina wasted no time in coming to the club to meet me. She knew that as there was a large outdoor pool, there was always an abundance of scantily clad ladies who were looking for a foreign man to entertain for free food and drinks. It had been on her mind all the while her visitors prevented her from leaving.

  She had a worried look on her face, as she knew how I would react when I saw the mess back in my apartment. I was starving hungry by that time so I agreed to go home so I could start preparing my beloved prawns. She was very quiet as we walked back to the apartment.

  When I entered, it was just as I’d expected. There were five cases worth of empty beer cans and empty Black Label whisky bottles all over the place and all the rum had been taken. I opened my fridge, and that too had been emptied of everything, including my prawns.

  They’d made paella with all three kilos and I was left with a small amount of cold rice in the bottom of the pan and nothing else!

  I went to take some cash from my bedside drawer so I could go out to eat but someone had stolen the lot. There was the equivalent of five hundred dollars, which was about two months’ salary for them in those days. I told her I was off to an ATM machine and then a restaurant, as I really need to eat. I told her to stay behind and clean all the mess and I’d return later.

  I grabbed my keys and ATM card and off I went to relax and calm down after all I’d just lost.

  I banned anyone from visiting my apartment after that, but that didn’t always work. The following Saturday her cousin’s wife visited and had opened two full cases of beer cans and had just taken a sip out of each before opening another and another so they’d be cold from the fridge. I couldn’t begin to understand such mentalities.

  This continued throughout the first year – including a new roof for her parents’ house, glass in their window frames instead of the bars they had before, a gas cooker, a refrigerator, beds with legs, an air conditioner, and even glasses to replace the jam jars they used to drink from.

  I was made to visit them at least every two to three weeks, and I was like a lamb to the slaughterhouse every single time. As soon as I arrived, her father would rush me off to the local off-license to buy three or four cases of Polar beer and a bottle of Black Label whisky.

  The entire street was very happy with this arrangement, because they’d pass by and help themselves to the spoils and in many cases they returned home with a couple of six packs without saying a word.

  Even Carolina’s cousin who lived next door would walk past me without saying anything and take beers back to her house time and time again until everything was gone.

  I complained to my new wife that she had to stop her cousin, but she said that we couldn’t do anything because her cousin’s only job was to perform voodoo on people for a small fee!

  Later, voodoo played a big part in my life, causing me to quit my job, sell my Chevrolet Grand Blazer which I’d bought from a German friend, and leave the country to have the voodoo removed back in Swansea.

  During that first year, we planned a long weekend on Isla de Margarita with another expat and his girlfriend. The island was quite nice, but the atmosphere changed after we walked to a Tasca restaurant.

  We were warned by the owner not to walk back the way we came because the locals were hanging around in doorways waiting to relieve us of all valuables or even worse. When it was time for us to leave, the owner arranged for a taxi to meet us right outside the front door so we’d get away safely.

  Working with the Japanese wasn’t the same this time around. The quality manager I was introduced to on my first day hated the air I breathed and disagreed with everything I said or proposed. An example was my rejection of sixty tonnes of electron fusion-welded stainless steel piping, which was set to hold natural gas under a reformer – which can be better explained as a giant sixty foot long by forty foot wide cooker.

  While testing the welding, we discovered that the actual pipe seams were not fully fused and leaked badly. It was unusual to use such piping for gas service, but this was for Venezuela, so they wanted to go cheaper!

  I wrote instructions for the contractor to stop all work on the pipe, but the hateful quality manager told me the pipe was fine and not defective.

  This was enough for me. I was sick of him doubting my professional judgement, so I chose to disassociate myself from the project and quit.

  Just a week later, I joined a project just up the road called Orinoco Iron. One night, a Japanese friend saw me in my local Tasca restaurant and said, “Andy, you were right about the stainless steel piping.”

  When I asked what had happened, he told me: “When they introduced the gas into the piping to light the reformer the whole lot almost exploded. There was gas leaking from the pipes, the pipe bends, everywhere you said.” The faulty piping put their project back over six months and they fired their quality manager.

  One morning, I went to my truck as usual and jumped in and started the ignition. I didn’t realise until I’d pulled out of the underground parking lot that someone had sprinkled a type of cigar ash all over my bonnet. The ash was well spread out and covered the whole bonnet. I couldn’t imagine what this meant, or who would have gone to all the trouble by doing such a thing.

  Carolina didn’t see the ash as she was in Ciudad Bolívar visiting her parents for a few days. When the weekend came, I drove to Ciudad Bolívar to collect her. As per usual, I was escorted to the local off-license to buy beers and whisky but stressed I wasn’t staying long as I had things to do. Whilst driving back from Carolina’s parents’ house in my Grand Blazer, a strange smell began emanating from somewhere in the truck.

  Soon, the smell got stronger and eventually, my gearbox seized up. We broke down exactly half way between Ciudad Bolívar and Puerto Ordaz, where there wasn’t any lighting. We raised t
he bonnet as a sign we’d broken down and waited for a tow truck to arrive as they constantly patrolled the road.

  This was a very worrying time as we were sure we’d meet the wrong people and get into more serious trouble, as we really were in the middle of nowhere.

  After waiting there in the heat for over half an hour, we got lucky and a tow truck pulled over to see if we needed a tow back to Puerto Ordaz. The driver and his helper seemed the family type so we began to relax. They wasted no time in attaching the winch on the back of their old truck and lifted the back of my truck up off the ground and we were towed to Puerto Ordaz. They left my truck outside our apartment block next to the security guard, who, for a small fee, promised to keep an eye on it all night.

  As my truck couldn’t be driven, we arranged for them to meet us early the next morning and again tow us to the Chevrolet dealer, which was fortunately not far down the road in the Southern part of the city. The next morning, the tow truck returned on time, and took my truck to the dealership so they could check it out.

  Once they’d examined my truck, they gave me the bad news that my gearbox needed replacing because it had been running dry for some time. The previous German owner had paid a Venezuelan to have the engine oil changed every month, but when the garage checked it, the oil was a thick black colour indicating that it had never been changed.

  They needed to order a new gearbox from Caracas, so I rented a small Chevrolet Corsa to get around while repairs were being made.

  One night, Carolina wanted me to drive her friend home. I was reluctant because it was already late, but I finally agreed if only to have some peace and quiet. We waited at a red light for quite some time before it eventually changed to green. As I began to cross the junction, there was a terrible smash. A drunken Venezuelan running the lights hit the back corner of my car, spinning us around. He had a jeep, so he didn’t have any real damage, but my rental car was a mess.