Greetings, dear Steemians

I have posted in other occasions about the vicissitudes we have to face when it comes to basic services or utilities (water, electricity, phone, internet). This time I want to tell you about what it takes these days for us to have our gas cylinders refilled/replaced. Most Venezuelan homes depend on propane gas cylinders of 10, 18, 27 and 43 kilograms. Most people use the first two. They cost less than 10,000Bs in December; they cost 25,000Bs now. As most utilities, this service is administered by the state (now by the military specifically). It is a pretty low price for such an important service, but under the current crisis, it is a real nightmare to get something other people around the world just get directly in their homes through pipes.

In the old good days, you just had to call the gas company and they would deliver the cylinders to your home in a matter of hours; the next day if the requst was made after office hours. In the last years, the government has improvised several methods just to hide a simple fact: they ruined the gas company, despite boasting for years that we had the greatest natural gas reserves in the world. So much for that, now the average person cannot have the service, at least not without suffering a little bit. In the last months, they have forced people to go in person to the local office (no more phone orders), stand in long lines under the sun (the offices were not designed to host more than a dozen people at a time, and now hundreds cram them), place their orders and wait patiently at home for a minimum of 15 business days.

Nov 2019

I tried unsuccessfully to request and pay for two 18-kg gas cylinders. Too long lines, failure in system, cancelation of customer assistance.

Dec 05.

I stood in line, finally placed an order, and paid for two gas cylinders.

Jan 05

We ran out of gas

Jan 06

I filed a complaint, demanding the delivery of the cylinders. There were people in line filing the 7th complaint. They have been waiting for 4 months, average.

Jan 08

We were told there was a place where they were selling the cylinders. I thought it was at the filling plant, a last resource we used to have. No. This time people have to go to a new national guard post, which was obviously not designed for such a purpose. People have to wait from very early (as early as 2 am) in an empty lot surrounded by sewage canals (you can imagine the smell of the area).

Yesterday, we could not get anything. They were dispatching the previous day's orders.

Jan 09

We arrived at 5 am. There were some 100 people already standing in two different lines. One for the 10-k cylinders, another one for the 18-k cylinders.

At about 6:30 am

At about 10 am

This old lady broke my heart. She arrived some minutes after 5 am and stood under inclement heat, thankfully seated, until noon.

My partner in crime, my wife's cousin, who miraculously still has a car that allowed us to carry the cylinders to this place. Many people walked miles with those heavy metal things on their shoulders. After some hours under the sun, he, who never drinks or eats anything that does not come from a factory, had no choice but to try a home-bottled sugar cane juice.

At about 10 am, we saw a truck approaching and everyone thought our cylinders were guaranteed. False alarm. At the end of the morning they announced that there were no filled cylinders available. They were going to pick up our IDs and we had to go home with our empty tanks and come back tomorrow.

We had to come back next day

At about 11 am
In this video we see the first 100 people with 10-k cylinders advancing. They were the lucky ones today.

This mother and her child summarize the feeling of despair and frustration.

I plan to go to sleep early today so that I can be prepared for another marathon under the sun tomorrow. No matter what they say, you can always expect the worse. They know this people are not going to do what should be done. This kind of humilation should be paid dearly. This chaos is not the result of the so-called blockade. The whole oil industry was destroyed by years of corruption, negligence, mediocracy and the prioritization of ideology over economy. We have lines to fill cars with gas, we have lines for domestic gas, we have lines to get cash at banks, you name it, we have a long hot line for every single thing. This is the legacy of chavez's socialist revolution.

Thanks for your time and reading

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