Hi friends, as everyone knows I'm Venezuelan and I'm still living in #Venezuela and although it's not easy at all it's a very interesting experience to tell, because it's not easy to explain the country's situation without confusing people, you could practically say we're " surviving "since this is crazy.

Some will say And why have not you gone ?, The truth is in my plans, but I want to do things well with respect to my emigration plans (call having all the papers and documents in order, but this is not the issue), Today I want to tell you a little about how Venezuelans do to survive in our country. My post will be dedicated to things that I remember and that are common in other countries but that for us began to get complicated over the years:

Cleaning products (bath, shampoo, soap, etc.)

We do not really bathe anymore (hahaha not true)

The thing with this type of product is that we have to go to some strange brands or yellow cap, call imitation or competition, the truth is that the bathroom products that we all know disappeared, but as we must fight and adapt began to appear in the market things like this:

Source

And like toothpaste, shampoo similar to the originals apparently but they are completely strange brands, the truth in this post I do not want to focus on complaining but to tell you how we have been leading our lives without some things or changing them with others and to show them the destructive that can be a government, to the point of making so many things disappear from a country.

Now we Venezuelans have changed basic products for yellow cap products in a compulsory way, I must admit that I laugh a lot about the names of the imitations because it plays this marketing by placing colors or designs similar to the most famous brands in the world as I showed them the image , the same type of "colgate" as colors, etc.

Some imported treats

We all love oreos, good in #Venezuela sometimes they do not get that easy, but there is an extreme and abundant range of cookies that imitate their image, of course their flavor is incomparable with the original, but that way we change our delicious oreos, for :

Source

I believe that more than a survival guide is a guide to how we unwittingly adapt to change, however bad it may be, and it is not conformism, because I still remember all the brands that have left my country, it is more a way of say: "You will not die to change something, you must adapt and continue", however; The main problem in #Venezuela is the purchasing power, everything here is worth much more than what you earn in a common job. Even professionals do not have enough entry to buy many of these things.

Well as I said I will not start complaining (although it is hard not to do), the question is that if you have to eat "oieo" you do your best to adapt your palate to different tastes.

In Venezuela there is no cash

It is not that it does not exist completely, but there is very little, it is a very crazy problem that I really do not know how to explain to someone from another country, the ATMs became useless practically because that lack of cash makes them only to give us the update of our balance. In addition to that the currency of highest denomination does not reach for anything, if you have cash you would have to load trucks with cash to pay something. So: What have the Venezuelans done? It's all because of transfers, points of sale or fast payments, so we have been accommodating to this lack of cash, if you have any doubt about this, you can leave it in your comments .

What if I say, is that they should have their cards active, if possible always load something where you can make transfers (cell phones) or ask first at any store: "Do you have a point of sale?". So you do not have to stay washing dishes or cleaning floors by debtor.

Lines everywhere, for everything, but in general for food products

When you see a line runs away, unless you really want that product, the truth some of us have settled in different ways and we even pay up to three times for those products just to not make those long queues, as they read it, in Venezuela they resell everything , and this is partly affecting the economy, many of these people sleep from the previous day to obtain products, which usually sell, are not even for own consumption.

As I said I do not want to focus on the negative, but these people have also contributed to destroy the economy, and also we who buy their things are also helping, but I want to tell you if you want to survive in some way without stress, this is the best way, although the prices of things change in excess and of course a large part of the population can not pay them or have to make a great effort to pay it. I think that very few have the possibility to pay for these things without so much effort.

So you know, here it's time to pay resold. (It's an option to not stress in queues)

HIDE YOUR THINGS

In capital letters, so that they read me with attention, although they do not believe it; load a cell phone in #Venezuela hand is not a very good idea, there are many, but MANY, ill-intentioned to try to steal your things, so my recommendations are: "Do not give papaya" that is, do not make things be easy for thieves. If you decide to walk through a city, I recommend you leave without valuables, if you are in a car if you can carry your things but you have to be aware all the time, it's funny that some people keep their cell phones in "bad" places, and so they walk by the city, is a way of survival if you can notice, we really live a little stressed for these reasons, I really prefer to leave without valuable things.

If you get to see your valuables and try to steal, I think the best is to deliver everything, in my country there is a high death rate for thefts (Yes, here you can be killed by a cell phone, car, etc). So if you want to survive first do not load anything of value, if you load it do not give "papaya", do not be alone in rare places, and remember to look everywhere, if you see a motorcycle with two rare people, "run away" and go to a place where there are many more people.

What I want to do in this post, is to do the negative a guide how to evade it, avoid it or what are the alternatives that we use in our country to cope with this weight.

Do things early

If you must do some important diligence I recommend you do them early, in #Venezuela many things happen, the systems fall, the internet stops working, the light goes out for hours, so I always recommend doing the important things in the morning , because if something happens to you like this, it gives you time to try it in the day and if you succeed, you get out of that early stage. (In addition, everything now closes early).

Somehow or other we have adapted to survive in this crazy country, it is a teaching all this, because we are accustomed to comforts and a "normal" life the truth to live here prepares you to survive in many aspects, you must be a very objective and careful; Of course not everything is bad here, even through the streets you get people who give you a smile and are friendly, but we have learned to cope with this situation and face it, is something that I really do not wish anyone.

I could get more criticism, and talk about how difficult it has been to obtain food for Venezuelans, but this is a guide for people who want to know #Venezuela so I know that they will come with another type of currency, called dollar, peso, euro or whatever it is, if you have another currency in Venezuela that is not the Bolivar, this of eating and getting food is made very simple and even cheap, quite the contrary for those who won in "Bolivares".

Tourist sites

Of course I know that many of the attractions of Venezuela is its geography and natural places, but my recommendation is to visit these places with known Venezuelans if possible, or groups of tourists, but never do it alone, for your safety and enjoyment.

And yes, if you can still do tourism in #Venezuela but as I told you if they are accompanied, it is better and they should know a bit about where they are going, investigate if there is a lot of insecurity, there are still places in #Venezuela where it feels Certain tranquility, everything depends on where they go.

In general, I think we should remain calm so as not to go crazy in this country, for me this is learning and it is necessary to go through these changes to learn to make better decisions in the future, meanwhile we are surviving. Happy start to the week!

Gifs:

@raquel.ramirezv