Venezuela is a beautiful country, with many natural beauties as the beaches, the Angel Falls, the Tepuys, neverending natural wealth like the oil, a considerable source of energy for mankind, huge amounts of minerals (So you will never require more minerals for your additional pylons hehe), all these resources, so wanted and envied by many countries around the world, with their glory and power craving, but from my point of view there's something much more valuable and powerful than that and the ones who got it don't see the potential in them, and that's the water and the fertile soil.

Source: NotiTotal

Resources we don't see when they are all around us, resources we don't appreciate, with no value to us, resources that are really expensive on many other countries, where you should expend a great amount of money just to get a part of their worth. The soil i can get from the tree in our street is so fertile, that if i decided to take some of it and plant a bean, i will get the most beautiful small plant in just a couple days.

Source: NotiTotal

It's a millenary land, a land with ancestors and founders who enjoyed the kindness of the land, those that we today don't fully appreciate. With amazing stories, battles that even nowadays, we are still studying so we can fully understand our land and its roots, our liberators and their sacrifice for a free land, and a brave nation that freed itself from oppression.

Source: Noticias24

But our leader’s and people’s bad decisions have put us in these circumstances, that nowadays got us in depresion, the bad administration and the greed for the biggest slice of the cake in a country where its wealth is simply endless, these are a clear demonstration that our problem is more of a cultural issue than anything else.

The "Viveza Criolla"

I think this could be roughly translated as "Creole vividness", because of that, i think we should stick to call it "Viveza Criolla", Possibly, you may have heard of it before, but this is the behavior and attitude we see frequently on our people, the one we criticize when we are affected in any way.

This Viveza Criolla can be reflected or represented in so many ways, but the income and outcome is always the same, it's like a contagious disease or a learned behavior, in which the individual positions himself over a pedestal and shows his total lack of respect and consideration for his fellows, taking calculated actions to bring him towards some benefit while exploiting any individual or systematic weakness, and not caring about whether it is ethically or morally acceptable, thus, following the "Line of the Least Resistance".

But, why are we talking about that if that's a minor problem?

Simply because it is not a minor problem, it's a weakness, that corrupts systematically the needed bases for a functional and efficient society, but the worst part is that, besides the oil, we are also exporting Viveza Criolla. With this, i don't mean there are not hardworking and honest people, people that works hard day by day to bring food home, professional people, i mean, the attention is always directed upon the negative aspects, over those people that act wrongly.

But as i have stated before, the country has a cultural problem, this is the cause, and the consequence is the reflection of this behavior over the nation rulers, those that use the contacts and authority to take advantage of the system, but this doesn't come only from the officialist parties, but also from the opposition parties, as this issue stopped from being a populist movement, and digged so deep in the minds of the citizens that this is now a cultural problem. Therefore, if we want a real change for good, it won't come from only changing the government and the rulers, it will come after we change our minds and ideology to be able to transcend this crisis.

Our country's actual situation

At this moment, the actual state of the nation, in economic terms, is really complicated, there are multiple factors that cause this economical situation, which should be identified and isolated to be able to be addressed correctly, in simple terms these factors are:

• Inflation.
• Speculation.
• Banknotes shortage.
• Change control and its effects on the foreign exchange market.

These four factor work systematically, and the constant degradation of them affects our economy in a negative way.

For a better understanding, (This might be hard to explain):

As of 04/28/2018, the minimum MONTHLY wage was 392.646 BsF. (also called VEF) with the feeding bonus (social help program) which is called "cesta ticket" that stands for basket ticket (yeah, don't ask). This bonus was valued on 915.000 Bsf which sums up to 1.307.646 BsF, it should be noted that this social help program was born as a populist tactic to get more political support and you were only allowed to buy food with it.

And actually, that day i was out, walking and buying food around. I took note of the most important products and their prices, the pictures are:

Own picture.

The math is really easy, but, do we end up with a positive balance?, short answer: No, we don't, just taking into account the price of meat Kilogram is worth almost the whole wage, in other words, you work for a month, 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week, you get paid half on the 15, and the other half on the 30 of every month, and still you can't get a whole kg of meat, or even think about getting a whole chicken, which are around 2kg each, and each kg is worth around 900.000BsF, the math is on point, you won't eat this month. Unless you work overtime, on other stuff, so you get enough to at least buy the meat which could last 3-4 days top.

Please note that these prices don't belong to the most expensive supermarket, these prices belong to the most competitive market, the informal sellers on the streets, where small producers get to sell their vegetables, or the small markets. Every saturday i walk the markets for hours just to find the best prices, just like the song says "Para comprar hay que caminar, o te van a clavar" which stands for "To buy you have to walk, or you will get nailed".

But wait, what does -30% / -50% mean?

Due to the cash and bank notes shortage, and our "Viveza Criolla" as it was explained before, the cash started to be sold illegally, for a profit, to explain it better, those who work on the banks, institutions, public transport or any kind of job that gets to move a high amount of cash, these persons are selling the bank notes for the profit, getting ranges from 100% and even up to 200%. In example, you are willing to buy 1.000.000 on cash, you can "buy" the cash paying twice the amount on a bank transfer. This makes speculation a lot easier and "justifiable", the thing is, when you are buying a kg of Mango, you can pay 20.000 BsF. in cash, or 60.000BsF through a selling point.

THE CLAP

While theres a social help program that is called CLAP "Comité Local de Abastecimiento y Producción" which means Local Supply and Production Committee, you can find some products like Rice, Pasta, Sugar, Grains whose price is around 300.000 / 400.000 / 500.000 / 1.000.000 BsF. Respectively. This help was made by the government to reduce the queues volume on the markets, people refer to this help and call it "The Box", which is worth around 40.000 BsF. and it could vary, but to this day, that's the highest price i have HEARD of.

This box contains from 8 to 10 products, like pasta, corn flour, rice, vegetable oil, milk, tuna or sardine cans, grains, among other stuff, like personal hygiene, shampoo, soap, deodorant, sanitary towels, etc. If the minimum wage is 1.307.646 BsF. and the net worth of the box is 40.000BsF, you find yourself with a bargain, and it's a big relief for the citizens that live with a minimum wage. But the most important thing to note, NOT EVERYONE IS ABLE TO GET THE BOX, me particularly, don't get it and i live in a "popular" zone.

Each family it’s supposed to get their own box, but this is not the case, this box is sometimes the reason families are forced to support the government and go to the meetings and marches, if they don't, the box won't be given to that family again. About the box, sometimes it brings repeated products, or does not include one of a kind, as these products are stolen to be sold at a lot higher price, or they are given to someone who's got the contacts and influence to get them. So this is not the most fair social help program as you may see, even considering the fact there could be months without a box arriving, people have been more than 4 months without receiving this benefit.

THE QUEUES FOR FOOD.

That's one of the methods employed to find or get food, the other one is the most talked about and shown on pictures, the queues for food on the markets and stores. Actually, thanks to the reach of "The Box" there has been a sudden decrease of the queues, i guess it may be that, i managed to stay in queue for more than 48 hours, i even slept on the streets waiting on the queue so i could get cheaper products because my reserves were emptying or because the products sold after the queue were in other ways unobtainables.

Nevertheless, there are still queues, but the government is trying to hide them employing national guards to guide the procedures (don't ask me what happens after this), Still this won't apply for the vegetables, which you have to walk a lot to find them on the streets as cheap as they can be. The most frequent prices are the following:

Own picture.

I had to buy 1 kg of sugar in 300.000 BsF, doing queue overnight and writing my name in a list organized by the same people in the queue, still we don't reach a positive balance, right?, and i'm breaking it down to the most basic products, there are still a lot of first necessity and/or important products, lets remember the minimum monthly wage is 1.307.646 BsF as of 04/28/2018.

Minimum monthly wage raise on the May 1st 2018.

Source: El Nacional.

I have mentioned the 3 forms to find the products we need in our houses, walking and buying in stores, with the CLAP Box, and with the Queues for limited products on low prices for big super markets. But what if i told you that the 05/01/2018 (Yeah, the international workers day) it was decreed a general raise for the minimum monthly wage? The first thing that could come into our minds is "Wow, that's great! More money for the people" but this is not the case, everything the wage gets a raise, prices rise too, and so the collective depression and anguish.

This raise was around 95% of the former wage value, being now 1.000.000 BsF the salary and the feeding bonus got raised to 1.555.500 BsF summing up to a total of 2.555.500. This caused that every, every product listed before, had their value raised by 95% during the evening of the day that the President Maduro announced the raise, even McDonald's employees were removing the price list and the promotions, the supermarkets, drugstores, everyone raised the prices of their products, so every price stated in the picture above should be doubled to reflect their real value now, this is the main reason prices rise, but the details, related to "why and how" won't be covered on this post, as it is too big of a topic, and the objective of this post is different to what this topic could bring to us.

Let's talk about the change control

In our country we don't have enough food and/or basic supplies production, these should be imported, thus, being paid in North American Dollars or European Euros, this is the first reference for the change tax (and as tax i mean the relative value between the two currencies, the exchange rate), as it is used to know the value of USD in BsF but not specifically in official taxes, but more in what we call "the black market" which act more like an informal market as the name implies.

Meanwhile the government, is setting a price for the USD and we call it the "official" or "preferential" value (i wont get into details as why we call this preferential), but to obtain this foreign currency you have to sign up you have to take part in some kind of auction (you would think, which country in the world auctions foreign currency?), and that auction has weird mechanics, so it sort of works like a lottery, where they take your BsF and deposit the USD on another account.

There are many exchange house that sell USD to that price, but there is also the parallel rate of exchange to the parallel dollar. And this is because the most known house of change had their price frozen for 3 months (DolarToday) while the government were saying they were going to destroy it (After failing for years) and now they made it, surprisingly making the perfect opportunity, and now raises another competitor onto the fray, one more that would start leading the trades in such a short time.

The USD change price is now set today by AirTM (a payment processor, the one we called the parallel USD to the parallel USD). But now we are getting on the most interesting part...he exchange rate is around 788.848,89 BsF per USD on AirTM, don't forget our minimum monthly wage is 2.555.500 BsF, with that wage, how many USD are you getting monthly? (That's the scary part, right?). It's 3.34$ per month. So technically, you work a month to get yourself a meat kilogram, and i don't want to get into the medicine/drugs topic, which in most part are in shortage and the prices are far worse than food. So yeah, that's pretty much around 1 SBD monthy right?

Another example to show how speculation works in the most simple way, just a 1Kg Nutella is worth around 25.000.000 BsF, and using AirTM's rate, that's equal to 31,7$, and this price will vary depending on the guy that's trying to steal from you, without any kind of physical weapon.

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Is is true that there's people looking for food on the thrash bins and containers?

Yes, without a doubt, and i think i showed why, and that's because the prices shown before, it's important to note that not necessarily it has to be a homeless person to be eating from the thrash, as you will find well dressed people or those that even just got out from their jobs and started looking for some food on the local garbage container so they can bring something home.

Is it true that there's people dying from lack of medicines?

Yes, there's a medicine shortage, a friend of our family died from a diabetic coma because he didn't have his insulin supply. But the common thing is that people can't afford the medicine, as these are found at such high prices that just cant be paid, either that or the medicine is seldom found, i won't get into details with the prices after the May 1st raise.

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Steemit and the Venezuelans

Now that we understand the minimum wage in Venezuela, at the actual price it is worth 1 SBD to cover it, and it's not worth to get into more details as i could end up writing a whole book, but the point of this post is not to depress the reader, but to cheer up and raise the mood. Steemit got very popular among us the Venezuelans as a way to survive the chaos or the crisis we are through, too many people, even me, are talking about the benefits of Steemit and the cryptocurrencies to help our friends, families, coworkers, etc. We are inviting them to form part of this big platform, so they can have a economical relief and also a way to free themselves from our burdens.

Many users on Steemit, many Venezuelans are using this platform to take their feelings and emotions out of their chests, i have a particular friend i got into Steemit, who i congratulate everyday, because when he writes and posts gets to feel a lot better and fight his depression caused by this crisis.

Don't be fooled, before i got into Steemit i was having a tough time, i was in a deep depression, because of this i also understand what is it like to not have enough money to get a psychologist help and pay for the medicines, but thanks to my husband, family and friends, i was able to defeat this bitch we call depression, even when Chris Cornell and Chester Bennington died i was crying, because i understood what is it to feel like they did, i felt what they felt.

During the 2015 my father was kidnapped while he was working, we never were the kind of wealthy people, but they simply thought we were, and to our surprise, he was kidnapped by the same kids he helped when they didn't even have clothes to wear, when they were hitchhiking, they were all ranging from 15 to 21 years old, they were just kids. I still have the recording we made on the first contact call between the kidnappers and my brother, as he was the one to lead the rescue. We barely made it, there was a lot of crossed fire during the rescue, but he survived.

After that, he tried to keep on working his lands, as he always did, but he was threatened to never come back to his land or he was going to get killed, the land he worked for years.

But money doesn't grow from trees, and if it would, it wont sow itself, one day in a attempt to get back to work he got intercepted by 4 bikers carrying long fire weapons, they kept him kidnapped for a while, in the meantime, he got all his bank accounts emptied. And at the final time, the moment to let him go they told him "Old man, we like you, most of the time we just kill the guys we get, but you behaved really good, take this money so you can get back home". After that, depression and crisis dug deep in our family.

What did i do after this?

---

"My father didn't die, there were only material loses," i kept saying to myself, working hard everything can be recovered, my family and friends helped me on approving the last subjects on my career, so that i could get into the internships and start looking for a job, i was able to survive during the internships by selling some stuff i got on my house, which allowed me to get enough food to survive, my mood and face changed, i was slowly recovering from depression.

Then, i managed to get my internships finished with the highest grade possible, and right after i was offered a job at an airport where i was trained as a Quality Control and Assurance Manager, i got introduced to Steemit by @MichelCamacaro and then he showed me the project @Cervantes, i got married and i graduated as an Aeronautical Engineer 4 months after finishing the internships, now i'm a ISO 9001 Auditor.

If life turns her back on you, grab her @$$!@&%

How did i grab her @$$? with the money i get on Steemit i buy ingredients to bake cakes and cook the most delicious food everyday, and then i post them on my blog with the recipes, i was able to take my dog to the vet, which was something i couldn't afford before, i learned to make quality posts, learned about markdown and html, i got to know awesome and marvelous people, who share their stories and experiences on Cervantes Discord Server, i went to Meet Ups, i got to know a lot of Venezuelans in person who use Steemit as a way of life, i have taken some drinks with them (i didn't dance cause i'm not good at it hahaha), i invited family members and friends to steemit so we can all enjoy a better life together, my friends come time to time to my house, to share some time and enjoy ourselves, we make sweets/desserts, go to the movies, send my husbands family money (they still cant believe how good steemit is, i can't blame them, we were all skeptical at our first glance, right?), i laugh, i share, i live.

My beautiful people.

I know very well this situation is really tough, i know everyone is suffering or suffered very hard times, even worse than mine, i have no doubt, there are a lot of personal experiences here, stories worth to appreciate. People, i know this is a pretty tough time for our nation, but as a colleague/boss told me at some point:

Source: El Telégrafo.

During times of crisis, there's people crying, and others selling tissues.

I’m learning everyday from this crisis, i have learned different ways to cook, i have learn to appreciate the small details, to manage the money more efficiently, to love even more my family, i have met awesome people, i have a lot more friends now. Even from the crisis you can get good things, you learn more.

I know this is a hard crisis, but it is difficult to all of us. Put some effort, try to get better, get away from that depressive black cloud that is around you, find your light, and when you find it, you will realize it was always there, the answers were always there, and it was just another test that life threw at you. Help your family and friends with helping you, don't make things harder, they will always be there for you.

Be a better person, not only on steemit, or discord, be better everywhere, on every sense, in your everyday, if you are a steemit user (assuming you are not, and you just stumbled here thanks to google or some other reason, possibly being that someone shares this with you), make quality content, learn how to write better everyday, read, study, nourish your knowledge, don't let unfair things happen, and if they happen, don't let them go unnoticed, don't be just another "Viveza Criolla" example, don't remain silent when you see something wrong or unfair, claim your rights, talk about duties, help that guy that is going through a hard time, help the people that are fighting depression, talk to that lady in the queue that is complaining about the crisis, try to make her laugh, make everyone laugh more, share your joy, even help those persons with toxic behaviors, help them to get better and stop being like that.

This is our responsibility, not everyone else, slowly we can make great changes with just small details, we will be building a better country, of which we could be proud at some point of time, and remember this crisis, as just another part of our history.

"To change the country for better you have to..."
Source: Taringa.

THANK YOU.

I will never stop thanking @Cervantes, thanks to them and also thanks to @MichelCamacaro, who told me about Steemit, my story today could be completely different. Thanks for their support to hispanic content, and thanks for the help to all of us Venezuelans that we are going through a hard time.

Thanks a lot to @Aggroed, you were my inspiration for this post, (And that little guy that made us know each other hahaha, even thats a great example when bad things can also cause great and positive stuff).

I want to know about your stories and experiences my dear Venezuelan, share them with us in the comments, or just leave a link to the post in which you talk about it.

Yours truly,
@Amanardis & @Feuerbolt (a bit of help on translation).