On January 3rd, I woke up to what felt like an unreal moment. Maduro, who had been the second dictator during the leftist regime started by Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, had been captured. Venezuelans everywhere celebrated a milestone that we weren’t sure we’d see in our lifetime. A month later, many of us sit hopingContinue reading “After the Ashes”
Tag Archives: venezuela
Images that Release Words
Writer’s block is so widespread that it’s a common theme in movies and fiction. Over the past year, I’ve seen what used to be a steady stream of new ideas and work reduce to a trickle. Like many artists, this is due to personal transitions that have taken much of my focus from my work.Continue reading “Images that Release Words”
My Hispanic Heritage
October is Latinx Heritage Month in Canada. Reflecting on my Latin American heritage brings both nostalgic joy and a sting of bitterness. 2021 marks a decade since I set foot in Venezuela, a country that shows no progress towards peace or the oil-fueled prosperity that made it so famous in the 20th century. Instead, weContinue reading “My Hispanic Heritage”
Flash Fiction
What color would you give to loss, to saying goodbye perhaps never to meet again? For many Venezuelans, those colors are orange, green, blue and black. These are the colors of the mosaic by local artist Carlos Cruz Diez, which graces the floors and feature walls in the Departures Hall of Simon Bolívar Airport, whichContinue reading “Flash Fiction”
The Spirits of Venezuela
October 12th is a day of remembrance in Venezuela, as we look back to the arrival of the Spaniards, and the subsequent slave trade, which brought Africans to labor on our lands. It’s a day to celebrate the culture that has resulted from the mix of those people, and also to reflect on the injusticesContinue reading “The Spirits of Venezuela”
The Ghosts that Brought us Together
How do keep a family together when your country is tearing you apart? In Venezuela during the Chavez-Maduro rule, increased political conflict has separated friends and families. As the economic and political situation became more tumultuous, tales of ghosts and spirits kept us together. These stories – from a child ghost at our grandparents’ homeContinue reading “The Ghosts that Brought us Together”
My Second Soul
“To speak a second language is to have a second soul,” Charlemagne said. Each language has unique expressions and images that we can use to express ourselves, to see the world in a new way. At the age of six I started to learn English, after starting classes in an American school in Holland. IContinue reading “My Second Soul”
Nostalgia…
It’s been 9 years since I last visited Venezuela, the country where I was born and spent much of my childhood. The name used to be synonymous with beauty and oil wealth. Now, it’s an experiment in how dictatorship and corruption can cripple a country, trigger the worst humanitarian crisis in the hemisphere and divideContinue reading “Nostalgia…”
It’s never too late to start…
Like so many of you, I wanted to change the world once. Life had other plans. I reached adulthood just as Chavez was ascending to power in Venezuela. That changed everything for so many. I’m one of the fortunate ones. I spend the last decade building a life here in Canada, focused on more practicalContinue reading “It’s never too late to start…”
My Writing Story 