“An oil country and there is no gas, there is no gasoline, there is nothing. We were rich, Venezuela was rich, “complains Kira Pimentel while adding a little oil to the fire that she is building in the backyard of her house to cook.
They have been repeating the same routine for several months, almost everyday. “It’s like living in the Stone Age,” adds the red-haired woman with gray hair and big eyes.
Kira, from 61 years, lives in Maracay, state from Aragua, in the central region of Venezuela, about two hours from Caracas by car, about 120 kilometers.
There, as in the rest of the country, including Caracas, the supply gas is irregular or non-existent and the price of a bottle on the black market is unpayable for most.
This has made many people have to cook over wood , a product that has been re-marketed.
It is a sign of the deterioration of the energy sector of a country that was an oil power, which is the eighth in reserves of natural gas and where there has also been a lack of gasoline for months.
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“It is a delay, you have to be carrying a candle (supporting the heat of the fire), smoke in your eyes. That hits the nose and hurts , we lived used to making food quickly in our kitchen (with gas). Not now, that has changed ”, Kira tells BBC Mundo, anxious to return to that old normality that is not in sight.
“ Long ago we made sancochos (boiled with vegetables and meat) on firewood because we I liked its taste. ”
That was just for pleasure, not because of gas supply failures like now.
Maracay not only has a problem with domestic gas. The gasoline is not available either , the power cuts are almost daily and last for hours, and internet access is limited.
Aragua is part of the diminished industrial belt of central Venezuela, in addition to being an agricultural producer.
About ten years ago there were 1. 500 companies, but by the end of 2019 there were less than 300 working, according to the state industrial chamber .
To make ends meet, in November Kira and her sister Rosalba dedicated themselves to selling halacas, the typical Venezuelan Christmas dish: each one sold it for US $ 2 , which is practically equivalent to the monthly salary that each woman earns as a radiology technician in a city hospital.
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The sisters’ house is one of several that have been built on a gigantic plot where many years his grandparents began to live.
Among fruit trees and the occasional iron table, Kira sets the fire.
To avoid a smoke, this time she bought firewood ” of the good one ” that complements with branches and cartons of eggs that he is throwing to the candle.
The plan is to place the pot on the fire to cook the saca, this kind of tamale wrapped in a banana leaf.
But the sky begins to darken.
“My God, no, don’t let it rain! ”, Kira implores with a nervous laugh, aware that the flood is a reality.
She does not want to be late in production, and buy a gas cylinder for her kitchen on the black market it is a luxury (not very profitable) that cannot be given: what they earn helps to support the large Pimentel family.
And with the first few drops another slide starts: protect the fire with the wish that the drizzle is temporary. If not, it is time to turn off the wood so that it is not consumed and be able to use it later, as it finally happens.
It is a bustle that hides any ailment that the 64 and 58 years of the Pimentel sisters may reflect.
Some children observe them with wide eyes, recording every detail of a crisis that has existed since they were born .
Fortunately this day there is electricity and you can prepare a coffee in a rice cooker that they now use as a coffee maker due to the lack of gas. In the kitchen, a modern gas stove remains off.
As night falls, the loud voices of the family mix with laughter that alleviates the sorrows of the crisis.
“What a great exhaustion!”
Venezuela was one of the great oil powers in the world; However, for months it has been shaken by a shortage of gasoline and domestic gas.
The president, Nicolás Maduro, refers to the sanctions imposed by the United States. The opposition blames the corruption and inefficiency of the latter 20 years of government and the deterioration of the state oil company PDVSA.
Maracay is a city near Caracas but it was left out of the bubble that protects the capital.
Gasoline has weeks that do not arrive at the service station pumps. The weekend I went to Maracay I found long lines of cars on every corner waiting to put fuel.
Many of those drivers had been there since dawn or even for days under inclement heat .
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That night at the Pimentel house was Cristina, a woman from 64 years that he lives next door and that he had just lost 15 hours in line to refill fuel. Without success.
“What a great exhaustion! (…) Since the early morning queuing and nothing, I couldn’t take it, it’s a two-day wear and tear, ”he complains.
“ There hasn’t been a drop of gasoline here for 20 days ”, says a mechanic who listens to us talk and who recently also started using a kitchen a di e sel because “that is achieved”.
Cristina, who lives by renting rooms, learned of a contact who offers her a liter of gasoline for US $ 1, double the value in the Gas stations with international prices (there are others at subsidized prices that are not available either).
Desperate, she considers it, but “the contact” is far from her home, and the woman does not want to risk the last drop what remains for the fear of something goes wrong and stays halfway.
Mission firewood
Kira made a huge sacrifice and managed to buy a gas cylinder on the black market at US $ 14.
“Only for extremely urgent cases”, he clarifies. The Hallas, therefore, continued to cook over wood.
The logs of Wood is sold by a man who looks for them in rivers and streams, and takes them home.
The last ones he bought for US $ 5 dollars and they lasted about six days. He paid for them with the equivalent in food , since he did not have the money in bolivars or foreign currency.
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“I I don’t think I earn a dollar anymore, that’s not enough for me, “complains Kira.
At the end of October last year, General Oviedo Delgado, the highest military authority in the state of Táchira (in Los Andes, western part of the country), proposed the “firewood plan”, a social plan to provide the population with wood and avoid cutting down trees in national parks.
“It is not going back to prehistory,” said the official at a press conference. “That is why we are going to cut down the trees that are in the dams and with our political colleagues we are going to distribute firewood to the people, we must find solutions.”
Popular engineering
Kira’s house is also an example of popular engineering .
Some bricks and old heating elements act as an electric stove.
An old Sandwich maker was also adapted as an electric stove and there is also the rice cooker that is now used to make coffee.
“This has taken our legs out of the mud,” says Rosalba using a popular saying. “But when the power goes out, there is nothing to do “, he adds.
“Yesterday the power went out from half past six from the afternoon until ten at night. Sometimes they take them away from us in the morning. ”
The next day it’s time to put the stove back together but earlier. On these dates, the evening downpour can always surprise. This time, however, are ready .
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