Venezuela

1989 -- We spent a fair bit of time here, and made friends and broke some. In one place—I don't remember the name—we stayed for ages and ma worked. She would make buñuelos in the morning, with Phil's help, and make some sweet paste to go with them, and then walk on the beaches selling them. She made a tidy profit doing that.

While we were in Venezuela, there was a cholera epidemic, though we were lucky to not get it—even though we were not taking the precautions all that seriously. We boiled our water, but that was about it. Speaking of water, there was shortages there. People had to queue up to get their rations, as did we—though we, for the most part, took off with the marina's water; illegally, I might add.

My maternal grandmother came from Peru to visit us here—poor woman. It was dreadfully hot, and she wasn't used to it. She suffered the heat, but we enjoyed her presence. The rest of us had it fine, for we were used to wandering around in very little, but she was not, and wore full-length dresses. Luckily she didn't keel over.

While here, we decided to take off and go down to Peru to visit the family. In the spirit of doing this, Pampero II was put in a local marina, and we took off by bus through the mountains. I'll tell the tale of those countries later. We came back, and we hadn't been in Venezuela for too long when there was a phone call for my mother, while we were at the marina, and my brother and I went down to answer it. It was my aunt Goya, and she was very insistent on talking to my mother. We went to grab her, and when she came back, she was upset. Her sister Julia, our aunt, had died.

This precipitated another trip down to Peru, though my father stayed behind this time. My mother, my brother, and I, took off down again. My mother was very upset for a while afterwards.