Yesterday, like always, while I was making a line to take a bus on Altamira square, a corner took my attention.The square has remain as an opposition icon for a lot of reasons but mainly because it has been the scenery of many demonstrations, fights, killings during the last few years and this corner proof it: a trash can serves as a grave, and around it with shark and then paint; someone made the shape of a body, the body of a woman who was killed right there on 2004. She was at an opposition demonstration placed in that square when a few members of the Bolivarian circles (Chavez supporters, the Bolivarian Circles doesn’t exists anymore I think, they have other names or some people suspect they are part of the police or the military; but that’s just a suspect) passed by in their motorcycles and shoot at the people. I was at home at that moment, watching TV. The news passed the exact minute when she was killed, and some people running and holding her body. It impressed me in the most dramatic way because the woman was just a little bit older than my mom and pretty much alike. And my mom was at that protest. I immediately jumped off my seat, took the phone and called her ordering her to come back home. She was at the back of the square, I can’t remember if she heard the shootings but she asked me to “calm down and don’t over react” – “But mom” – I screamed- “They just killed a woman who looks like you”.I have heard that the husband has the responsibility of keeping the shape at that square intact. And since I have to go to that place a lot, I have seen that small piece of pain and history many, many times. But until yesterday as far as I can tell, I have never seen before someone walking upon the shape. It was like a sacred place, like a grave indeed, no one dares to put a foot on it, I think. I was wrong. While the bus waiting kept longer and longer I saw at least 5 people just walking by, stepping on that memory like it was nothing. A man with very deep eyes developed the tendency of looking with a very rough face, every time that someone just walked on the shape. And then he looked at me and turned his head down like saying “Yes, you have the same look, the same sad look of someone who can’t forget while the others just passed by and move on with their lives”.PD: About the picture, This is the corner I'm talking about, I took the picture two years ago (2005) during the aniversary of those events, that explains the flowers. The shape remains the same.
Today was a normal day. I woke up, took the subway, went to class and asked a friend for a drive home. -What place makes you remember this day? – My friend asked me.I doubted: Chuao, where we gathered the three previous days and decided to go to Miraflores (government palace) to ask Chavez for his resignation? or maybe Parque Cristal (the picture of this entry) where you can find on a sidewalk, a tiny plaque for the victims and near by where that political demonstration started walking and walked 11 Kms more to find death at the end?. - Do you think we should go there and just sit for a while? - He asked me again. Maybe yes, maybe not. Between one doubt and another, my friend continued driving on the way home, leaving the past behind you could say. But at least I felt in my heart a cold empty. As soon as I got home I checked as usual the comments of this blog. And then started to searching and visiting others who speaks about Venezuela. The majority of them speaks about a coup, and forgets about the political demonstration and the killings. The majority of them tells the government version as a young kid in the middle school who learns by memory a poem without knowing the meaning of the words. Seeing that, seeing how the world believes in my government and has forget about Venezuelans like me, made me dropped on or two tears. And so I decided to write this entry. This is a humble and short entry. I have already wrote a lot about April 11. And I probably still have something else to tell about this issue, as I have in all issues, but today is not a day to speak. The government and the media, here and abroad, can speak as much as they want. They can take away the truth, and the facts. They did already. They can filled everyone's brains with a twisted version of history and by doing it, they can even take away my identity and the identity of others than me. They can kiss Chavez feet and forget about Venezuela. Speak as much as you want. In the meantime, today I request not for more stories; but for the silence that can speak more than words sometimes. For the victims, for telling them with my mouth shut that I'm sorry for their lost and mine. For telling the world that I was there, and I'm still proud of the steps I took, from the east area of Caracas to near the government palace to ask the president for his resignation, where death was waiting for us instead. You can make the world believe that the fishes don't live in the ocean, but you cannot make me forget what I saw, what I lived, what I know. Its been 5 years, no matter how many years passes, take for granted that I will always remember this day, in the way I saw it and not in the way they tell it.
Yesterday, like always, while I was making a line to take a bus on Altamira square, a corner took my attention.The square has remain as an opposition icon for a lot of reasons but mainly because it has been the scenery of many demonstrations, fights, killings during the last few years and this corner proof it: a trash can serves as a grave, and around it with shark and then paint; someone made the shape of a body, the body of a woman who was killed right there on 2004. She was at an opposition demonstration placed in that square when a few members of the Bolivarian circles (Chavez supporters, the Bolivarian Circles doesn’t exists anymore I think, they have other names or some people suspect they are part of the police or the military; but that’s just a suspect) passed by in their motorcycles and shoot at the people. 