Caracas Chronicles

Author’s name withheld to protect the cadid

was just in altamira. man is that a ridiculous scene. it’s basically a mixed

crowd of popular class teenage hoodlums along with sifrinos and neighbors

from the area who are either watching and giggling as people burn tires and

set up crappy barricades, or have tried themselves to jump into the action,

clumsily trying to light molotov cocktails and throw rocks.

it really never ceases to amaze me how people who’ve spent their entire

lives in priviledged isolation have suddenly discovered how much fun it is

to break shit and burn things and block streets — something just about

everyone else has known for years.

i just walked back to my house from plaza altamira and there are these guys

standing at the bottom of the avenida principal de santa eduviges in their

dockers and penny loafers with cardigan sweaters trying to figure out how to

pop up sewer grates so they could block the street. just outside my building

a group of lawyers and doctors smiling charmingly next to piles of burning

trash that are blocking the street i live on.

i need to go back out there, just to ask one of these guys something like

“i’m sure you’re wearing that ski mask to protect yourself from the tear

gas, but why exactly are you breaking in the roof of an abandoned building?

is this part of the peaceful demonstration against the cne for blocking the

referendum?”