Feliz Día

of Women...Yup, It's International Women's Day... Biggup to all the strong beautiful women out there. I didn't even realize it until a freind text me a message. Anyhow It's All Good.

Never a Dull Moment in Arepaland.-- So this morning I'm off to my walk. Normally I'd have gone to the park, but because I was running or shall we say walking against time today, I opted for a shorter walk, just to get the heart pumping. I walked down to the main commercial area. When I got there, I noticed a lot of people walking around in red T-shirts, and music blaring off the back of a truck. Right there, I knowthat's the sign of a Chavista Rally (Government rally) So I'm wondering what's happening. Well come to find out la señoritas y señoras are marching for Int'l women's Day. They are marching in solidarity against the war in Iraq, for better health and education for women and most interestingly against the US Embassy here in VE.

So the story goes like this; apparently Zulia State, a State in the western part of Venezuela where the oil fields are want to break away from mainland VE and become its own autonomy. There is talk that if Bush and his boys get them to break ties with mainl andVE and hook up with the independent Zulia state they'll have control of the oil, and the US can buy from them and forget about the rest of VE. Of course it's well known that the US interest in the country stems only form the oil it purchases from Chavez. If I'm not mistaken, the U.S gets 5% or more of it's oil from Venezuela. Given Chavez and Bush love-hate relationship with each other, a threat by Chavez to cut-off the oil supply to the US can cause major havoc in oil prices throughout the world and already has.
Word on la calle is that Bush has sent some of his peeps down here from the Embassy to support the folks of Zulia state in the seperation attempt. Well yuh know that Chavez eint having that. He won't allow things to go down like that. So animosity is in the air again. He'll give Bush and Condi a good cussing on his weekly Aló Presidente program which can last for up to 6hrs of non-stop ranting and raving by Chavez.

So today in honor of Int'l Womans Day, the women of the State of Zulia along with those from other parts of the country gathered together some over 2 milliones de firmandos (2 million signatures, I'm not so convinced that they actually had that many) and marched to the gates of the U.S Embassy to present them to the Ambassador. Of course you know that they weren't getting within earshot of him, but they made their presence known.

Like I said never a dull moment in Caracas. The sights and sounds of the march was quite interesting. Marching here takes on a whole different tone. Music, laughter, speeches and people whith all kinds of signs, clothing and everything else imaginable.