Yusmary has come to spend half her weekly income on water. Isora has turned to the black market for cooking gas. Amid constant blackouts, Rodrigo has been forced to buy a power plant for his house and his business. Every man for himself.
Chronic failures of public services in Venezuela have led to a de facto, informal and chaotic “privatization”, with the population forced to cover at their own expense the void left by crumbling public networks.
“People have to find a solution by themselves and go about their day,” affirms Jesús Vásquez, director of Monitor Ciudad, an NGO that monitors the distribution of water, electricity and cooking gas in Caracas and four states of the country.
Dry pipes
Residents of the La Jota slum in the La Vega district of Caracas” rush to fill their buckets and store water as soon as anyone notices the pipes of the public system receiving some of the liquid.
Yusmary Gómez, 36, mother of an 18-year-old boy and a 4-year-old girl, usually receives water every 15 days, but the shortage can last longer: “Last year we spent three and a half months without a single drop.”
She has an 800-liter tank given to her by a politician during an electoral campaign.
The water that reaches her pipes is yellowish, forcing her to buy mineral water at the store where she works to drink and cook. If the scarcity drags on, she must use it for other needs. She keeps a record of the water she buys and her boss deducts the amount from her salary. 10 gallons go for about 1 US dollar.
“I earn 30 dollars a week and I have had to pay 15 just for water,” Yusmary regrets.
Monitor Ciudad estimates the residents of Caracas receive an average of just 60 hours of water service each week. Paying $70 for a delivery of water by tanker truck is common among the middle class. In more affluent areas, the drilling of private wells can cost $20,000, which is paid for by the benefited residents.
According to private estimates, the average salary in the country stands at 150 dollars a month. The minimum monthly wage is less than 5 dollars.
Nicolás Maduro recently launched a program through which the government receives reports from communities through a mobile app and sends brigades to repair pipes, pave roads or rehabilitate local health facilities.
Maduro blames US sanctions for the crisis, but the collapse of public services began several years before the first international measures amid a lack of funding and allegations of corruption.
Following your medical treatment or buying cooking gas
Water is not the only thing in short supply in La Jota.
Isora Bazán complains about irregularities in the distribution of cooking gas. Whenever gas cylinders are not delivered, she is forced to turn to the black market. “I’ve come to stop buying my medication to buy cooking gas,” the 61-year-old retiree says.
On the streets, informal vendors offer gas cylinders for 10 to 20 dollars. Isora receives a monthly pension of less than 5 dollars. Only 17% of the population receives cooking gas by pipes, according to Monitor Ciudad.
Power generators
A voltage drop damaged the fridge of Felicinda Mendoza, a 74-year-old resident of La Vega: “The lights go out a lot, blackouts are recurrent (…) Yesterday, I had some frozen meat and poultry… All the little food I had rotted.”
Blackouts are a nightmare, especially in regions far from Caracas, where people can go hours without power. The situation is especially serious in the western state of Zulia, where blackouts happen every day.
“We are forced to solve these problems on our own, otherwise we might die of heatstroke,” says Rodrigo Crespo, a 35-year-old businessman who bought two small power generators for his home and his store in the town of Los Puertos de Altagracia, not far from the state capital of Maracaibo. Each generator costs $350, plus $100 of monthly maintenance. One runs on gasoline, which is in short supply and forces Rodrigo to turn to the black market. The other runs on methane.
Ailing education
The collapse of education and the public health system completes the bleak picture.
Yusmary’s daughter often misses school due to the lack of water at her public kindergarten. “They send us a message by phone saying there is no water and therefore no activities,” she says.
Since the coronavirus pandemic, it has become common for students in the public system to have only two or three days of school every week due to the lack of teaching staff as a result of low salaries.
A small private school could be an alternative for Yusmary: “I would love it!”
Her eldest son, who started working in a call center, promised to help her pay the monthly fee of $30.
Translated by José Rafael Medina
