Featured photo: Ivanna Mia Márquez

I’m usually the person asking the questions, not the one answering them. I am the guy who is in the constant struggle of helping people’s stories be heard and shared, stories that Venezuelans have in our minds and hearts, but that sometimes we cannot tell out of fear, shame, or simply due to the lack of spaces that allow us to express ourselves freely. I am grateful to the universe that Hearts On Venezuela exists, and today it is been my turn to share the pages that make up the book of my life and how I see Venezuela.

Well, I suppose that, if I want you to join me in this story, the most courteous thing to do would be to introduce myself: I am Pascual Díaz, 26 years old, a lawyer by profession, a singer at heart and sometimes a bit of a clown by choice (but that’s only on Twitter).

I have lived in Maracaibo all of my life, coming from a home where since childhood I was told that I had to study and achieve very good grades if I wanted to be successful. Of course, being the son of a university professor and a super strict mother, this was the fundamental pillar of my upbringing: if I followed this rule one hundred percent, I was sure that I would be able to have money to travel and buy the car or the house of my dreams, just what my father had achieved thanks to his studies.

Since I was little, I always strived to be the best in everything I did. Honestly, I never compared myself to others, choosing to focus on myself, my grades, my achievements, learning other languages, and participating in many extracurricular activities. I also sought to be eloquent and to write well, because if you already have good grades, and you add a good oratory and an ornate vocabulary to your writing, then “obviously you are going to get a job in the area that you like and that pays you a lot of money.”

2017

In 2017, thanks to my grades, my command of the English language, and all those extracurricular activities I had participated in, I earned a spot at an academic exchange program sponsored by the United States Department of State.

So, on January 2nd of that year, I hopped on a plane to Atlanta to study criminal justice for a semester at Georgia College and State University with ALL MY EXPENSES PAID FOR. Sometimes I couldn’t believe this was happening for real, but it was. Everything my parents had told me had never made this much sense. I was finally bearing the fruits of all the studying and activities that most of my friends considered “a waste of time.”

When I started my classes, I realized that my ornate vocabulary was not highly appreciated by my teachers. The embellishment of my speech and writing was not of value in this institution, the quality of my arguments and critical thinking skills were of far more importance. With this, I do not mean that in Venezuela that does not matter, of course it does, but sometimes we tend to give more value to the form of things than to their essence.

I adapted very quickly to the American system’s academics and university life. I made friends from more than 100 different countries, sang, was part of three student organizations, washed clothes for the first time in my life, I traveled by car, bus and plane throughout six states, I volunteered, I didn’t miss a single party on a single weekend (work hard, play hard), and to top it off, I finished the semester with “straight A’s” and made it on the President’s list of the university. What more could I ask of life?

The return

Getting used to cool things takes a week but getting used to the ugly things is not so easy. My return to Venezuela was not warm at all. I returned to my country in the midst of protests against elections to create a new National Constituent Assembly (yes, the illegitimate, illegal, unconstitutional, etc.).

I couldn’t see my friends because there were protests all over the city. My electricity, water, internet and cable TV services seemed like they went on a trip to the beach or something, because without any explanation they just stopped working. I spent 24 hours a day staring at the ceiling. And the cherry on top was that even after all the protesting, the National Constituent Assembly was established anyways and our rights were canceled in our faces, per usual.

I said to myself: “Myself, do not go crazy, surely all this will improve when you start classes at the university,” but that was not the case. In just one year, I went from sharing my classrooms with 120 other students to being the only person in the room, because sometimes even my professors didn’t show up.

I felt very lonely

My friends had already graduated and I felt very lonely, I was full of helplessness. Every day I cried when I got home from school and asked myself a thousand questions: “How is it possible that there is no light at the university? How am I going to take an exam soaked in sweat? Why didn’t the professor tell us he wasn’t going to class so I could avoid spending money on a taxi to get to the university just because?” I am histrionic and dramatic since 1994, and now the universe was testing my nerves with all these obstacles in my way…

That same year I started working online doing translations for a company in Costa Rica that paid me $1 per hour. For me it was something incredible because I had never worked before and I was finally going to be able to handle my own finances, that is, I was no longer going to have to ask my parents for money. But the work turned out to be very different from what I expected.

My bosses were louts who thought I had to put up with their mistreatment and that I would never quit because I was Venezuelan and “all Venezuelans were in great need,” which, thank God, was not my case. Yes, this is a very harsh reality for many Venezuelans who have underpaid internet jobs, where they minimize and take advantage of us. Six months later, I made the best decision of my life, and I quit.

2018

In July 2018, I graduated as a lawyer with honors, living moments filled with so much happiness: I had the best grade point average of my class and I even gave a speech at my graduation ceremony. Obviously, I spent a whole week partying, and when I woke up, still a bit hungover, I asked myself: “Okay Pascual, and now what is your plan?” Well, I didn’t have one.

Apparently, my moment of glory was over and now I had to come up with a plan to build my future, but no one had told me about this part. I thought that all the opportunities were going to be given to me because I spoke three languages ​​and had graduated Magna Cum Laude. Not quite, honey!

Unlike many of my friends, I refused to work at a law firm that paid me minimum wage because I felt I deserved better. I had to turn to my other talents, and from time to time I sang at parties or churches, earning some extra money that was very good for me to use on the weekend when I went out with my friends.

I must admit that at that point in my life many negative feelings flooded my head. Whenever I ran into people I had studied with, they would always exclaim: “Surely you already have everything planned to go to do a really hot postgraduate course outside of Venezuela,” or “Surely you’re already working at a big law firm!”

I told them with great shame that I was merely singing at churches, and their reactions were a poem: “It can’t be, really?”, “But if you were such a good student!”, “Why haven’t you left the country? Here in Venezuela you are not going to achieve anything, ever.”

And that’s when I began to feel that everything I had achieved up to now was worthless, that this “dream job” was not possible to achieve in Venezuela and that I would never be able to become independent from my parents.

My mind would only race with more and more questions: Why do my friends in the United States have such good jobs and I don’t? Why do all my friends in Asia have access to so many opportunities and I don’t? Why did I have to be born in Venezuela? Why did it happen to me, to live the years of my professional youth at this historical moment and during the “good times”?

What I didn’t know at the time was that I already had the answers to my questions. Why the hell do I have to meet the expectations of others? Is there a problem if I just want to sing? Does that take away the academic merits that I worked hard for? If while living in Venezuela I had already gotten such good opportunities, what would keep me from having the opportunity to attain a postgraduate degree? I was my only obstacle, but I was too blind to see it.

2019

The start of 2019 was tough. The national blackout changed the way we live. My sister lives in the United States, and I always tell her that Venezuela changed definitively after that first blackout. I tell her that what she left here is not the same as what she will find when she returns one day.

In just 6 days, the few things that still worked in the country disintegrated as well. There was no gasoline, my friends’ family businesses were looted, all the food in our refrigerator was damaged, and apart from that, when the power “came back”, the damned electrical rationing also arrived. Imagine spending 12 hours a day without light under 35 degrees Celsius hear in Maracaibo. A tasty treat! But we better change the subject and not talk about this misfortune, it makes me feel something very ugly in my stomach that I cannot put into words.

Despite this event, 2019 also came along with many things that filled me with happiness, including the birth of Hearts On Venezuela (yes friends, we are already one year old) and the possibility of taking music a little more seriously. In May, I was able to present my own musical show as a soloist in a renowned restaurant in the city for the first time. Little by little, the word of my talent spread and in the blink of an eye music became the central axis of my life. I closed the year with more than 40 performances.

At some point in that year I opened my eyes and made the decision to see my life from another perspective. I began to feel capable, able to break down the obstacles that living in Venezuela presented, able to raise money, able to endure 12 hours without electricity and not allow that to turn me into an unhappy human being, capable of traveling, studying, buying the clothes I wanted, a new phone, and even a car, ALL BY MYSELF.

Those things that I saw so far away were now at my fingertips, and all this I achieved by working on what I love: music and translations with purpose. What could go wrong? My friend Cardi B had the answer: “KARANAVAAIRUZ!”

2020

At the beginning of my quarantine I was not very concerned about reinventing myself. Honestly, I was more focused on complaining because I was not going to be able to celebrate my birthday the way I wanted. Hearts On Venezuela gave me a lot of work because new information about the virus in Venezuela came out every day, so that kept me quite busy. I also started uploading videos of me singing to Twitter, some of which went viral! Even Ricardo Montaner complimented my singing (the quarantine didn’t seem so bad after all!).

Similarly, the idea of ​​starting to collect stories like this one came to my mind, and that is how, thanks to incredible teamwork, #VenezuelansInVenezuela was born. It’s pretty cool right? You cannot imagine how much satisfaction it gives me to read the stories, and to know that in Venezuela there are still ingenious, disciplined people full of impetus to create music, innovative projects of all kinds, generate sources of income in new ways, and work towards the common good.

However, a short time later I fell into despair, I had practically no savings and all the events in which I was going to sing had been suspended. What do I do now? BUENO MIJO, IT IS TIME TO REDESIGN YOURSELF AGAIN! MAKE A LIST OF THE THINGS YOU CAN DO, AND THINK OF A PLAN TO EXECUTE THEM! But it was not that easy, it took me several months to think about what to do during the pandemic.

I had already forgotten how much I loved teaching others to communicate and connect with the rest of the world

So, since I had gained a few followers on Twitter from my singing videos, I came up with the idea of ​​uploading a flyer offering my services as an English teacher and translator, and thus several students came into my life. I had already forgotten how much I loved teaching others to communicate and connect with the rest of the world. It feels so good to go back to those adventures.

I also started working as a consultant for an exterior design company located in the United States, and as any good freelancer, I quickly adapted by learning about plants and construction materials. I went from having a lot of free time to being busy from the moment I wake up until I go to sleep. I think they even miss me on Twitter!

Do not think that I forgot what I told you at the beginning about studies and good grades. I love studying and learning new things every day because I feel that human beings are incomplete if we surrender to ignorance and, perhaps, if that had been the case, these spaces would not exist, and our voices could not be heard.

Studying and getting good grades is very important, but it is not everything in life. This does not determine our success for two reasons: the first, is that success is something personal, I achieve success according to my vision of success, not with the vision that others have, and second, because grades do not make you a more capable person, nor the most intelligent.

When we are small, they do not give us a guide to know what to do in these difficult circumstances that the whole world is living through. My parents did not teach me that, and perhaps yours didn’t either, but I assure you that the answers lie within ourselves, because each human being is capable of building a unique process of redesigning themselves in a way that is adapted to each person and their circumstances.

I ask you, the reader, especially if you are Venezuelan, to work hard to achieve your goals. Never allow a grade point average or the country where you were born or currently live in to determine your success, because only you decide what to do with yourself. Don’t let anyone ever impose their vision of success on you. And finally, from the bottom of my heart to those who are still here in Venezuela like me, I invite you to surround yourself with creative, intelligent, courageous, grateful, and hard-working people to be able to recover, little by little, everything that has been taken from us.

Thank you! ♥