Conversations with A Venezuelan in Colombia.

It was late in the afternoon when Alvaro’s wife answered the door of the apartment (where she is employed as a housekeeper), to receive the tomatoes she had ordered from the store up the road.

“I asked for tomatoes” she said, “you are delivering me strawberries”

The delivery guy, who had ridden a short way on a pushbike to deliver the tomatoes, began to blame someone else for the mistake, and tried his best to convince her to take the strawberries in place of tomatoes.

‘It is like that here” said Alvaro.

He and I were sitting on some steps not far away. “The dog blames the cat, the cat blames the mouse, it is never their fault.

South America is based on laziness. See, he rides off on his pushbike and turns left, but the shop is only 50 meters away on the right. He will take his time and hope that someone else will deliver the tomatoes, then he can go home. He is paid by the day not the delivery”.

“Maybe”, I said, “The shop will lose business because of poor service and then he has no job”

“That could be true” he said, “ Before the dictatorship in Venezuela I had a job as the booking clerk at a popular hotel, people would often ring up late, wanting a room after they had arrived in the country say, around eleven pm…