In Venezuela, you can have a generator, inverters, a water tank, and Starlink. You can build yourself an almost perfect bubble where the broken country outside doesn't touch you. You can live inside that bubble as if everything were working. Until one day you fall and fracture your hip, or you're diagnosed with cancer, or any other health problem. And then, in a second, the bubble bursts.
I'm writing this because I read a post from someone who sums it up with a starkness that leaves no room for argument. Their mother fell, fracturing her hip and shoulder, and between a private clinic with insurance, they spent $16,000, although at least she was discharged in three days. Meanwhile, a friend's father fell two weeks later, also fracturing his hip, but he went to a public hospital, the Pérez Carreño in Caracas, spent another $15,000, and waited three weeks in line for surgery. Read it again, because every number hurts. Fifteen, sixteen thousand dollars. In a country where the minimum wage isn't enough to eat. Because of a fall. Because of something that can happen to anyone, any day.
And this is what I always say, and what many don't want to hear: living in Venezuela is possible within the bubble of the power plant and inverters, the water tank and Starlink. It's possible as long as you can afford to create your own little piece of the first world amidst the collapse. But all that illusion, all that feeling that "you can live well here," crumbles the exact day you need real medical care. Because health isn't solved with an inverter or an antenna. Health is solved with a system, and Venezuela doesn't have one.
Look at the most brutal detail of that testimony, the one that says it all. It's not just that the private clinic costs a fortune. It's that the public hospital costs practically the same. Fifteen thousand dollars at the Pérez Carreño, a state hospital, which should be free, which should be the last refuge for those who have nothing. And on top of that, there's a three-week waiting list for surgery, three weeks with a broken hip waiting for an operating room. In Venezuela, even what's supposed to be "free" costs a fortune and makes you suffer through the wait. There's no escape, no matter how you pay or don't pay.
That's the trap of the bubble, and it's important to understand it well before romanticizing anything. Many people look at photos of Caracas or Lechería with nice restaurants, well-lit neighborhoods, people shopping, and conclude that Venezuela "has finally fixed itself." But that picture is precisely the bubble, the facade that works as long as everything is going well. The problem of a country, of a society, isn't measured by its good days, it's measured by its emergencies. And the true test of whether a country is functioning isn't how life is when nothing is happening, but what happens to you and your family the day something goes wrong. The day of the accident. The day of the diagnosis. The day of the emergency surgery. That's when the mask falls off.
Because a generator gives you light, but it doesn't perform surgery. An inverter keeps your refrigerator running, but it doesn't cure cancer. Starlink gives you internet, but it won't get you a bed in intensive care. The bubble covers the everyday, the predictable, the things you can buy at a hardware store. What it doesn't cover is what's truly important: the peace of mind of knowing that if tomorrow you or someone you love becomes seriously ill, there will be a system that responds without bankrupting you or leaving you waiting with a broken bone.
And that peace of mind, the kind you don't see in any Instagram photo but that is everything, is precisely what exists in countries that function and what can't be manufactured with any device in Venezuela. That's why, when someone tells me that you can live well in Venezuela, I always ask the same thing: what about the day you get really sick? Because living well isn't just living well while everything is running smoothly. Living well means being able to fall, get sick, have an emergency, and knowing that you won't lose everything because of it. That, today, in Venezuela, still doesn't exist. And no bubble, however expensive or comprehensive, can replace it.
#venezuela
Greetings to all my friends in this beautiful community, today I want to show you some new photographs that I took in my studio for a girl who hired my services because she wanted to take some photos for her birthday.
The girl arrived at the studio wearing a nice, very feminine dress that made her look very pretty,
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