The other day, I came across a statistic that shocked me: Maturin, in Venezuela, is the 5th most dangerous city on earth with a recorded annual 86.45 homicides per 100,000 residents. Caracas, also in Venezuela, leads the field with 119.87. According to United Nations data, a staggering one third of global homicides occur in Latin America even though the just 8% of the worlds population.
There were 27,875 homicides in Maturin last year. 17 years of socialist rule have reduced Venezuela to a shambles. Plummeting crude oil prices have left the country on the verge of economic collapse, inflation is running in triple digits, and food shortages are rampant. This is almost unbelievable because Venezuela has the largest oil reserves of any country on earth - streets head of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq and Iran.
I am interested in Maturin because I lived there from 1998 until 2000. I lived in an apartment building on the edge of town and took a taxi each day to school. In the evenings I would go to restaurants and bars to eat dinner and drink the local beer, Polar. Never a hint of violence. The two years I spent in
We teachers were Maturin to Caracas, where murders (though nowhere near as bad as today). We counted ourselves fortunate to be in this backwater, far away from the and crime of the capital.
The worst thing that ever happened to me in Maturin was being attacked by dogs one evening. As I walked down an unfamiliar street, a pack of small ferocious dogs emerged from a house and tried to bite my ankles. I kicked them away and ran off, shaken but not bitten.
Maturin, back in 1999, was a quiet place. I used to describe it as ‘featureless because it had so little character. My job, too, was pretty featureless, because I arrived during an oil recession, when the big US had quit the country, taking their children with them and thus drastically reducing class sizes at the school where I taught. I think my biggest class was 7 students; my smallest 1. However, Maturin was well placed for exploring South America and the West Indies.
Margarita and Trinidad. For me, the main advantage of living in Maturin was its proximity to the West Indies, a part of the world Id always dreamed of visiting. The Rutaca flight to Port of Spain, Trinidad - in a tiny, plane with no and a handful of passengers - took 40 minutes, and from there I could explore the other West Indian islands at my leisure. Tobago - so so tranquil - was my favourite. Being a cricket fanatic, I made a point of visiting all the cricket grounds and had the pleasure of watching Lara, Ambrose and Walsh in the famous 1999 series versus Australia. For me, Maturin was a portal to a wonderful world of cricket heroes and beaches, a world where everyone spoke English.
