100 Venezuelans Leave Peru to Go Back to Their Home

I must confess I stay in very little touch with my Venezuelan relatives and friends, so over the years I’ve lost touch with the so-called situation in the country. My best friend, one of the few I do speak to regularly, resides in Peru now. His chances of relocating his family to Lima are in jeopardy now thanks to actions taken by the Peruvian government—Venezuelans would no longer be allowed to come into the country with their laminated IDs, something that would normally suffice when crossing the borders between the countries of South America. Soon they will need a passport and visa to cross, and even that may not be enough if some get there way.

Recently, 100 Venezuelan migrants to Peru were flown back to their home country by the Venezuelan government. The idea that someone would want to go back to Venezuela at will after escaping (literally) the country could go either for me: Was it nostalgia that motivated them to go back? Or were they were being rejected by the Peruvians citizens? Both possibilities sounded equally absurd but possible to me. I decided to look into the news a little closer. Venezuelans are all over the web, sharing their immigration experiences with others, supporting each other and keeping hope alive.

Last I checked, 3,000 people were leaving Venezuela every day, and that’s only counting the ones moving through the Colombian border. Their intentions are to stay, even if that meant sleeping on the street. The ones with a little more money would go further than Colombia, to places in Ecuador and Peru, sometimes even Chile or Argentina. I scoured the media to find out more about the 100 that decided to return to Venezuela. Many didn’t seem to have the best attitude as a guest in someone else’s home. It made total sense to them to feel offended for not being treated like royalty in the countries they immigrated to.

Venezuela is known for taking reasonable care of its people, and for decades the poor have been the best tool for politicians to ensure votes. One way or another, the Venezuelan government always managed to use the money made through oil to pay for housing for the poor and the less privileged.

Today, though, the country barely produces any oil or money. Most of the private industries have left the country, forcing the government to import most of the food and basic hygiene items. Such supplies have a regulated price in the government supermarket so street vendors don’t attempt to sell it to you for exponential profit. Even so, the demand for such items is so high that the government falls short of its people’s needs; as a result, buying products on the black market or even in a different country is more convenient. I make emphasis on the word convenient, since the other option is to stand in line for hours in front of a government supermarket just to purchase basic survival items such as toilet paper.

Venezuelans are only allowed to buy certain amounts of the regulated items, at certain times of the week. The government enforces this via the use of a citizen’s agenda—a little book provided to you which keeps track of your visits to government facilities. For someone to truly crave to go back to live like that, something must not be what it seems. Putting aside my cynical perception of life, I must mention that Venezuelan leaders have always relied on propaganda and elaborate schemes to get their way. When you make one dollar a month (a dollar a day, now, not that it makes a difference), a few thousand would be all it would take to buy off the consciousness of all one hundred on board that flight from Peru. According to George Orwell: “Ignorance is strength”.