A Venezuelan wacky guy living his Australian dream

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This post is part of a bigger compilation of thoughts and thus, it might have no sense or lead to miss information. If you want to fully read it, start from here, otherwise continue reading.

In the last post I was telling about issues I had with my passport and several things we needed to get done to get some winter clothes and flight planning to Australia. But in the meanwhile some farewell parties occur.

I must be honest from the beginning, after saying good bye and godspeed you to so many good mates, I deeply wanted my party because says you are almost there, hold on good things are coming. Even though many asked me when my farewell party was meant to, no one really offered himself as host for the party, so the time went by and I started losing hopes on this, till my dear mate frank from the Pineda’s five blog, told me to go to his house for my farewell. This party was meant to be one or two weeks before departing (original departure on August 7, 2009, party planned for July 25, 2009).

At the same time, my mom was planning for my birthday (11th of July) a farewell party as well, so my closest mates, family members and neighbours could say something to us and say bye bye. At my birthday many people came without even knowing I was leaving the country, bunch of people told me “wow, here are so many people leaving to Australia... Why?... mates of you?? Why???... you too leaving????????????”

Anyway, my mom had invited many people in order to be strong to avoid being crying every now and then, but could not help it when was time for the cake; my dad as well hugged me tight wishing me the very best. It is hard for anyone (especially parents) to see their offspring go, even harder when is faraway, so if you are planning to move down under and you have close family you got to be strong and hold it for the last few days; why? Remember that in first place you were the one choosing to move elsewhere to have a better and prosper life, hold tight to these ideas against the general comments such as “sadly, you are leaving your family behind…”; being down under is not just your opportunities, it will open as well opportunities for your family members whom decided to stay.

The next farewell was in frank’s place, we had some ‘choripanes’ with is a hot dog with Spanish sausage instead regular pork meat sausage used in the hot dogs. The choripanes are kind of common here in Venezuela although I have not ever tasted one, so it was cool. Plus many mates from Valencia in Venezuela and other places came by to meet us and say goodbye as well. The evening surprise was having Victor and Raul call (on Skype) and having some knowledge transferred to us of their experiences in Perth. At the end it was a good night with good food and good company.

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Is that all? Nope, those parties were taken place before my passport issues, obviously in the meanwhile I didn’t had any intention of parting but with the plane ticket and passport ready to go I was in the mood again. Frank called me again but this time the party was exclusive, on one of the gorgeous beaches of Venezuela with crystalline water, little fishes swimming around you and fine food, all this for us and the Pineda’s five.

Back in Caracas my mates Santos and Rosely (both architects) told us to gather with them for a barbie; as regular dinner or lunch were frequent we didn’t even gave a thought this one was supposed to be our last with them in Venezuela (at least for a long time) so they also planned to wish us the best on this opportunity and say goodbye. And so, this was the last time Kathy and I meet our mates to have a meal or just chat in Venezuelan soil, next time will be down under.

With parties done, everything packed and little things to do we just had to travel to Bogota (this time meant to buy nice outfits instead just winter clothes as some friends in Sydney already told us the winter was fading away) and once back to Venezuela spend the last couple of days with our family.

The same day of the VA’s client cocktail we planned the farewell party of Melanie, David, Luisa and Roberto. The voted menu was Pizza and the provider was an excellent restaurant near the block’s corner… 14 pizzas was required to fulfill the appetite of the guests (and the hosts of course which is me, hehe) plus the common snacks and beverages… Soda, beer, some wine, water, etc.

After odd 2 hours I got the incoming call of Victor and the surprise was on. My close mate Raúl and I planned to start a video conference with him (which currently is living in Perth) to give some motivation to the take off… more hope and less sadness to the moment.

Sort of at the end, I made public the launching of the blog’s forum and old forum renovation into a single forum of Latin-Americans (for now, anyone is welcome). The forum is hosted on freeforums.org (excellent services) and the url is: http://aussieneighbor.freeforums.org. This forum is the product of new ideas with the old community GotoAu hosted previously on Yahoo Groups... Just on step closer to community.

I am not going to extend so much on chatting…
Images speaks better than words.

Everyone knows what a farewell party is. A couple of your closest friends gathering together to say goodbye / trip to those how are starting a new journey. As I said before (in other post named “meeting new people”) the idea of organize reunions are to meet new people; but in this parties the idea is to get even more close with those whom you want to become neighbor of.

When you start the migration process you start feeling a bit lonely and out of the planet, not many people share your same ideas and realities; so a way to deal with it is to find more friends, share your picture and open up your mind. But this isn’t enough, you need to find those whom fulfill you somehow, whom you feel comfortable with and as the time goes by you start to have some connection and friendship.

The same thing happened to us with other couples and families way ahead of us in the process and we could not let them go ahead without a proper reunion and “have a nice trip and see you soon…” the good see you soon.

Those with a path already walked invited us to share a night with them, something small but nice, just family and closest friends, it was our first farewell party, saying goodbye to Ricardo and his family as well to Jea, and it was so nice that we started the feeling to organized something alike. The first experiment was the Reinaldo’s farewell on hooters (also mentioned in other post). Everything was ok and another date was set to another reunion, another friend on its way (Victor and Betzy family).

The Victor’s family farewell party was hosted on my house. It started Sunday at 10 am and ended Monday at 1am, all day menus was subs sandwiches, beer, coke, snacks, etc. It was amazing the quality of the people… everyone took anything to the party, it didn’t matter so much what it was, but at least something to eat or to get distracted made the reunion memorable and thanks god the party showed exactly how I wanted to say goodbye to these dear friends. Again at the end of the party another reunion was set; same place, same channel (hehe, Spanish way to say same hour, location and conditions) this time was Moira’s family (my dear and liberated Moira, Alfonso and Guille).

The Moira’s family farewell was planed Saturday morning till Sarvo (Saturday afternoon) but again the night came, everyone chatting and having a great time. This time menu was meat and chicken skewers, “guasacaca pico e’ perico” (a sauce made with advocado, onions, tomato and parsley finely chopped and mixed with a little bit of pepper and salt) and cassava with milk cream sauce. It was simply magnificent and hopefully they liked it.

In the end, another party was on its way and the arrangement was to organize these parties once every month to say goodbye to our closest friend and those you are on its way to become close.

If you want to organize this kind of reunions all you need is.

• Proper clean location, not too cold, not to hot.
• Chairs… Unless you want to torture your guests you need chairs for them to rest. Tables are not required unless you’re menus requires it.
• Background music isn’t required and in some cases, will be not desired. In our case wasn’t necessary.
• Flexible menus… It means, if you are going to prepare food, make different flavors, variety is the key point to make everyone happy.
• Plenty of snacks… the people is going to be more distracted than hungry and need something easy to eat but constant. Snacks will do it. Bring some nachos, cheese balls and stuff like that. Try also some sweet but remember, sweet will be over first, so keep it out side of the stares until you know everyone invited has arrived.
• Plenty of drinks… this is vital, have sodas, water, beers, ice… everything needed to have a nice refreshing drink made in less than 10 seconds because people will talk a lot… and we you talk a lot you mouth turns into a hot and dry desert.
• Reservoirs. Other key points are the reservoirs because you don’t know exactly how much time the reunion will take (unless you start kicking out people out your home). Have anything for an emergency in case you ran out of food and your guests are a little at the expectation of something to eat.
  

The last few days, my wife and I had been going to a bunch of reunions saying farewell to some friends and talking about our life plans.

In the very first reunion with Raul, we were talking about how easily was for anyone to connect with others doing the very same process. This thought was exposed by himself because of his encounter with another Venezuelan family in a pizza place... They didn’t knew each other, only knew both family were doing to same long process and they were planning to talk for dinner time, but as the night went by, the chatting became more deep and satisfactory; they were fully exposing themselves, their life, plans, even their perceptions and thoughts regarding to the current government and how things should change for everyone, Australia… And the key on all this is we are all doing the very same process, so it is easy to match thoughts, hopes and even expectations. Well the very same thing happened during the evening; Raul just did the very same thing opening his own feelings about his job and even family attitudes. The entire night he, my wife and I keep going on and on about so different topics, it was a very pleasant feeling being chatting with a mate about our worries, wishes and hopes… The very same feeling when I am around friends that I know for years; except in this case, we have being talking for months instead.

The second reunion was shortly after the agency client cocktail (on the previous post); it was meant as a farewell party for two families intended to go to Sydney at the end of this and upcoming month. Everything started a little cold, because all of the sudden three strangers came in the room (those were us arriving at the party) but the ice went down five minute after that. Little by little the same process of exposing yourself as you are came out to play the connecting cases between families. The party initially was supposed to last for about 2 or 3 hours, but it took 6 hours when someone said “Hey, I am a little tired and I think I’m going to rest, who was the time?... What? 1:30AM???? Gosh, time flies!”
Everyone was so comfortable in such a charming ambient that none of us realize the time. Thanks god the party was nearby and took no time to jump into the bed, but reminding what a pleasant feeling again, engage our beings... it just feels as a family…

Later, coming back home, we were doing some thinking about why these connections happen so fast till we pin pointed it. Many factors would or could came into play to make the families to take the decision of migrate, but they will become your neighbors or backup in an emergency or just the more family alike members around the corner in the not so distant future; far from the lands which were for so many years our home. Having a family look-like mental picture is just unavoidable.