A Venezuelan wacky guy living his Australian dream

When you really know about the caring and loving someone had on you?

Is precisely the same day when says goodbye and never comes back.

Last night I got to my parents home after working all day long and I bumped them, tears flowing out and everything in their hearts shatter. My dog, my companion in adventures, games, resting, relaxing… my bro was dying because of a renal insufficiency, produced by a negligent vet… It crushed my heart to see him crying with the pain and I could not help it but to hug him as much as I could.

Sasher was a very special cocker spaniel… And I am not saying it because was mine; I hear it from tons of people who got to known him. Mine very special and loved dog which gave us his 200% of happiness, joyful and peaceful; even when we felt bad or sad or just distracted… The shiniest house’s light. 

He was such a kid, picked us at his first month of life leaving his barely owner and since then was part of the family… more than just some dog and more human being or civilised than many persons walking earth. Seriously, was special and I am already missing him so much...

Fought against dead till today’s 4:00AM when his sorrows got calmed and passed away, leaving us unforgettable moments. Today my family members buried his rests to our house’s garden... Right under the araguaney’s tree shadow, set up some stones on it, to honour his life and to have him close of our protection and caring. Writing this post (as well as the other notes in the other two blogs I have) was extremely hard and many didn’t understood my feelings; some people said “you got to have a pet to understand what others feels when they die” but the truth is Sasher was no pet, was my little furry brother.

Kind of late, yet on time. This New Year eve we spend it with our family (my brothers, niece, nephew and my brother’s in law family) enjoying the last moment of a very stressing year waiting for any news on the visa, the financial crisis and everything else bothering the planet (not to mention the emperor’s craziness related to his undefined re-election and how to control every Venezuelan’s destiny).

Me and my wife wish you the very best in this upcoming year. Let’s do our best to work out the financial crisis and fix up the most of our common daily issues. We leave to you a picture that my “family” (very dear friends – almost parents) took at the Sydney harbour and the video of the Sydney New Year eve 2008 – 2009.

And another Christmas has come, and we are still here in Venezuela. Being honest this Christmas has been a little too sad for us, because we haven’t had enough feedback from the DIAC or from our migration agent (assessor) and this time should be more than 100% sure these are the last holidays (Christmas and New Year) we spend with our family in a long time (unless the department of immigration and citizenship has another surprise for us with those last-minute-migration-changes). At the moment, we try to very best to enjoy our old family members and the newest members as well (or even more).

Anyhow, we wish you the very best in this night and merry Christmas.
Cheers

Today the Chanukah begins, another commemoration of the rededication of the Jewish people starts (and one of the most know traditions on the Jew calendar) when the light burns for 8 days on the menorah.

Kind of ironic the existence of this holiday in the modern world as the most famous holiday in the Jew calendar, maybe because of its proximity with Christmas (and the similarity of gift’s giving); in the past other civilisations tried to eliminate it but a miracle happened instead. These days are supposed to be full of reflection, rededication and renewing votes.

Some days ago, Chatting with a mate find out that the current Venezuelan government is translating the results for other nations (such as Australia) and she sent me over a picture with “an explanation of the results of the previous regional elections in Venezuela”. This is the image her boyfriend took in Canberra, Australia:

Now I wonder... Why the Venezuelan government worries about “explaining electoral results” outside? Maybe because is losing the good image outside of this boundaries? Or is it because the opposition candidates won the more populated areas in the country?

Well, the only thing this government really knows to do is that damn propaganda; nothing else for sure. Sadly even in Australia I will see this kind of waste or resources in propaganda meanwhile the poorest sectors in my country of birth dies because of the lack of urban planning, bad health system, bad police coverage, quality and service, corruption and many other diseases, reasons of my departure to overseas.

Hopefully the financial crisis and Christmas will make many to think about issues running wild free on the street. Meanwhile the country is preparing itself for the upcoming consult of amendment on the constitution’s article related to limited re-elections (which Chavez wants to change it to unlimited re-elections).

Yesterday Venezuela had a regional election in every state except the Amazonas state. This means we had to elect our governors, mayors, great mayors and council members. As the day went off and the night came the CNE (responsible for electoral results in Venezuela) didn’t showed any signal of being processing partial information until today at 12:00 a.m. when began to express the results state by state. Here you have some statistics:

Participation: 65.5% (record compared with the last few years which didn’t reach 50%)
Abstention: 34.5%

Results by state you might check it here. Is kind of pointless to write it here.

What those results means?
Well, opposite factors to Chavez government will rule on 5 regions (states and districts) of Venezuela and pro government factors will rule 19 regions. But interestingly, those 5 regions (Grand Caracas, Miranda, Táchira, Zulia and Carabobo) where opposite factors were elected represent the 45% of the total Venezuelan population and the abstention was higher on the lefting states. In addition, Venezuela is not very attached of second rounds or filter candidates, selecting those with real chance to win and then match it in the elections, which means that some of the votes were distributed among several candidates not attached to government proposition neither opposite factors.

Which reaction did we watch on the government?
The president started blaming the local government as the responsible of failing earning people heart (“but isn’t his fault at all”) then continued saying “We lost where the rich people lives… for example, we didn’t won on Sucre town because those zones are filled up with golf fields, luxurious restaurant and exclusive places were rich people goes to drink… There you can find rich and racists people who force the black people to work as slaves doing tasks as ironing, cleaning and driving…”…

I am going to show you with pictures the rich’s town where the government didn’t get the results they wanted.

Images speak by themselves, uh?

Surely you can watch several golf fields and plenty of space to planned buildingi n this aerial view…

If you want to find some information about the Sucre town in Caracas, you might look for Petare which is the biggest part of it.

Anyway, at least I know I have done part of my civil rights as Venezuelan citizen, acting and wishing the very best for my family and those who wants to fight for this country (even though I will not be here for long).

Till next comment or post and thanks for reading.

PS: remember to leave comments, is important for me.

Today is the regional elections here in Venezuela. We are supposed to elect the positions for mayor, great mayor, city council, governor and state council.

Since very early in the morning (4:00 a.m.), a crowd marched to the voting centre and queues to cast their opinion and then return home to wait for the results. As usual, the start wasn’t quick, with undecided people and technical issues to be fixed the process started with delays and gradually gained speed and agility.

So how, I knew this, so I waited until the lunch hour to cast my vote. It was very simple and didn’t take more than 5 minutes to complete the entire process. Here is a picture of my pinkie finger and my wife’s proving we had voted.

Sadly, I ran into several people without the willing to vote (or as someone I meet with the migration process said... “Why am I going to vote if the next year I will be in Australia? I don’t care what happens with this nation...”). I tried not to, but got me pissed off a bit this kind of comments... Especially when that kind of people are seeking better opportunities and don’t stop complaining about the issues that bothers them. How can they be so irresponsible and selfish at the same time?

Anyway, now all that matter (and we will have to wait for it) are the results which should be given at anytime near the midnight...

Why?

Because the Venezuelan current president is trying to get elected for undefined amount of time and this is a way to achieve it. I am going to mark this post with my political point of view of Venezuela (sadly, but if I am emigrating from Venezuela it is more than obvious I am doing it because unpleasant issues bothering the day to day).

Last year Venezuela had another electoral process to determine if the president could be elected unlimited times plus validate Venezuela as socialist based society; the result of this electoral process was deny any constitutional changed proposed by the president for the rest of his period. But he managed to find a way to stick to the presidential position (not attached to any constitutional dictation or regulation). Seriously I would like a change for the Venezuelan people, at least someone else who might do something good and try to fix this government mistakes; for my family sakes and for those who don’t want or can’t leave Venezuela pursuing happiness somewhere else.

I would really love to see every Venezuelan voting tomorrow but the truth is, Venezuelans don’t like to do their responsibilities, such as voting. Instead (and highly possible) most of the people will be travelling to the beach, mountain or any other recreational place to forget about the government, economical situation and other daily problems. The future looks uncertain for now.

What will I do?

Till next comment or post.

The last four weeks we decided to retake every possible examination about to expire (our background check dated January and medical examination march or April), and there was some changes (related to decisions and price as well) in both cases.

Background check in Venezuela was pretty much plain the first time. All we needed to do was request to the ministry of justice our records. The request had to be made during morning hours (between 8PM to 10PM) any working day. The difference this time was, now we needed to take a number to be served and just the top 20 from the line were the ones to lodge the request.... Silly, uh?

Medical examination was also different, partially because we wanted to have another panel doctor instead the previous (which we didn’t liked at all), also there was a substantial fee difference. The first time we had to pay US$ 490.00 (sort of) and now US$ 750.00 (quite a difference, uh!!?). Thanks god, everything went as it should and our documents got to the HOC without incidents.

The magical question, why did we took every examination again?

The answer has two parts; first, we didn’t want to have a tight deadline to get the visa activation. Rush often comes with mistakes and we don’t want and can’t afford mistakes. And second, is recommended to send new documents before expiration, otherwise your case officer could put your case on hold and send a formal request for new examination, which is translated into time wasted.

At the moment the DIAC (Department of Immigration And Citizenship of Australia) is taking a horrible and large time to process any visa request, they say is related to the amount of documents lodged on July and August 2007 by countless families that didn’t wanted to be excluded from the process by not meeting the basic requirements. But shortly after the notorious Wall Street’s collapse and most of the assets around different markets, my soon to be prime minister Kevin Rudd announced (under "consideration") a shortage on the Australian migratory program giving some of the reasons such as:

What is the result of this (my point of view, you might share your own on comments)? Well, the process to approve or reject postulants or candidates will take as long as they want to… Why? Because they surely know they are going to need more people to expand the Australian economy (with or without the world financial crisis), because they already have good candidates waiting for the visa any time soon... so, what’s the rush, right?

Making story short, if you are waiting for the Australian visa at the moment, make your mind for an unprecedented delay for grant letters and approvals. Plus you got to include the high risk of your company to consider you disposable in case they are running out of funds, messing up a little bit more your process.

Please, express your feelings, is important for me to know what you think around the world.

Till the next post or comment.

Cheers