Lanscape
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Tears blurred my vision, and I had to turn off the music because I was driving.
An old Onda Nueva CD was playing in my car, with the song “Caracas Four-Hundred-Year-Old Lady” performed by Ilan Chester.
We Venezuelans are still reeling from the devastation of the earthquakes of June 24th, and it’s hard to think about anything else, much less write about something trivial.
This song brought to mind the earthquake of July 29, 1967, smaller in scale than the current one, precisely the year of the four-hundredth anniversary of the city of Santiago de León de Caracas, founded by Diego de Losada on July 25, 1567.
I was only six years old, but I remember in detail the sudden, loud crash and how the pink granite floor of my house in Altamira shook as I ran hand in hand with my mother, seeking refuge in the garden.
Everyone was shouting “earthquake,” “end of the world,” and I didn’t understand what it was all about. My father, besides being an ear, nose, and throat doctor, was a forensic pathologist and had to go off to fulfill his sad duty of collecting corpses.
Many years later, I studied civil engineering and learned to design earthquake-resistant structures, always with this memory, or rather, trauma, in my mind.
Today, just days after the great tragedy unfolding in my country, my heart weeps. I am moved by the solidarity of so many and I give thanks when I witness a miracle, especially babies or elderly people pulled from the rubble.
These are very different ways of experiencing two earthquakes, as a child and now, as an adult, far from my country, but close in its pain.
To ease this sadness, or rather, to release it, I leave you with Ilan Chester’s song.
Caracas, Four-hundred-year-old Lady…
And here I am, listening to it and weeping for my people of Venezuela.
