Moments of crisis stretch the experience of life, creating stories that showcase it to its fullest. Stories. The experience of living. People. Crisis. Those elements, combined in one same point, lead to the birth of La vida de nos.
When in 2016 Belmer left his native Barinas for La Serena, a city north of Santiago de Chile to which several of his friends had emigrated, he did so seeking a financial stability that could allow him to bring his family in further along the road. In April 2018, history took a turn that no one could have foreseen. He came back to Venezuela, but in a way that his family would never have wanted.
On the night of Saturday, March 23, 2019, Ángela Aguirre went out to a friend’s birthday party at the Club Ítalo in Puerto Ordaz, in southern Venezuela. She would never come back: her corps was found three days later, floating on the banks of the Caroní River. Ever since then, Ángel Aguirre, Ángela’s father, has not rested in his quest for justice. Over the last few months…
Angel’s parents —he a plumber, she a seamstress—, suffocated by hyperinflation, see how each day their income is not enough to buy food for the family. That’s probably why their 14-year-old teenager son is underweight and has spent his holidays enrolled in a nutritional program at school, located at La Cota 905, in Caracas.
As her son was quite restless and unfocused, Caroline understood that practicing a sport that encompassed discipline will be good for him. She enrolled him in taekwondo and, when the academy closed, because the training staff left Venezuela, she enrolled him in soccer and swimming. But those schools also closed due to lack of teachers and financial problems.
In the midst of protests and clashes between neighbors of two residential areas in Barquisimeto, in northwestern Venezuela, a bullet punctured the intestines of Brayan David Principal, who died on April 11, 2017 at the Central Hospital “Antonio María Pineda”. He was only 14 years old. Although the Public Ministry charged a neighbor of the area…
Adrián Rodríguez will not have his First Communion nor play soccer again and he will never be a policeman as he dreamed. He was murdered by a “sniper”. On July 30, 2017, he died by a gunshot to the head when he was watching a demonstration against the Constituent Assembly in Táchira state. He was the tenth victim of that day.
Luz Marina’s father was one of the founders of Mene Grande, the town where the commercial exploitation of oil in Venezuela began, in 1914, located two hours from Maracaibo. She remains there. She cannot leave like many of her neighbors who are fleeing after the blackouts of March and April 2019, when their land became an impossible place to live in.
Luis Guillermo Espinoza, 15, was shot in the head during an opposition sit-in suppressed by the Bolivarian National Guard. The demonstration took place in San Diego (Carabobo) on June 5, 2017. After 74 days fighting for his life, he died of a respiratory arrest. Luis Guillermo played soccer since he was 8 years old, and he was the goalkeeper.
On May 16, 2017, José Francisco left his home in San Cristóbal to buy a package of corn flour. He met some friends and stopped to chat with them when National Guard troops arrived firing their guns to break up a nearby protests in this city of the Venezuelan Andes. Without giving him time to react, a bullet was embedded in José Francisco’s back.
