Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

For about three years, Venezue­lans have been bat­tling a food cri­sis but when the oil-rich na­tion's econ­o­my start­ed to buck­le with a re­ces­sion, ram­pant in­fla­tion and a spi­ralling crime sit­u­a­tion, their pa­tience be­gan to wear thin.

It's a fight for sur­vival as every day food is hard­er to find.

Ba­sic food items like flour, rice, oil, toi­let pa­per, tooth­paste, along with med­i­cines and ba­by for­mu­la are ei­ther out of sup­ply or dwin­dling. This short­age is caus­ing frus­trat­ed Venezue­lans to fight for the lit­tle avail­able on gro­cery shelves to feed their fam­i­lies.

The coun­try, known for hav­ing far more oil wealth than Sau­di Ara­bia, is now fac­ing full-blown eco­nom­ic and po­lit­i­cal chal­lenges that are cre­at­ing se­vere so­cial un­rest among its es­ti­mat­ed 31 mil­lion cit­i­zens.

But while Trinidad is a glim­mer of hope for hun­dreds who man­age to es­cape for a day or two to stock up on ne­ces­si­ties and take them back to their fam­i­lies or for those who are in search of a bet­ter life, cus­toms and ex­cise and im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cials are not let­ting up with many oth­ers.

Boats ar­rive on Mon­days and Thurs­days and leave on Tues­days and Fri­days and cost US$100 for a re­turn trip. One boat can take up to 36 pas­sen­gers.

A flight from Port-of-Spain to Cara­cas on the na­tion­al car­ri­er is around US$600.

Venezue­lans can leave Tu­cu­pi­ta, the cap­i­tal city of the state of Delta Amacuro, and en­ter Trinidad through the Ce­dros sea port on the south­west­ern end of Trinidad, through the Ch­aguara­mas port in the north­west­ern penin­su­la from Guiria in Su­cre, or through the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port from Cara­cas.

In 2014, Venezuela's Pres­i­dent Nicol�s Maduro broke all diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions and froze eco­nom­ic ties with neigh­bour­ing coun­try Pana­ma.

Last Sep­tem­ber, Venezue­lan For­eign Min­is­ter Del­cy Ro­driguez ar­rived here to hold diplo­mat­ic talks aimed at boost­ing bi­lat­er­al ties be­tween the two coun­tries.

Ahead of his brief state vis­it to Trinidad to­mor­row, an­gry protest­ing Venezue­lans have planned to wel­come him with emp­ty pots and pans at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre in St Ann's.

Maduro was here in ear­ly 2015 and held talks with for­mer prime min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

In an at­tempt to re­store or­der in the chaot­ic and un­easy Latin Amer­i­can na­tion, Maduro de­clared a 60-day State of Emer­gency last week.

On Fri­day, the Sun­day Guardian team vis­it­ed the Ce­dros sea port where just around 10.30 am friends and rel­a­tives were hud­dling around to see oth­ers off on idling boats and pirogues.

In the trunks of cars and SUV's were box­es of ba­by pam­pers, bales of toi­let pa­per and box­es packed with food. Men, women and chil­dren were eat­ing meals in sty­ro­foam plates pre­pared by lo­cals.

From a dis­tance, the lines on the hill seemed long and the process longer, as hours lat­er, around 1.30 pm, one boat left the jet­ty with a few peo­ple and their sup­plies.

Not every Venezue­lan is a 'thief' or 'pros­ti­tute'

A 26-year-old Venezue­lan woman, who did not want to be iden­ti­fied, said she had been liv­ing in Ica­cos for nine years.

While she is un­em­ployed, her Tri­ni hus­band is a fish­er­man and pro­vides for her and their daugh­ters, ages three and one.

But she wor­ries about her fam­i­ly back home, es­pe­cial­ly her ail­ing grand­moth­er. She said she re­turns to Venezuela every six months or so but her fam­i­ly has found it­self com­ing to Trinidad more of­ten than nor­mal.

Her fa­ther, grand­moth­er, moth­er, younger sis­ter and oth­er rel­a­tives ar­rived on Thurs­day.

Sur­round­ed by Span­ish-speak­ing rel­a­tives un­der a tree close to an of­fi­cial im­mi­gra­tion build­ing, she said, "We are try­ing to get a bet­ter life, not on­ly for we be­cause maybe some of we come to work here to get a lil' mon­ey from the coun­try to buy food and med­i­cine and things for home.

"You see in Venezuela right now they no have noth­ing. There is no tis­sue. They kill you or kid­nap you. Why? The salary we get a month you can­not buy a pack of flour. When I say a pack of flour, is one ki­lo of flour, you know?"

A salary of $6,000 bo­li­vars is equiv­a­lent to about TT$4,000. A ki­lo of beef, the woman ex­plained, cost $4,000 bo­li­vars, while a chick­en, which has been scarce for months, costs $5,000 bo­li­vars.

She ques­tioned, "What about the ba­bies and their milk? There is no for­mu­la. What would you do if in that po­si­tion? You have to run away to look for some­thing to give your child. You un­der­stand what I say?"

She said peo­ple were beat­ing each oth­er in the streets for food.

A trou­bling mat­ter for her was that some Venezue­lans were mak­ing a bad name for them­selves when they ar­rive here.

If lucky enough, dozens will make it through Im­mi­gra­tion and have their pass­ports stamped but oth­ers aren't as for­tu­nate.

She said she un­der­stood there were chal­lenges like Venezue­lan women com­ing to work as pros­ti­tutes but said not all were the same.

She claimed that at times im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cials brand­ed all Venezue­lans with the same bad in­ten­tions.

"If you come here, you will know every­thing. The same way Im­mi­gra­tion treat we bad and they ask you all set of ques­tions.

"For ex­am­ple, if you come to work they think you come to pros­ti­tute or some­thing. I un­der­stand be­cause so many peo­ple come here to do re­al bad things you know.

"What get me vex about we Venezue­lan peo­ple is that you come here for a bet­ter life. There is a lot of thief here and that is bad for we but Im­mi­gra­tion says is every­body. It is not right."

TT$500 on grand­moth­er's med­ica­tion

An­oth­er con­cern, even though she lives here, is the Venezue­lans who are suf­fer­ing from can­cer and di­a­betes, like her 75-year-old grand­moth­er.

Her "abuela" is in need of in­sulin, Lyri­ca, Glucer­na, En­sure and glu­cophage.

"When she comes here we take her to a pri­vate doc­tor be­cause she needs good health."

The woman ex­plained that she could not send items with any­one across to Venezuela. Apart from im­pos­ing tax­es on items bought in Trinidad, she said they faced a bar­rage of ques­tions.

"For me to car­ry things for my fam­i­ly in Venezuela, I have to trav­el there. You can­not send it with any­body be­cause Guardia Na­cional will im­pose a tax on items so we have to pay more than what we spend here in Trinidad.

"They don't want us spend mon­ey in oth­er coun­tries. They don't want peo­ple to know what is go­ing on in we coun­try.

"Why you buy that they will ask? That's why peo­ple come here and try to make a bet­ter life."

Told that Maduro will be here on Mon­day, she said, "No good at all!"

A su­per­mar­ket own­er in the area who had re­turned from Tu­cu­pi­ta on Thurs­day af­ter stay­ing there for 16 days "to re­lieve stress" said Venezue­lans were lov­ing and kind peo­ple.

He brought back fe­male friends to "ex­pe­ri­ence" Trinidad but they were de­nied en­try and were forced to sleep in a rock­ing boat and on the con­crete jet­ty on Thurs­day night.

The rea­son for de­nial was that they had no TT mon­ey in their pos­ses­sion.

He said, "When I go to Tu­cu­pi­ta, they treat me like a king."

He said he was not even al­lowed to give her a muf­fin and stressed they were not crim­i­nals. They ar­rived on Thurs­day around 3 pm. He said there were no fa­cil­i­ties for them to change or rest, ex­cept sit on a bench all day.

"They did not break a law so what is the rea­son?"

The man said on Thurs­day, the cus­toms and ex­cise and im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cials turned away about 15 of them. "Why must they do peo­ple that?" He called on them to show some com­pas­sion.

Up to 2 pm on Fri­day, they were still be­ing held wait­ing to be processed and sent back on a wait­ing boat.

"It is re­al­ly sad, my heart went out to them. I will wait here un­til she comes down and goes on the boat," he said.

The man said he found it strange that his friends were de­nied and be­lieved it was "some­thing new."

An­oth­er man who was sit­ting near­by whose sons live in Venezuela said he could not see them last week. They came to cel­e­brate his birth­day. It was the first time they ar­rived here by boat.

No neg­a­tive im­pact on our econ­o­my –SATT head

Mean­while, Pres­i­dent of the Su­per­mar­kets As­so­ci­a­tion, Dr Yunus Ibrahim, says the in­crease in pur­chas­es by Venezue­lans liv­ing on the rur­al costal towns will not have a neg­a­tive im­pact on our econ­o­my.

In fact, he said, it will be a wel­come change.

Asked about the num­ber of peo­ple com­ing from Venezuela to stock up on items that were scarce, he said sup­pli­ers will sim­ply have to re­plen­ish faster than nor­mal.

He ad­mit­ted though that things have con­strict­ed quite sig­nif­i­cant­ly on a lo­cal lev­el in the last four to five months but most sup­pli­ers have about two to three weeks or more back-up of sup­plies.

"And if it is that they see they have to re­plen­ish faster, they will bring down more. It's just a mat­ter of ad­just­ing re­al time to the sit­u­a­tion," Ibrahim added.

How­ev­er, he said, it was busi­ness as nor­mal.

He said, "If they are com­ing by boat, they are com­ing from the ex­trem­i­ties of the land rather than the in­side of Cara­cas. These are peo­ple who live on the coast and man­grove and so on and who can­not head in­land any­more."