I’ve talked about race relations here in Caracas, but I’ve yet to mention gender. That’s because it’s complicated. Since I have yet to enter the professional workforce here, it’s hard to provide details of how women are viewed/treated and I didn’t want to rely on my few interactions with friends.

I would like to first preface my observations with stating that I am a part of Generation X. What this means is that I’ve had a healthy dose of women’s lib and while we want it all, we know we have to work for it. This is in contrast to the Millennial Generation (or Generation Y) who wants it all, right now and who is said to be more accepting of women marrying for social gain. I didn’t make it up people – it’s what the researchers are saying.

Now, women’s liberation means different things depending on the culture. From an American viewpoint, it appears that women here are much more open about their sexuality. While I think this is a good thing (part of women’s lib, right), I think there’s an appropriate time to communicate this. For instance, I often see professional women wearing extremely tight suits showing lots of cleavage. I don’t care what anybody says, that’s distracting. If you want people to pay attention to the words coming out of your mouth, you wouldn’t wear a big read clown hat, would you?

In terms of heterosexual romantic relationships, it seems they have a different idea about monogamy. Men often refer to “casa grande” and “casa chica” – the former the house where your wife lives and the latter the house where your mistress lives. If this culturally acceptable, I can understand that. However, it is only fair if women have the same privileges and I don’t think that’s the case.

Another place I’ve noticed a gender-biased is at certain restaurants and cafes. On several occasions, I have arrived at a restaurant earlier than a friend I was meeting (who happened to be male) and they will not offer me a menu until he arrives. At first I thought they were being presumptuous and assumed I was meeting someone, but my male friend has the complete opposite experience. This doesn’t happen everywhere, but when it does I’m always surprised.

I’m sure that there’s a lot more to gender relations here and when/if I enter the workforce, I’ll be sure to share that aspect, as well.

I haven’t talked a lot about Venezuelan cuisine mainly because I’m not a big fan. The problem that I find with most Caribbean food is that they use the same ingredients as Haitians, but prepare them in a different way. So, dishes that I would expect to taste one way, don’t. For instance, the national Venezuelan dish is called Pabellon. It consists of white rice, black beans, shredded beef or chicken, fried sweet plantains and avocados. In Haiti, we eat all of the above, but not together. Also, the black beans are prepared differently (Haitians puree them, Venezuelans boil them). The fried sweet plantains are usually eaten prior to the rice dish or not at all. We do some eat rice with avocado, but it’s more commonly eaten with polenta or with a dish called ble.

After the arepa (I will post about that later), I would venture to say that Venezuelan’s favorite snack is the empanada. I acquired the taste for

empanadas after a while because the corn meal used to make them is used for porridge in Haiti. Therefore, it always had a subtle sweetness (probably psychological) and that mixed with meat just didn’t work with my palette. Eventually the flavors began to grow on me and I now I have them a couple times a week as a mid-morning snack. Venezuelans commonly eat them for breakfast, though.

So little by little, I am building a healthy relationship with Venezuelan food; one empanada at a time.