It started like any Monday, 33 years ago

Monday, February 27, 1989, a protest began over the increase in public transport fares in Guarenas, an area near Caracas, but this triggered a series of riots, vandalism took over the streets, and went viral as far as Caracas. They called this event El Caracazo, and this series of protests lasted several days, many businesses were looted, and some were even burned, violence broke out in the streets and many were killed.

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I was not yet 12 years old, I remember I was in the sixth grade of elementary school, and that Monday, still watching the news, I got ready to go to class because I was in the afternoon shift. Since I did not live in Caracas, but in Valencia, I thought that it would not affect us.

My maternal uncle, who at that time lived with us, and was as clueless as I was, also had doubts about it.

Since the school was about a kilometer from my house, he took me on his bicycle, and we hadn't finished reaching the school gate when they returned us without even saying hello. I must say that there were several clueless like us, we were not the only ones who showed up at school, perhaps because it was the first time something like this had happened in our country.

This was the first time I heard that Curfew was announced for the hours of the night, that was shocking for me, imagining that they could shoot anyone they found in the street without giving notice and without the right to claim.

Later, Valencia also joined the protests. I was very young, so I don't remember much about that event, but what I remember the most, and I say it with sadness, is that there were many abastos (small food stores) that were destroyed. , and that they could not recover for a long time, or that they never recovered.

Excused in the feeling of discontent against the government of the time, the friends of vandalism and theft, destroyed the lives of struggling people who had raised their small businesses with effort and sacrifice.

I have in my mind a warehouse that was on my way to school, it was attended by a very nice man, and this one was destroyed. There were businesses that even removed the railing. That doesn't have any excuses.

This was before Hugo Chavez's attempted coup d'état, which took place in 1992, during the same period of government of Carlos Andrés Pérez. At that time, I was already 14 years old, and I was in my 3rd year of high school. And I heard again that the unpleasant Curfew was being implemented.

With this publication I want to participate in the Blog of the month, of the Silvers Bloggers Community, responding to the concern: where we were when they happened.