As I have witnessed grocery store shelves stripped bare and people frantically searching for toilet paper, I was reminded of a conversation that occurred four years ago in Cancun Mexico.
My husband and I had found ourselves childless, for an entire week, and had decided to take advantage of the situation with a trip to an all-inclusive resort.
We were sitting in the plush office of a young woman named Yvette, choosing which pillow we wanted to sleep on, when my husband asked Yvette where she was from. That simple question lead to a conversation that I’ve never forgotten.
I learned that afternoon that Yvette was from Venezuela and had moved to Mexico for a chance to better herself. She excitedly told us how she’d worked hard and already received promotions, with raises, which would not have been possible for her in her native country.
We asked if she was sending money home to her family and she painted a bleak picture of life in Venezuela. She could send money home but, honestly, it didn’t really help her mother and siblings.
She explained that there weren’t stores filled with bountiful products to purchase. Instead, you waited in line for whatever the government wished to sell that day. If you got in line soon enough, you might get to purchase what they were selling. Or, you might stand in line all day and come home empty handed. Yvette shared that empty handed was far to common.
Having money in her home country did not equal the ability to spend it.
We asked if missionaries tried to supply the areas needs and she responded that the government would take anything sent to aid the people. The people only received what the upper echelon didn’t want.
In the United States today, store shelves are empty and it made me think of Yvette.
It made me think of the upcoming election which includes an openly socialist candidate.
I have never been to Venezuela, nor studied socialism in depth, but the picture Yvette painted of a socialist economy was startlingly different from the life I lead.
Our shelves are empty because of fear associated with a virus. Their “shelves” are empty because of governmental control.
Their children must flee to Mexico in search of the opportunity for advancement. We, at any given moment, have the ability to work hard and better ourselves.
In Yvette’s country there was no middle class. There were simply “the have’s” and the “have not’s”. In our country there are multiple socio-economic classes and most of us fall somewhere in the middle of rich and poor.
I have no expertise in politics and have never claimed to. In fact, I’m not a political person at all, but I can’t shake the remembrance of Yvette’s earnest face as she described her beloved country.
The empty shelves worry me for the future. The empty shelves remind me of Yvette!
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