Hugo Chavez to the rescue

So, Saturday I went to ¨Mission Milagro¨ (Mission Miracle), sponsored by the various local governments and the government of Venezuela. So, Sr. Chavez is paying for an unlimited number of cataract surgery patients to fly to Caracas for the surgery. All of the potential candidates were prescreened in the past several weeks, and all of them (I´d say about 500) had to come Saturday to be screened by 4 Venezuelan doctors. So, after waiting in a 500-person line for several hours, having their blood pressure and sugar checked, and waiting yet more time in line, I think they actually got to see the doctors, who as of 12:00 weren´t there (the people were in line by 8:00. My guess is that most of the people were there for a good 8 hours, 99% of which was spent in a line. However, I might have considered it for a free trip to Caracas, and I suppose a surgery that would allow me to see would also be a plus. It just says a lot for the tolerance of people here to stand in line for a basic health care need because it´s not available to them otherwise. My question was why they couldn´t just bring the surgery equipment and doctors here and save $100,000 (or however much it costs to fly 400 people to Caracas and put them up for 3 days), and it´s because Venezuela wants to build popularity with the general public...I can honestly say that if someone gave me surgery and a vacation, I´d like them, too. Oil money is a beautiful thing.

Hmmm...not much else going on. I´m heading to Riobamba for our 6 month re-connect conference with Peace Corps this evening. I love 9 hour overnight busrides. Should be fun.