Dispatches from Venezuela: Red roofs and the new ogling

No one told me Caracas meant stairs. Yes, figuratively. If you want to see one of the capital city’s many slums, or barrios, the only way to really get in and see anything is to walk up and down. Barrios are built into the city’s hills, away from the shops and jobs. The higher up you live, the poorer you are.  “That’s how it is in the west side, the poor side,” my translator and fixer, Yesman Utrer, told me. “It’s the opposite on the east side, where the richer like to live high up.” We are visiting Yesman’s barrio. Like most, it is a stronghold for the ruling United Socialist Party, the party of the late president, Hugo Chavez. Unabashedly leftist and anti-American (and, Yesman said, charismatic), Chavez held power from 1998 until his death in 2013.  More…