Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Venezuela-fy

Word is that Caracas is not only ripe territory for murders, but that carjackings are fairly common as well.  My understanding is that the point of the car jacking is to steal the car.  At first, we planned to leave our 2011 Honda Odyssey back in the states.  A brand new car must scream money, right?  Surely we would be a target for carjackers.  Apparently not, actually.  When the goal is to obtain the car, then the car must be desirable.  In Venezuela, as in most of the United States, a mini-van is not seen as a desirable car.  Apparently, we'll be fine.

Still, the shiny new car was making me nervous.  It may have Cheerios ground into the seats and names written on the walls in crayon, but it still shines on the outside.

And so yesterday, I began the process of Venezuela-fying our car.  I accidentally scratched a car as I pulled out of Lilly's school parking out.  In my defense, that car was parked surprisingly (and illegally) close to the corner.  Still, I felt a little silly.  I immediately parked, walked back to the car to inspect the scratch, and decided it was worth a note.  In the time it took me to write the note, the illegal parker had driven away.  I am off the hook for Venezuela-fying their car.  And as I began to feel guilty about our car, it dawned on me the luck.  It would be awfully difficult to intentionally scratch up our car, making it look less desirable and making us look less rich.  But if I can accidentally do it a number of times over the next year, we'll be that much safer!

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