By the writing on the wall, you can see that the people of Venezuela are tired of not having enough food, and they blame it on Chavez to boot. So, that means this is a recent picture, right? Wrong...
I actually took this photo in June 2000, when I took a trip to Barinas, the land of Chavez himself. I went there to get out of Caracas for awhile and enjoy nature with a little whitewater rafting in the Andean foothills. I was curious to see how people reacted to Chavez, but assumed they would treat him like a Favorite Son, Pride of the Andes or something like that.
What I found was pretty consensus resentment towards him and his family, evident by the words painted on this wall. They resented his nepotism, how the Chavez family had gone from modest means to become some of the wealthiest landowners in Barinas since he had taken office in 1998.
Today, there are again food crises: it's hard to find milk, sugar and meat due to Chavez's stubborn price controls on staple goods. Seems like no one wants to produce food and be forced to sell it below cost...Viva la Revolucion, eh? So, the more things change....you get the picture.
In Spanish the words on the wall read "Por culpa de los Chavez Frias las ollas estan vacias" or "Because of the Chavez Frias family, the pots are empty" or something to that extent.
