I hope your week is going great ☕️

Although I'm still trying to pull myself together after July 28, election Sunday in Venezuela, I've come to #spillthebeans 😄 A little joy must never be underrated.

The world has this--good--habit of turning despite misfortunes; every day dawns and dusks. And even though my days have been very strange, with a lot of concern about the situation in Venezuela while suffering it myself--me, wanting this regime to finally go away, just in case you're interested to know--, no night or restful sleep, only intermittent naps, lack of concentration and motivation..., I still have coffee, right? A great ally indeed, and better when my comadre is here to share it with me.

My husband used my phone to take the photo you see above; we had voted a couple of hours ago and were having coffee at our place. My comadre, who is in my top 10 of coffee companions, is that affable woman you see in the background on the right, between her husband and her eldest child, my goddaughter. You can also see her in the photo on the left. Her two children are my godchildren; this why she's my comadre, a word with no good equvalent in English.

Like me, my comadre is a professor at UDO (UDO-Sucre more exactly, our local public University); so like me, she earns less than a hundred US dollars a month, which means we can no longer go out for coffee at some cool place as we did before, but most of the time our coffee is made at home and enjoyed in the warmth of the home--which is nice, of course--. Back when the campus existed, before crime tore it to its foundations in a vicious campaign to silence the university voice and freethinking, we had coffee in my office almost every day of the week. We had our cars back then, so we didn't have to rush to the bus stop or anything like that. We took a little time to share some coffee and talk about our classes, our lives, our children and their future, and what was happening in the country and how it would affect the future of our public universities.

My comadre and a common friend about a year ago at La Pannetteria in my hometown

During our time at UDO-Sucre (Universidad de Oriente, the campus of UDO in the east of the country), fisrt as students and then as colleagues, we have learned almost everything about each other, have supported each other in every way possible, and have seen our favorite coffee companions and colleagues leave the country in search of a better economic situation--though not a better job--in order to be able to "live." In the case of my comadre and I, we've found second jobs here in the country. You may know I've been traveling every weekend since 2009 to work in the neighboring state, a situation that I thought would last a year or two.

We became best friends about fourteen years ago, but we had met ten years before that. We took some subjects together as undergraduates; we were nice to each other but never started a friendship seriously.

Right now I'm waiting for her call; she's coming over for coffee. As we sip it, we'll cry without tears about the sad situation of my country, but we will also laugh because that's how we are; we have a lot of sea and sun and coffee. There are bad moments and good moments in everyone's life. This is a bad moment, and like all bad moments, it'll pass. My mother used to say, "Better times will come"; she used to tell me whenever hope was scarce for any reason.

Both my comadre and I, coffee companions and friends forever, are working two jobs and have many other obligations, but we always find the time to get together and have some coffee and talk about the sweet and the sour. We've come through happy and rough times together, laughed and cried together. I really respect her and lov her, and I'm sure that whatever the outcome is in my country, my coffee will taste as good as always because my conscience is clear and my heart is at peace.

All text and images are my own. I have taken the pictures with my Redmi 9T cell phone. And if any GIFs here, I've used GIPHY for all them.

Thank you so much for your visit :)

Banner by @andresromero 🖤