Along the Manzanare river, Parque Guaquerí is Cumaná's only park (in the modern urban sense of the word). It was intended for families and animals to have a direct an harmonious interaction with nature. Now, pets are not allowed and with the poor maintainance it has, you can't visit it when or after it rains.

In my days as a college student (back in the early 90s), this park was gorgeous. I vividly remember the glass, neatly mowed and raked. I remember children's parties and people practicing all kinds of sports. I also remember people coming with their pets, which never represented a problem for the squirrels or iguanas (natural inhabitants of the park) or for the overall look of the park.

I also remember how the park progressively became one of the most dangerous places in town. You could be easily robbed or attacked in plain daylight without anyone doing anything. Park authorities became a symbolic thing until eventually it almost disappeared.

Starting some 4 years ago, we have seen more activity in the park, although most of the people who come belong to some government organization who chose the park as the preferred place to have their meetings. They created some sort of park police whose function I am still trying to decipher. I see dozens of young park rangers every day, parade in their new uniforms doing nothing, while the park falls in disarray.

I am guessing, they are applying the social theories of self-determination and empowerment to park and recreation governance. By the time the rains started a couple of months ago, the vegetation and sediments were making it very hard for the river to flow.

After the rain and the subsequent growths, the river is doing its best to clean itself.

It does not work like that inside the park, though. Vegetation grows freely and the low lands do not fill up themselves. Some major work needs to be done if they want the park to look at least as good as it did 30 years ago.

I come twice a week to teach English here and every time, I have to clean these areas with some branch I snap from a bush or tree (risking being scolded for vandalism) because apparently noone is in charge of the cleaning here.

One day, while I waited for my students, I started to do something I tend to do compulsorily when I see weed or overgorwn trees. I saw this small guayacan tree (at its age it's just a bush) and could not believe it. I wondered how many gardeners they have on payroll. This tree is so easy to trim. I had already seen others like that, one of which was bent to the side and almost growing horizontally. In a few minutes I snapped some branches with my hands and the tree looked a bit better.

I think they did not see me doing this and they will read this as proof of their theory: plants, animals, and people can take care of themselves.

Animals are probably the only ones celebrating this sort of back-to-the-wild process. I had never seen so many squirrels

Iguanas

and birds

They are everywhere and they sound very happy.

Unfortunatelly, all this vegetation and water also allows millions of mosquitoes to go wild. It is almost impossible to be in the park before 10 am. Coulds of blood-thirsty mosquitoes will make sure you don't enjoy your brief stay.

I have no problem with the park becoming a refuge for wildlife, but I am sure there are people making money out of alleged projects to modernize the park. It has happened before. The new pretty grass was promised more than 7 years ago. A lot of noise was made about the specialized work that would be done. All they did was chop some ancient trees and leave a bunch of craters now filled with rain water and mosquitoes.

Thanks for stopping by. Happy Sunday