Get all your news in one place.

100's of premium titles.
One app.

Start reading

Get all your news in one place.

100's of premium titles. One news app.

Start reading

Reuters

Politics

Ana Maria Arevalo

Venezuelans build new life in Spain, fret for homeland

Arelis Morales, 30, and Jose Martinez, 31, spend time with Arelis's family during a goodbye gathering at her grandmother's house in Cotiza, Caracas, Venezuela January 12, 2019. REUTERS/Ana Maria Arevalo Gosen

XINZO DE LIMIA, Spain (Reuters) - Until January, Jose Martinez and his wife Arelis Morales were in the eye of Venezuela's political storm: he worked for an opposition leader, she advised human rights groups.

But after years of opposing President Nicolas Maduro's increasingly repressive leftist government - including 2017 protests that ended with 125 deaths - they decided to put family life first.

Winter trees are illuminated by the street lights in Barcelona, Spain, February 19, 2019. REUTERS/Ana Maria Arevalo Gosen

"The main reason for leaving was that we want to have children," Martinez, 31, told Reuters, from the rural town of Xinzo de Limia in Spain's Galicia region where they left to live with relatives.

"It hurts, but we have to move on. How could we expose a child to everything that goes on in Venezuela?"

The exodus of more than 3 million Venezuelans from an imploding economy, crime-ridden streets and constant political violence, is a well-known phenomenon, especially the flood of lower-income migrants around Latin America.

Mariana Elias, 27, waits for a train to go home, at the station in Barcelona, Spain, February 21, 2019. REUTERS/Ana Maria Arevalo Gosen

There has been less attention paid to middle-class professionals who, though enjoying more resources, also face agonizing dilemmas, often giving up years of training and work.

Martinez, a coordinator in the party of opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, suffered depression last year. But he is recovering in Xinzo de Limia and reinventing himself as a photographer, doing documentary and wedding work.

His wife Morales, 30, wants to stay working in human rights, while seeking to have a baby. "We gave everything we could for the country until my body literally said: 'I cannot take this anymore'," she said, saying stress stopped her getting pregnant.

Mariana Elias, 27, talks about her day with her older sister in Barcelona, Spain, February 21, 2019. REUTERS/Ana Maria Arevalo Gosen

Both are encouraged by recent events in Venezuela, where congress leader Juan Guaido invoked the constitution to assume the interim presidency after declaring Maduro's 2018 reelection illegitimate, galvanizing the opposition and earning Western recognition.

The couple hope to move back if Maduro loses power.

Mariana Elias, 27, looks out the airport window before her flight to Spain at the Simon Bolivar International Airport, La Guaira, Venezuela, January 14, 2019. REUTERS/Ana Maria Arevalo Gosene

PROFESSIONAL DREAM

Thousands of Venezuelans have moved to Spain in recent years, many reconnecting with roots after waves of immigration in the opposite direction following the 20th century World Wars.

According to official data, Venezuelans living in Spain rose to 109,880 by mid-2018, up nearly 19,000 in the previous six months. Those figures probably do not include many dual nationality citizens who also moved, people like Mariana Elias.

Mariana Elias, 27, shows her Venezuelan and Spanish passports at the Simon Bolivar International Airport, La Guaira, Venezuela, January 14, 2019. REUTERS/Ana Maria Arevalo Gosen

Before moving to Barcelona in January, Elias spent years in Caracas doing two degrees in chemical and production engineering, helping to pay her way with work as a teacher.

She protested on the streets against Maduro, was faculty student council president at Simon Bolivar university, and felt the chaos of Caracas close up when robbed on three occasions.

Her reason for moving to Barcelona was straightforward: "My job ambitions. As I really prepared myself academically, I wanted to have the opportunity in the long-term to progress and upgrade. I wasn't able to see that in Venezuela right now."

Mariana Elias, 27, and her friends gather for a goodbye party at her house in Caracas, Venezuela, January 12, 2019. REUTERS/Ana Maria Arevalo Gosen

Elias, 27, wants to find a job in engineering, but for now has started at a British company organising conferences. In Spain she enjoys basic services such as public transport that her compatriots can no longer take for granted.

"In Venezuela I would never take public transport unless I had no other choice. I would pray and ask all the deities to make me invisible so I wouldn't get robbed," said the bubbly, bilingual Elias, adding she had no plans to return home any time soon.

She enjoys Venezuelan traditions with compatriots in Spain.

Arelis Morales, 30, drives past 'Mision Vivienda' a housing project in the center of Caracas after a goodbye gathering at her grandmother's house, in Caracas, Venezuela, January 12, 2019. REUTERS/Ana Maria Arevalo Gosen

"The Venezuelans I know are all trying to work and make ends meet. But we meet up to talk about our country and to eat 'arepas'," she said, referring to the cornmeal flatbread staple.

"I am not able to leave Venezuela out of my mind, never."