“What was going to be done in Chile, has already been done.” Víctor Fernández has been saving for five months to pay for the plane ticket back to his native Venezuela before an apparent regrowth of opportunities.
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He left Caracas five years ago, in an exodus that according to the UNHCR has led to 6 million Venezuelans migrating since 2015, at the height of a deep crisis.
However, the image of devastation from which it fled, with empty shelves and lines for hours to buy food, has been left behind: a relaxation in 2018 of the iron exchange control that prevailed for two decades brought improvements, after Venezuela chained eight years of recession and four of hyperinflation.
A de facto dollarization and a relaxation of price controls allowed businessmen and merchants to increase imports, with a better supply of products and new stores for food, clothing or shoes.
That image of change, which floods social networks, washes away a little the face of misery in a country where three out of four families have insufficient income to cover the food basket, and has prompted many to return.
“Time to go back”says Víctor, 32, convinced, who arrived in Chile without papers that would allow him to get a permanent job and even had to sleep in a square. “I slept on the street for 15 days (…). She would talk to my parents and tell them that everything was fine and I would hang up the phone and cry in despair.”
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Did Venezuela fix it?
President Nicolás Maduro dismisses the UNHCR figures, assuring that the number of migrants reaches some 800,000 or “perhaps less”.
Although there are no official figures of returnees, a third of the population wants to emigrate, according to an opinion poll, which confirms that the general perception of the country is negative.
“Some people have come out to say: ‘Venezuela it was fixed. No, it hasn’t been fixed, it’s getting better. Venezuela it has improved, Venezuela will improve”, Maduro said on state television in reference to a viral phrase on social networks, used sarcastically when talking about improvements in the country.
The GDP, which fell more than 80%, had a rebound of 4% in 2021. “It is a suboptimal growth, which starts from an incomplete opening (…), which privileges some more than others”explains the economist Henkel García, director of the Econometric firm.
“It is an economy basically focused on trade, without major structural changes.”
The “new face”, described by many as a “bubble”, is seen in Caracas; but public services such as water or electricity continue to collapse, especially in the interior of the country.
“The cycle of the rat”
Víctor, who regularized his migratory status in Chile, “survive” by working as a delivery man in Valparaíso, 116 km west of Santiago.
What he earns goes to his expenses and those of his relatives in Venezuela, where dollarization has “internationalized” prices, so he decided it wasn’t worth continuing far from home. He kept, despite the problems, some small savings with which he bought a motorcycle in Caracas and invested in a supply to survive on his return.
“There are opportunities, there are options” in Venezuelahe tells AFP outside his modest apartment in Chile.
Those who return had bad experiences as migrants and many suffered acts of discrimination.
Yara González, a 29-year-old manicurist, returned to her country from Peru.
“It was like the cycle of the rat” (running on a wheel in a cage without getting anywhere), says this woman.
She remembers, laughing, a Peruvian woman who crossed herself when she heard her accent. “Are you Venezuelan?”, She says that she asked her before making the sign of the cross.
“Opportunities”
The return exceeded Yara’s expectations.
“I feel that I have more opportunities than I could have had for the year 2018 or 2017, which were totally null”recounts when recalling that months before emigrating “acetone, glitter” and other materials to work with disappeared.
She took a job at a spa when she came back, but now works at home, where she greets clients at a table with a couple of chairs. She is doing “much better” than in Lima: “Much more comfortable, I even dare to say that monetarily, too, better.”
“To shoot around Latin America and continue to have shortcomings, I stay here at home,” he adds.
Victor, meanwhile, thinks about his future in Venezuela. It has been difficult for him to raise the money for the plane ticket, which has postponed his return and, with it, the opportunity to hug his son, his wife and his parents again.
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