A Beautiful Solidarity

Trinis join in prayers for ailing Chavez.
By Kevon Felmine | Trinidad Guardian | Saturday, January 5, 2013
 Photo by Rishi Ragoonath

"Venezuelan Ambassador Coromoto Godoy-Galderon and John Sorrillo, teacher at the Institutes of the Venezuelan Embassy, pray during the Mass at the La Divina Pastora RC Church in Siparia yesterday. The Mass was said for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who is being treated for cancer in Cuba.

The local community joined hands with Venezuelans yesterday with prayers for ailing Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez with a special mas at the La Divina Pastora Church, Siparia. Although there has been talk about who would replace Chavez if he were not able to resume the post as president, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary designate Coromoto Godoy-Calderon said Chavez was expected to make a full recovery.

Chavez, who was first voted in as president of the oil-rich nation in 1999 under the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), underwent his fourth cancer surgery in just 18 months on December 11. He has not been seen in public since. Yesterday, he was said to be still in hospital in Havana, Cuba, suffering from “respiratory deficiency” after complications from a severe lung infection.

Speaking with reporters yesterday, Godoy-Calderon said the service was one of many being held around the Caribbean, South and Central America, as Chavez had touched the lives of many around the world. “Women and men all over the world are praying for him and we are so thankful to the people of T&T,” she said.

When we came to the mass, we realised that people here really understood the difficult times that President Chavez is going through. With the prayers and the love of the people, he will recover.” She said her compatriots have been praying more than ever and they are adamant that their “Comandante Chavez” will return to the helm.

She said all she knew about his present condition was what had been reported in the media. She said the La Divina Pastora Church was chosen as it had symbolic ties with its namesake in Barquisimeto, Venezuela. Delivering his sermon, Fr Martin Sirju was thankful that ties with Venezuela which spanned over 200 years had not dissolved. He prayed for Chavez’s recovery, saying he had performed many good works, especially with impoverished communities." SOURCE
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A Note From The Gull



Thank you, fellow Trinbagonians.  I won't use the opportunity to preach about how we tend to ignore the places and persons closest to us while rubbernecking at every inane detail of the happenings in the usual more distant places. I am just grateful today for those Trinbagonians who remember that we are before anything else, the Caribbean in Latin America, and that Venezuela is Trinidad and Tobago's closest neighbour in the world.

Comandante, you are also in our prayers and thoughts and conversations out here. We kept vigil all through the holidays and will continue to do so until you have recovered. I hope to hear you singing once more when you return to your homeland.

 

"Goodbye my dear savannah, I am going but returning soon
To cross the savannah in order to revive the memories
That you left on my mind from when I was a child
When I am far away from you, I love you more dearly
You were my best teacher in the school of the copleros
."
--Motivos Llaneros [See complete lyrics here.]

"Patria est communis omnium parens" - Our native land is the common parent of us all. Keep it beautiful, make it even more so.

Blessed is all of creation
Blessed be my beautiful people
Blessed be the day of our awakening
Blessed is my country
Blessed are her patient hills.

Mweh ka allay!
Guanaguanare

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