Venezuela Dream Pt. 1

A Story by Antonia Perdu

writing prompt: make a dream from a current event. So it's more like I woke up and called you and told you about this dream I had.

I went to do outreach (which I thought should be called in-reach) work, (which I like to think as healing) in an "underdeveloped" which really meant remote, mostly undisturbed natural habitat in a small mark on a map in Venezuela. We needed some important resources from the "closest" city. Proximity was not present, it would require a nice amount of driving and a team member to accompany me. Now if I had not checked the square box on that application, the one that said I could drive a vehicle, I would not have been the one driving or even in the vehicle.

During my days at this in-reach program we participated in farming, teaching the children at least two languages other than the native tongue, and music of course was a staple. We rarely used the radio and since this was a more get in touch with nature and people experience, the music we heard were from records, acoustic guitars, and native and organic instruments. Today's weather and mood made me want to turn on the vehicle's radio. The first station was scrambled. The next accompanied with silence. The next pure static. Did you know static contained some cosmic noise from the Big Boom? Well that thought alone always made me think static was both scary and beautiful. In this moment it did not promote any good vibe from my being. I started to realize that I wasn't "in Kansas anymore." But I was just longing for some United Land of America. I was homesick sure, never been so disconnected from folks like this. I mean yeah I had been only connecting via technology but I can't send any smoke symbol but an email every 3rd week I get to drive to the big city. I kept saying "This shouldn't be happening." I tried to pull from memory my first time driving towards the "in-reach" lands in a carpool that carried me from the bustling city to tranquility. "Was the radio playing then?" I kept trying to remember, don't I remember things like this? The ride into the city would take about 45 mins. I thought, "Maybe the tower reach..." that thought was silenced when I looked at the thickness of the vehicle's antenna. That thing has got to pick up a signal! After turning the knob back and forth a few times I sighed and gave up turned the radio off.

I started to get more bad feelings on top of bad feelings and I looked at my team member. He said "You know, it's moments like this when I believe The Hunger Games was based off of this place, I mean come on look at the typography, look at the government set, up, look at the industries. Listen to the static woman!" Yet he had this nonchalant air about him. I looked at him and said a little too sternly "What do you know?!" He said, "Well if you weren't Kumbaya-ing all the damn time you would know that we my dear are driving into a danger zone. " Now I knew this place in general was seething in crime, but I thought we were a little ok. How naive. Why do I do this to myself? His knowledge of what was going on not only made me upset, but my hands on the steering wheel started to sweat and my vision started to blur. I had to stop the car. "What are you talking about?" ...