http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1648

Venezuela Steers A New Course
Wednesday, Jan 11, 2006


By: Katherine Ellison - Smithsonian Magazine

Lunch was on the patio, overlooking a green valley an hour’s drive west of Caracas. The hostess, wearing a small fortune in St. John knits, snapped at one of the uniformed waiters for failing to top off my glass of guava juice. Over dessert, the conversation turned to the squatters who with the encouragement of President Hugo Chávez’s leftist government were taking over private lands. Campaigning had begun for next December’s presidential election, and the guests worried that pro-Chávez rallies would, as in years past, end in tear gas and gunfire. “There will certainly be more violence,� murmured one of them, a sleekly coiffed television broadcaster.

Later, as the family chauffeur ran to get the car to take me back to my hotel, the hostess’s brother-in-law winked at me. “He claims we work him too hard,â€? he said. “We call him el bobolongoâ€?â€â€