El Capitán

The owner of our posada, Capitan Enrique, is worth a story of his own. He is a 60 year old ex airline pilot, ex Wall Street Broker, fluent English speaker, opera lover, founded in the Caracas upper class. Very well connected. Most of his time he spends in his private den in the posada, a white tiled kitchen with no windows, where he reads philosophy books, practices his Buddhist belief and lets his bass voice out, listenes to Puccini and even occationaly Jussi Bjorling. I have been invited into the kitchen where he has explained the strained situation of the venezuelan culture and society.
Sundays he volunteers in a group who cleans some of Margarita streets from the droves of rubbish, beer tins, tyres, paper, food remnants and dead dogs that litter much of the country. He has also run for senate as an rather unlikely co-founder of the local socialist party (PSUV).
- Thieves. We are a country of thieves, in an ocean of corruption, he says and explodes in a smile that blends pure joy of life with the darkest, bitterest of sarchasms.
Yesterday he drove us to the bank and in the middle of the road he was upset by a pushy lorry driver, urged him to step down to resolve their differences with the fists and when the driver declined, capitan Enrique made several allegations about the lorry drivers mothers virtues. He also directed the word "Huevón" several times to the driver in a manner that did not seem entirely ameliorative.
- I have been in many fist fights in the traffic. Venezuelans don´t know how to drive, and few of them know how to fight. They are cowards. Ill take them out any time, oh yes.
The captain has been very helpful to us, and the week at his posada was tranqilizing, since the posada is so well maintained. However I have had some difficulties in understanding how he unifies his Buddhist thinking with his fiery traffic behaviour and overt propensity to resort to fists for rather feeble reasons.