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Cowboy in Caracas: A North American's Memoir of Venezuela's Democratic Revolution

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I almost missed my stop on the Caracas metro because I was so engrossed in "Cowboy in Caracas". Charles Hardy worked as a priest for many years in one of Caracas's slums and knows its people well. If you want to understand Venezuela's democratic revolution ignore the bile in the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal and read this book.

Hardy's accounts of 25 years in Venezuela are both moving and eye opening. For a true account of what democracy should be, I highly recommend the text!

Charles Hardy's memoir COWBOY IN CARACAS: A NORTH AMERICAN'S MEMOIR OF VENEZUELA'S DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION (Curbstone Press, ISBN: 978-1-931896-37-5, $15.00) gives a much-needed voice to the impoverished living in Venezuela. Condemned by big business and the American government, democratically elected Hugo Chávez became a representative of the underrepresented. Hardy gives a detailed firsthand account of life in Venezuela before and after the Bolivarian Revolution.
Hardy sets the stage, describing the chaos and corruption wrought by the Venezuelan government prior to the election of Chávez. Leaving no stone unturned, Hardy addresses the events following the election, including the many unjustified and unsuccessful attempts to remove Chávez from office. Exposing the manipulative methods of the opposition, Hardy gives the reader a glimpse of why the rich hated Chávez, but also why the Venezuelan poor adored him.
This is a very important book told from an all too often neglected perspective. Hardy watches barrio dwellers leave pressed cardboard shacks that lacked indoor plumbing (the type of home he lived in for much of his stay in Venezuela) and move into much more suitable apartment-style housing. Changes like these could have only occurred during the administration of Chávez. The reader is brought into the lives of these impoverished people (it is estimated that eighty percent of Venezuelans are living in poverty), and is able to see how necessary it is for them to be represented by a president who is willing to look out for their best interests. The message of Hardy's book can best be expressed through a statement he makes on page 19, "It is often simply difficult to understand what one has never experienced. And yet, if we truly want a better world for everyone, we've got to try." This book is essential to knowing what is truly going on in Venezuela beyond what the news media wants the world to believe.

When he was a Roman Catholic priest, Charles Hardy was sent to Caracas, Venezuela, to work with the poorest of the poor in 1985. While living among them for eight years in a cardboard shack without sanitary facilities, as well as in the years that have followed, he has witnessed the drama of social and political change under Hugo Chavez that has substantially improved their situation.

In his lucid and conversationally written book, "Cowboy in Caracas," Hardy recounts his often moving experiences while providing a perspective on Chavez's Bolivarian revolution that is far different from that which we in the United States get from our media - the perspective of the 80 percent of Venezuelans who are poor, not of the small but vocal minority who, as I see it, want to reclaim their traditional control of the country's wealth. (That minority runs the Venezuelan news media, which continually maligns Chavez and overtly participated in the failed US-backed coup against him in 2002, as well as a subsequent attempt to strangle the economy in order to force him out; in each case the people literally put their bodies on the line to support Chavez, thwarting those efforts.)

While keeping his focus on the Venezuelans he has met, Hardy vividly illustrates the reality of a country that, UNESCO says, in a year and a half wiped out illiteracy; has opened thousands of schools in rural areas; has created new universities which any Venezuelan can attend without tuition; has provided seed money to farmers and rural women who have started cottage industries; and has substantially expanded cost-free health services.

Don't get me wrong: Charles Hardy is no shill for the government, but he does think it has done many things that benefit the vast majority of Venezuelans. If you want an entertaining and humanistic account of what I see as a dynamic country that has little in common with the menace that Bush administration portrays, give "Cowboy in Caracas" a try.

For a first hand account of Venezuela's revolution you can do no better than to read this book. Written from the perspective of the barrio people in Caracas, Charles Hardy is an ex-Roman Catholic priest who shares his experiences of life lived in a house of pressed cardboard with no sanitation from 1985 until 1994 when Hugo Chavez was released from prison to become the hope of the poor.

This is an extremely warm and human record of the progress of the Bolivarian Revolution that is full of anecdotes interspersed with deep reflection on the Venezuelan reality. It has the capacity to illuminate, educate, and motivate in comparing the unjust and unequal society that kept 20% of the population in luxury while the 80% struggled to survive with the empowerment of the people today as they move towards twenty-first century socialism.

Beginning with the Caracazo or social explosion of 1989 triggered by the rise in petrol prices that marked the meltdown of the old regime, and continuing with the rise to power of the charismatic President Chavez, the short-lived coup of 2002 following reform of the national oil company PDVSA, and the oil strike later that year, Hardy paints a picture of a society undergoing monumental change at the hands of the ordinary people.

Coming from Wyoming that is also rich in oil and cattle Hardy cuts through the lies and propaganda issuing from Washington to reveal the real truth about the revolutionary process that is taking place in Venezuela under a popular president who is truly of the people. In the author's own words it is an account of "the world's best-kept secret of democracy".

As a people's history and brief readable introduction to the awakening of Venezuela's dispossessed this is a book that identifies with the real protagonists of social change in a country at the sharp edge of Latin American integration and should be on the bookshelf of all those who claim to have a stake in the future.

This is a great place to start to really find out what is happening in Venezuela. Don't trust US officials or US Press. After this move on to Biography of Hugo Chavez by Bart Jones and then the scholarly book by Fulbright Scholar Greg Wilpert "Changing Venezuela by Taking Power : The History And Policies of the Chavez Government" and you will never trust the US Government and US Media again. I recommend Charly Hardy's book first.

Cowboy in Caracas is an amazing story of a Catholic priest's out-of-this world (literally) transition to life in a foreign country, Venezuela. Long sought after for its beautiful landscapes and oil, Venezuela is truly an amazing country, with its gorgeous inhabitants and warm Caribbean lifestyle.

The story itself revolves around life in the many barrios of Caracas. If you have never seen Caracas before, the cover of the book itself shows the vast skyscrapers and penthouses of the rich, and on the mountainsides outside of the city lay the small cardboard shacks of los demás (everyone else, aka the poor people).

Hardy is an amazing writer, and for the common Venezuelan to read this book brings back memories of how beautiful the Venezuelan people really are. Hardy effortlessly tells the tale of his neighbors, diligent and courageous, dedicated and humble--these are the workers of Caracas.

This book should be a must read for everyone. Regardless of your political affiliation, your political views, your heritage, your first language, everyone should read this book solely for its glimpse into the lives and hearts of everyday Venezuelans. I read this book because I love the Venezuelan people, their open hearts and their inner and outer beauty. Some of the most inspiring people I have met have been Venezuelan, and they are truly the kindest peoples on the face of the Earth. For a Venezuelan-American, this book is a must read.

I would recommend this book for those who really have no interest in politics simply because of its pure writing and heartwarming stories of Venezuelan life. I read this book because I wanted to read about what an everyday American would do if he were sent to live in a country as beautiful as Venezuela, and I must say this is an excellent reading experience. A must read!

The author has delivered a powerful presentation of Venezuela's move toward democracy from someone who was there. Charles Hardy not only was there he lived and experienced life among the poor and those most affected by the political changes and Mr. Chavez. This is a must read for anyone who wants to break through the Western media and Western political bias. Beautifully written.

If you read this book, as I did, thinking I was getting a biography of Hugo Chavez - you'll be delightfully disappointed. He lived with the people Chavez depends on to keep his office, the hill dwellers with cardboard walls (he got to know his neighbors very well). Hardy creates the smell of the sewage flowing by, and you get used to it. Chavez feels these people, and knows how to help them. They stay with him, in spite of every newspaper and tv station, and radio stations, that oppose him. They know him. They feel he is on their side. They support him.

Hardy brings this out, clearly. It's as if the people of Venezuela were running things. Chavez is merely their tool. Was Lincoln like that? Washington? Roosevelt? Kennedy? I wish we had a Hardy to write from the same perspective he used here to write about them. Instead of heros to be worshipped, they would be people --with a gift.

I was extremely interested in reading Mr. Hardy's book as I have lived and worked in Venezuela myself. In his favor he did acknowledge his bias at the beggining, but nevertheless he uses very few facts to support his opinions. Of course that is the problem with the Bolivarian Revolution, as statistically there has been virtually no improvement in the standard of living of the average Venezuelan, despite record oil prices. I also get the feeling that Mr. Hardy wrote this book for children, as his explanations appeared to be geared towards children or at least people with a child-like mentality.

I find many of his observations to be simply quite absurd. His notion that "in the barrio where I lived, I doubt that more than one person in two hundred had any weapon other than a kitchen knife" seems woefully ignorant considering that a report in 2005 stated that Venezuela had the highest rate of death by gun in the world.

I also find it strange that a former priest would mention the names of Marx and Lenin considering these two mens' perception of religion.

I also find the title of the book extremely misleading as before Chavez's election Venezuela was a very corrupt two-party state and now has become perhaps an even more corrupt one-party state (in 2006 a German organization named Venezuela the second most corrupt country in the Western Hemisphere)