Caracas (AFP)

"Go home!": In Petare, the largest favela in Venezuela, the military are struggling to enforce containment. For Gladys, as for many others, being outside is a matter of survival: "We make war on hunger".

Gladys Rangel is tired of playing the policeman and the thief with the police who are chasing the offenders. She removes her "homemade" protective mask, sits in the middle of the street and makes her meager accounts. Not many people want small packages of garlic and lemons that they sell for the equivalent of 5 cents a dollar.

She says she is forced to break the confinement ordered by Socialist President Nicolas Maduro almost a month ago to try to halt the progression of the coronavirus. "If I don't die from the virus, I will starve to death," said Gladys, fatalist.

Gladys, 57, is one of the 400,000 inhabitants of Petare, the largest favela in Venezuela, which emerged from the ground fifty years ago on a hillside in the east of Caracas. A messy ocean of little houses with tin roofs. Here, water sometimes arrives, gas too, and the collection of household waste is irregular to say the least.

Petare is usually teeming with street vendors who, like Gladys, "wage a battle" to keep their heads above water.

But in these times of pandemic, the effervescence has its limits: four hours per day of authorized activity. And then, curtain. At 10:00 am, the police and the army disembark to ensure that everyone returns home.

"So what? Are we no longer allowed to buy food?" Protested a young girl who was lining up to buy meat at the fateful hour.

With the 50 cents of the dollar she earned today, Gladys can buy mortadella and a few bananas which she will share with her 9-year-old grandson. "Like that, I eat, he eats and tomorrow I go back down to go to work. The routine," she says.

In the early afternoon, Gladys, and with her a multitude of precarious workers, continues to chase the customer on the street - despite the confinement.

- "Keep your distance" -

The Covid-19 pandemic appeared in Venezuela at the worst possible time. Its economy has halved in six years of recession, hyperinflation is part of the daily landscape and shortages of drugs and gas are recurrent.

In an attempt to curb the spread of the virus, of which 181 cases have been confirmed and nine deaths linked to the disease, the government has suspended activity in the country, with the exception of essential sectors such as health and food.

In Petare, this "collective quarantine" took more than one by surprise. "We didn't think it was going to be so brutal," breathes Nora de Santana, a 54-year-old manicurist, without nails to treat for almost a month.

So, to take full advantage of the four hours daily of authorized activities, the inhabitants of the favela rush early in the morning to the shops, which with a surgical mask on their faces, which with a simple scarf.

"Keep your distance, brothers!", Launches a vigil to customers who crowd in front of the kiosk of Jhony Solano. From toilet paper to canned sardines, you can find everything at Jhony.

And when the police siren sounds that announces the end of the day, Jhony hurries to sell his last tomatoes. "We are not working to become rich or millionaires, only to bring back enough to feed our families," he explains.

"The change is radical," euphemizes Cristian Torne, 28. Usually plagued by crime and drug trafficking, Petare is now much quieter.

During confinement, "at least, there is no delinquency," he consoles himself.

Between impunity and weapons available without great difficulty, Venezuela ranks at the top of the ranking of the most violent countries in the world. And Petare is one of the most violent neighborhoods in one of the most violent countries.

"I do not know what is worse. There is no delinquency, but there is the coronavirus. There are no merchants, but there is nothing to buy food," says cowardly -he.

© 2020 AFP