Who Said a Man Can’t Fly?

The first thing I did after graduating was to travel to my hometown. I had not been there for three years. At the La Bandera bus terminal I took a bus to Valencia. In Valencia I took another one to Coro. In Coro I had to take what we call “carrito particular” - because I arrived shortly after three o'clock in the afternoon, when the last bus of the public route had already left - and seven hours and two transfers after leaving Caracas, I set foot again in Cabure.

Usually, when I say where I come from, I always start by saying that it is from a peaceful town of no more than three thousand inhabitants, located in the Sierra de Falcón, surrendered to the feet of some benign limestone giants. Then, boasting of its unrepeatable natural beauty, I complete by saying that in the language of the Jirajaras Indians, the first settlers of the region, the name of my homeland means “place near the sky”. But I believe that from now on, when I say where I am from, before all of the above, which is undeniably true, I must begin by saying: I am from Cabure, the town of the Serrano Bird, the man who one hundred and fifty-two years ago tried to fly with enormous leather wings.

Returning to Cabure meant returning to the place where all my childhood and adolescent memories reside. Few joys surpass that of the reunion with that memory composed of purely happy images that, like a trip back in time, bring me back to the moment of bathing under a waterfall, exploring a cave, or walking the streets of the village with my friends José, Alexander and Anthonella. Returning to Cabure, immediately after graduating as a lawyer from Ucab, also meant coming back to offer my land this important achievement.

The next thing I should let you know about Pájaro Serrano is that my great-great-grandfather, Don Carlos Rivero Solar, considered the precursor of national aviation, was called that way. Yes gentlemen, the precursor. The Venezuelan Air Force (FAV) erected a monolith to him right in the area where he launched himself into the void with the will to conquer the air.

Carlos Rivero Solar was a famous local inventor. His recognition came from the construction of many and varied sugar mills, including a machine to hull the coffee grown in those mountains and a system of bamboo pipes that brought water from nearby streams to his house and moved the sugar cane mill where he ground sugar cane.

It is not hard for me to imagine him making the device that would make him take off from the ground like a bird. I can almost hear him repeating to himself as he assembles the frame of light branches and pieces of cowhide: "Who said man cannot fly?

The story of the Pájaro Serrano was given to us Cabureños practically at the dawn of reason. I, for example, treasure it from the very moment I heard it told by my teachers at the “Sara Amelia Salas” preschool, the only kindergarten in town. Public, yes.

And of course I kept hearing it, already in the form of official version and in honor to the Illustrious Son, both in my school “Manuel Antonio García”, as well as in my high school “Guillermo Antonio Coronado”, also the only elementary and high school in Cabure. And also public, yes.

My mother spoils me and teaches me

To the stage from first to sixth grade belongs, likewise, the memory of when the teachers, after teaching us basic contents, as if not to leave, left us for hours and hours playing in the classroom. And not because they pursued academic goals with playful strategies, no; it was because, obviously, they had no interest in ensuring our learning. More to the point: they simply abandoned us. José, Alexander and Anthonella, classmates throughout that early stage, know what I'm talking about.

Although it is definitely my mother, the great-great-granddaughter of Pájaro Serrano, who knows best: she, unlike me who always studied in Cabure, studied from kindergarten to high school in a private Catholic school here in Caracas. This is because her mother, my grandmother Hilda Hernandez Rivero, the great-granddaughter of the homo avis falconiano, came to this city forty-six years ago. My mother went back to Cabure and, some time after marrying my father, she did a degree in Special Education at the National Open University (UNA), under the distance learning modality. Here is where I should say that I am the third of four children and that my father is a small grocery merchant, owner of a bodega located in the center of town.

After graduating as a teacher, my mother started working in a school in a neighboring town. Do you see why I say that she is the one who knows the most? She knows because she is an educator and she knows because she is a mother. She knows because every afternoon, without fail, at home, she would give me and my siblings painstaking private lessons in all the subjects we were studying: from mathematics, language and biology to social studies. I think of those afternoons and I can almost smell again the smell of the copies of the Caracol de Santillana Guide and the Larousse Encyclopedia that my mother put in our hands to complement, or supplement, the deficient education we received at school.

The high school at “Guillermo Antonio Coronado” I can't credit anything different from the unfortunate elementary school: the same idleness of the teachers, the same laziness, the same incompetence, the same carelessness and unconcern. José, Alexander and Anthonella, also high school classmates, know that I am not lying. In short: the same fraud. I can once again credit my mother, for all the help she continued to give me from first to fifth grade, with a large part of the credit for my high school.

It was from her that I learned my favorite part of the story of the famous Pájaro Serrano's exploit. And it begins one Sunday morning in 1868 with my great-great-grandfather heading, with his flying machine on his back, towards El Naranjito, the hamlet near Cabure where he is going to try to defy gravity: He is going along the Camino de los Españoles towards the top of the most favorable hill for the accomplishment of his feat. It is worth imagining that he is carrying a flying machine like the ones designed by Leonardo Da Vinci because, in fact, they have a certain resemblance. He has been accompanied by Don Rufino Montenegro, whom, in accordance with custom, he has named godfather of the historic event. He is followed by a crowd of people, a crowd of locals in a procession of disbelief and amazement.

I can almost hear the murmurs and laughter. And I wonder how many of those who go there are betting on its failure and how many believe it is capable of crossing the infinite blue of the mountain range.

I wonder because I suddenly remember the afternoon about six years ago when, on a visit to Caracas, I went to a shopping mall with my mother, my two sisters and a cousin from Caracas. We walk and talk while looking for a greeting card for our grandmother's birthday, and then the cousin asks me: "What career are you going to study, in which university? I answer without any caution, perhaps with the confidence that springs from innocence: I am going to study law at UCAB. My cousin, who has done all his education in the best private schools within his reach, who knows about mine and the economic hardship of my family, asks the usual question: Do you already have a scholarship? And without even waiting for my answer, he says: "You are not going to make the grade. People who graduate from public schools hardly manage to graduate from a university like UCAB.

To Glory or the Grave

How many of those who go there, behind the one they call “doctor” but also “madman,” believe in him and hope he manages to fly? How many don’t? In the end, Don Carlos Rivero Solar is already about to offer the conclusion: so he moves forward, alone, with his wings of wood and cowhide, to the highest point of the well-known hill, about seventy meters higher, while the expectant crowd remains below. Upon reaching the exact spot set up as the takeoff track, the Pájaro Serrano greets the spectators, turns around, and begins the running start toward the long-awaited flight. Everyone falls silent before that winged man who runs determinedly toward glory or toward failure, who sprints resolutely toward success or toward death. A few steps from the end of the terrain he spreads his wings and jumps, letting out a piercing scream. Already in the air, he desperately flaps his wings. It seems he’s doing it. In fact, now he’s gliding. Incredible! He’s achieving the miracle of fly… But, oh no, no, no, he’s falling, oh my God, he’s nose-diving, he’s going to crash! Oh, oh, he crashed! The Pájaro Serrano and what remained of the wings fell on the top of a leafy Bucare tree. He didn’t die, but was left quite battered and with a few broken bones.

When I told my cousin, now a successful doctor, that I was going to UCAB, it was because by then, at the end of high school, that was already decided. Since I was little, I had wanted to be a lawyer. I had the option to study in Punto Fijo, at the only university in my state where the degree is offered; or to come to Caracas, to my grandmother Hilda’s house, and study where I had always wanted with all my might: at the Law School of Universidad Católica Andrés Bello. My parents made my decision easier by encouraging me toward the second option, even though it meant a huge financial commitment for them. I remember that, facing the natural concern about whether they could afford the tuition, on that decisive occasion both told me that such a top-level higher education was worth any effort. I also remember that after that family resolution, the only unhappy thought for me was the idea of leaving Cabure and saying goodbye to José, Alexander, and Anthonella.

From the first year at UCAB, I keep the memory of two scares: the natural one of any beginning in a new place and the one that hit me when I started facing content I didn’t master and was supposedly meant to have seen in high school. I’m not exaggerating: I felt a kind of dizziness every time a professor presented in class on a topic unknown to me. The discomfort worsened when my classmates —mostly from private schools— told me: “We saw that in high school.” That’s what my cousin was referring to, and I confess that at one point I came to fear that, no matter how hard I tried to catch up, I would not reach the level required by the courses. Let’s not deny it: I thought I wouldn’t measure up. I got through that terrifying initial turbulence by reading, reading, reading.

It was already while flying through the second year, in 2016, that bad weather surprised me: my dad had to close his store. It was impossible for him to work with so many product shortages, so many controls, and so much governmental arbitrariness. He had no choice but to close it and, with all the pain in his soul, inform me that he could no longer pay my university tuition. This is much more than the first two scares, this is a greater fear, this is fear of crashing so soon, just after taking off. This is… how to explain it… panic at crashing on top of a Bucare tree. Frantically searching for financial aid counts as a desperate flapping of wings; although the truth is that my desperation was literal, not metaphorical.

So I immediately looked into it and, since I met the academic average and socioeconomic profile conditions, I applied for a work-study scholarship. Who said man can’t fly? A few weeks after the corresponding interview, I received the news that made me rise again: work-study scholarship approved at the Sipucab offices, better known as the professors' lounge.

I worked at Sipucab every day, Monday to Friday, from three in the afternoon to seven at night, in exchange for tuition exemption. I think about those four years and I think about a time that lifted me high enough to understand that when harsh reality stops you, it pushes you forward with that same force.

I was flying through those clouds of joy the day in January 2020 when I received my diploma from the hands of Rector Francisco Virtuoso. And imagine how many thousands of feet of pride my mom, my dad, and my grandmother Hilda were soaring at. Even more so after receiving, in turn, the tribute our professor and mentor, Antonio Canova, paid them in the form of that memorable speech about synchronic and diachronic happiness.

Under the beautiful ceiba tree

Reuniting with José, Alexander, and Anthonella in Cabure counts as part of the first things I did after graduating. One hot and sunny afternoon, the four of us, as always, got together again in the same place as always: under the generous shade of the ceiba tree that stands in front of José’s house. Had I already said that José is also my neighbor? José is twenty-four years old, a great athlete, and one of those people who easily and quickly win everyone’s affection. After graduating from high school in 2014, he tried to study a technical degree in electricity at the Coro Technological Institute, but due to constant strikes—student protests, teachers’ strikes, lack of water, or electricity, or teachers, or whatever—he lost the will to continue.

"Why keep going in a place that’s closed more often than open? I preferred to return to Cabure."

José went back to the town and got his girlfriend pregnant. Today they live together, already have a second child, and are going through a very difficult financial situation.

Alexander is also twenty-four and is a true artist when it comes to pencil drawing and oil painting. You’d have to see his work to be impressed by the level of detail and beauty. He began studying Electrical Engineering in 2013 at the same Coro Technological Institute that José dropped out of. He should have already graduated, but hasn’t been able to, and not because he doesn’t apply himself to his studies, but because of the same constant interruptions my other friend already mentioned.

Alexander has had no choice but to keep going and express his future in a kind of joke:

"I hope to finish someday..."

As for Anthonella, also twenty-four, one must always start by saying that she’s the local ping-pong champion. Then add: she’s completely dedicated to physical exercise. She got a spot at UNEFA (National Experimental University of the Armed Forces) in Coro through an assignment from OPSU (University Sector Planning Office). And six months after graduating as a Systems Engineer, this is what she breathes out:

"The truth is, that Chavista university is useless. They didn’t give me a degree, they gave me a poorly taught four-year course."

She says she escaped the strikes of autonomous public universities but not the academic mediocrity of the government-run university. My friend has not been able to find a job as an engineer. In her own words:

"How am I going to get a job in my field being a graduate of a yellow-covered degree?"

Anthonella is making a living working as a cashier in a small grocery store in Coro.

Nostalgia traveled alongside me the entire way back: from Cabure to Coro, from Coro to Valencia, and from Valencia to Caracas. As much as I was also heading into the beginning of a new life, toward the long-awaited start of my professional career, there was no way not to feel sorrow for leaving once again my town, my family, and my friends after those two extraordinary weeks.

During those ambivalent days of longing and excitement, I got my first job as a lawyer at the Chacao Cultural Center. That was less than two months before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic and the beginning of this anguishing lockdown that has left no corner untouched. With the imposition of quarantine following the first confirmed cases in Venezuela, the cultural complex of the capital’s municipality suddenly came to a halt. And I with it, which is why, taking advantage of the long hours of isolation at home, I dedicated myself to exploring new work opportunities.

That’s how, in May, I joined the legal team of the well-known real estate group where I currently work. It was during those frustrating days of early lockdown that Tania, who had just graduated with me, called to ask if I wanted to join Un Estado de Derecho (UeD), the civil association directed by Professor Canova. How could I not want to, if I had already heard that other newly graduated classmates were also joining the non-governmental organization made up of brilliant law graduates from UCAB and other universities, along with outstanding professionals from various disciplines.

UeD, with the lowercase “e” for estado, is dedicated to the study, understanding, and dissemination of the values and principles of the rule of law as an essential condition for individual freedom, democracy, development, and progress of people and nations.

With that "yes, I do," I was immediately joining the team that investigates the current reality of the right to education in Venezuela. The main admission requirement I had already fulfilled: I had already read The Beautiful Tree. Anyone who has been a student of Canova in recent years knows that there’s no escaping the reading of the book written by James Tooley, professor at the University of Buckingham. One knows, therefore, that there's also no way to avoid rethinking everything you thought you knew about education after confronting his findings.

I would be lying if I said I enjoyed The Beautiful Tree.

How could I, a "child" of public education, enjoy a book that discredits it?

I’d also be lying if I said I understood everything from the start.

The plain truth is that, apart from suffering through it, I fell into the same denial that its author faced when he set out to investigate the existence of private schools for the very poor: for the poorest of the poor in poor countries like Ghana, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe in Africa; for the poorest in the poorest regions of India and China.

As for the descriptions of the “lazy” public schools in those distant places, I couldn’t possibly reject them—because, quite simply, they spoke to me of the same laziness I experienced in Cabure.

The One Who Seeks…

Hidden in those extremely impoverished corners, Tooley found—because he looked—private educational initiatives that had emerged in response to the deficient or nonexistent public education. He found—because he looked—parents who preferred to allocate part of their meager income to pay for their children’s education rather than leave them in the free public institutions. He found because he looked, despite what all, absolutely all, the researchers from all, absolutely all, the most prominent organizations in the field of Human Development told him: from the UN downward, they warned him that there was no such thing as the poorest of the poor educating themselves.

Educating themselves in the sense that they bypass the state’s offer and choose to pay one or two dollars a month for an education better than the public one. Tooley found them in every country where he looked: The Beautiful Tree is a document of extreme scientific rigor and, at the same time, the inspiring testimony of that persistence.

That said, I reiterate, it remains a hard report to digest, as all the evidence it contains disrupts the prevailing conception of how the right to education should be provided…

…The conception instilled in us by the provider, the idea by which the provider educates us. That is: it shakes the dogma of the teaching State and thus also weakens the entire set of beliefs that sustain the current (statist) doctrine of social rights. Nothing more, nothing less. For me, as I said, it took time and doubts. I had no trouble agreeing with Tooley’s criticisms of the undeniably deficient public education; but going from that to supporting its disappearance… The fact is that as I moved forward in the story, I began to understand, but at the same time I began to feel a kind of guilt for understanding—an inevitable and uncomfortable sensation of betraying my origins. Until, uncomfortably and slowly, I realized that this vague discomfort was, precisely, the proof of how deeply the statist doctrine had taken root in my head.

And the other fact is that even though the discoveries of The Beautiful Tree were enlightening and undeniable, for some reason (…) I flatly denied that here in Venezuela there could also be manifestations of poor people educating themselves.

And I would have continued that way, it must be said, if Canova—stubborn like Tooley—had not come across the Cuyagua school in Petare and dozens of other private schools in various parts of the country, with tuition fees as low as under two dollars.

I myself have already come across some low-cost schools in my home state of Falcón, as a researcher for UeD.

No, in Cabure, as I said above, there are no private schools: in my town, the only option is public education. “And it’s about that one that you’re going to write a report—one like María José España’s about the Cuyagua school in Petare,” the professor told me.

By phone—because in Cabure there is hardly ever internet—I interviewed José Ramón Miquilena, the director of “Manuel Antonio García,” the school where I studied, founded eighty-four years ago. Manuel Antonio García was a distinguished educator born in Coro, who, at the end of the 19th century, around the time of the Pájaro Serrano, settled in my town and began his teaching work at the Boys’ School alongside teachers Clodomiro Muñoz and Rufino Montenegro. Yes, the same Rufino Montenegro who sponsored the celebrated flight of my great-great-grandfather Don Carlos Rivero Solar.

The “Manuel Antonio García” school was established in 1937 on the basis of the single-class school, of only first grade, which at the time was run by teacher Rito Hernández—my great-grandfather “Ritico,” father of my grandmother Hilda. But only three grades were added to it; that is, it only went up to fourth grade. Fifth and sixth were paid: they cost half a Bolívar per day, which could be paid with a twenty-five-cent coin, two ten-cent coins, or two liters of freshly milked cow’s milk. The Girls’ School “Ana Brillet,” directed by teacher Ángela Irausquín, also preceded the “Manuel Antonio García.” It was a private initiative, just like the Boys’ School—like almost all the schools from those times of an incipient State.

Tell Me Who Educates You…

Today, my school is a main two-story building, expanded with three additional annexes. It has eighteen classrooms, a playground, a sports court, a stage for events, and a cafeteria for the students.

The principal is a teacher with a master’s degree and has been running the school for fifteen years—that is, since my elementary school days. Today, there are 465 students and 45 teachers, he told me right away. And with that, already prepared to share the situation of “Manuel Antonio García,” he told me about his main concern: the decline in the quality of teaching staff. He told me more: today, 90% of the educators teaching at the school are graduates of the Bolivarian University of Venezuela. First, because the discredited UBV has a branch in Cabure, and second, because it’s an order from the Educational Zone of Falcón. The point is that there’s no room for teachers graduated from other universities, no matter how qualified and well-prepared they may be. Teaching positions at “Manuel Antonio García” and in other public schools are not assigned based on professional merit but through a political filter that begins with being registered in the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (Psuv).

For proof, there’s the example my mom still keeps from when she was demoted from director of the special education unit “Eduardo Marín” to classroom teacher at the same Cabure institution, simply for not being affiliated with Chávez’s party. It happened in plain sight of everyone present, at a municipal directors’ meeting, when the local political coordinator ordered aloud, referring to my mother: “Take that escuálida out of that position.” And that’s how it went: my mom was punished, stripped of her position, simply for not being a member of the chavista ranks. Two years after that punishment for disloyalty, she managed to start recovering her professional status and today is the assistant director of the psycho-pedagogical unit at “Manuel Antonio García.”

The second big concern of Director Miquelena is one that, though often repeated and widespread, never ceases to be shocking: practically nonexistent teacher salaries. The indignity of a base salary—for a teacher with twenty years of service—of 769,304.01 bolívares per month, in a country ravaged by hyperinflation. We’re talking about the absurdity of a base official income, adjusted in May 2020, equivalent to 2.6 dollars per month.

It’s such an absurd wage that I almost postponed discussing the next topic I intended to clarify with the principal, a key issue that Tooley dedicates a large part of his attention to: the mechanisms to prevent, correct, and/or sanction teacher absences and other infractions. I didn’t leave it for later, but I did lower my tone of questioning. On this matter, Professor Miquelena referred to the Teacher Profession Regulations, which govern everything related to the performance of educators. It establishes, among other rules, that after three unjustified absences, dismissal applies; but according to the experience of the director of “Manuel Antonio García,” it is very rare—in fact, never—that a teacher is removed for this reason. At most, in the face of violations, he said, there is a verbal warning or a written memo from the principal. And later, if anything, from the Educational Zone.

What I’m getting at is this: A public school principal in Venezuela cannot fire a teacher who fails to meet obligations. The system is designed to make it difficult—if not impossible. And this is exactly what a humble mother from remote Ghana plainly states in The Beautiful Tree, when she points out the difference between the public school and the private one her children attend. She observes that in public schools, teachers don’t show up and nothing happens, because no one cares. Meanwhile, in private schools, a principal cannot allow the same, because being paid means being held accountable.

Finally, the worst part, and in the form of a painful statistical truth: only 30% of those who attend elementary school at “Manuel Antonio García” make it to university. This is not an official or exact figure, warned Professor Miquelena. It is, however, a numerical estimate that reflects the observable reality of Cabure: 70% of those who go through elementary school, and even complete secondary, do not reach higher education. Poverty, of course. Because even to attend a free university in Coro, you need resources that most people in my town don’t have. Studying in that or another city means paying for housing, food, study materials, transportation, etc. That’s on one side, and the need to work, on the other. I know it firsthand from the number of high school classmates who, upon graduation, immediately had to start earning a living. Something they do, by the way, without feeling frustrated; because we can’t deny that the majority of Cabure students don’t make it to university also because of a lack of motivation, due to the absence of aspirations—because, seeing no point in continuing their education, they simply don’t consider it. And how are they going to want to fly if their wings have been clipped?

No one dreams of the infinite if they don’t believe they’re capable of reaching it. There’s El Pájaro Serrano, hanging all bruised from the top of the bucare tree, for having believed he could fly through the sky with artificial wings. You can see him struggling to climb down between the branches and hear him shouting that he’s okay, that there’s no need to worry, thank you all very much, and that he’ll get home on his own. Okay, my foot. He has fractures. Okay, nothing. To me, he’s not okay—at least not in spirit, more than in that forty-two-year-old body. I get the sense he prefers to be alone with the sorrow of a shattered dream. In the eyes of the people who come to help him, what just happened at El Naranjito is nothing more than the disastrous stunt of a man touched in the head.

How are the young people of Cabure supposed to want to fly to university if they don’t even have wooden and leather wings to at least try? If, because they’re poor, their only option is deficient and indoctrinating education? With those questions, I begin the descent into the five final reflections of this document, which is also my initial report to continue investigating:

One: Nothing but fraud can be expected from public education anymore. To keep believing, at this point, that the State can efficiently deliver this right is to keep believing the fictions told by politicians. It is to keep believing, for example, in the fantasy that someday—who knows when—the very same State that caused Cabure’s current educational disaster will somehow be able to guarantee quality education to the people of my town.

Two: Public education in Venezuela today, instead of being a vehicle for social mobility, is an inescapable sentence to even more misery. The people in my town know this well. Education and poverty go hand in hand as cause and effect: they don’t study because they’re poor, and they’re poor because they don’t study.

Three: Canova is right, even if it was hard for me to admit it: I am what I am—a university graduate—not “thanks to” public education, but “in spite of” it. And I am a minority, almost an exception. I am one of the mere 30% of young people from Cabure who make it to university, and you already know everything it cost me. You know that if it hadn’t been for the vision and loving effort of my mom, in each of those afternoons of home tutoring, I wouldn’t have felt capable of reaching that far or living up to the standards. José, Alexander, and Anthonella also belong to that select 30%, and you already know how things are going for them. Should my friends and I be grateful to public education? And what should society be thankful for? That it condemns the remaining 70% to a life of shadows and hardship?

Four: A truly high-quality education for the most disadvantaged is possible, one founded on two freedoms: the freedom of parents to choose among many non-state options, and the freedom of educational entrepreneurs to compete to offer the best service. That is the starting point for the proposal we’re working on at UeD, where we are committed to ensuring that not a single Venezuelan student is left without the means to afford a private school. In that sense, we promote the implementation of school vouchers—successfully tested in several countries. At the same time, we encourage a national conversation on how this direct subsidy could eventually be applied. In any case, the State would still be responsible for guaranteeing the right through funding these vouchers, thus preserving the principle of free access. The State participates, but in a limited and exceptional way—not as provider or educator.

Since that Sunday in 1868, there have been no more reports about El Pájaro Serrano, beyond his growing reputation as a mad inventor. It’s said he remained devoted to his other creations. Some claim that he also continued, in secret, observing the flight of hawks, working to perfect the design of a new pair of wings he ultimately never used. While he was alive, no one recognized the true significance of his daring attempt. No one in Cabure, 150 years ago, could fathom that a man might fly like a bird. No one in the world had done it yet. And what would those good but illiterate people of early Cabure know about such things, in that time of tender ignorance? One truly had to be crazy—have an empty attic upstairs, like Don Quixote of La Mancha—to attempt such a feat. My great-great-grandfather lived the rest of his life without the slightest tribute, without any recognition at all.

It was nearly a hundred years later, around 1959, that the fascinating and incomplete story of El Pájaro Serrano reached someone in the Air Force. The part of the story that made it there was considered sufficient and indisputable to bestow upon him the title of Pioneer of Flight in Venezuela. I think about all this and I think that, even if belatedly, posterity at least settled its debt of honor with Don Carlos Rivero Solar. That’s why I also think about the many others who, at some point, ventured out to achieve great things, opened new paths, yet remained ignored—or worse, dismissed as insane. And, well, I can’t help but think about those “mad” ones who, armed with nothing but the ideas of individual freedom, dare to fight against the giants of a communist dictatorship. I think about big victories, but I think even more about the small ones.

I think, for example, of the daily triumphs of those Venezuelan families who pay what they don’t have to secure the best education possible for their children. Thinking about all this is what finally brings me to bow in reverence before the parents who, having no other option but public education, strive and manage to launch their children toward the sky of achievement. I was able to get from Cabure to UCAB thanks to the wings of desire and confidence my mom gave me. Isn’t that another true feat?

**

El Pájaro Serrano died at the age of seventy-eight, in 1904. I don’t know if he ever heard the great news that, in 1903, the Wright brothers made history.

Ángel Tajha