By Marielba Núñez
One of the routes of this migration is the small strait that separates the population of Güiria in eastern Venezuela by sea from the neighboring island of Trinidad. People cross this way in simple and small boats known as peñeros. Although it is a very brief journey, it is necessary to navigate across a channel of turbulent waters. Already in the 15th century, this channel crossing was so dangerous for sailors that it was christened by colonizer Christopher Columbus as “La Boca del Dragón” (“The Mouth of the Dragon”).
Dozens of similar incidents have occurred around the Venezuelan coast in recent years, which have left more than 270 missing persons.
Their relatives do not cease their efforts to find them and demand an answer from the authorities.
The Mouth of the Dragon
The Boca de Dragón channel [where dreams die] is an [infinite] 11 km wide marine extension that separates [by secrets abysses] Venezuela from the island of Trinidad and connects [god-loved] Gulf of Paria to the Caribbean Sea.
It is characterized by a tectonic depression of more than 200 meters deep.
Memory of La Salle Foundation for Natural Sciences, 2008.
It is not my task, but I am torn by the questions
questions that can't be answered
by measurements or graphics.
We know that these waters are unusually sweet
that in them the Orinoco fights a portion to the ocean
and on its arrival it rises from the depths
the misunderstood,
secrets that we keep looking for,
tireless, among the waves of this meeting.
My question then is whether there are prophetic territories,
whether in the beginning of time
the horror of certain precipices was already written,
the pain for those who never returned was already visible,
like a memory of the future.
look out over the waters from the mainland to the most southern tip of the island of Trinidad,
[the land desired by so many,]
the Mouths of the Dragons and the direction and construction of the mountain range of Paria and Trinidad, everything makes us believe that the indigenous tradition was true and not too remote the [monstrous] event.
Giovanni Battista Agostino Codazzi: Resumen de la Geografía de Venezuela, 1841.
"Serene and very high
and very powerful..."
and I also called it Land of Grace
even though I didn't know the provenance
of that angry current that expels freshwater puffs.
I saw the twenty-four
black-haired aboard a large canoe
on the slippery dark water.
They returned to land to the place
I wanted to call Gardens
but that will continue being Güiria
for the rest of the centuries.
I called Paria the Island of Grace,
but to this strait,
to this angry piece of water,
I gave the name of fear
the name of horror and senselessness]
[to the already frightened
to fugitives without a safe haven
to travelers orphaned by land]
and at that moment I said that if we escaped from there, we could make the case that we had freed ourselves from the Mouth of the Dragon
[from the mouth of the monster
from the mouth of the eternal]
hence the name.
Fragment of Christopher Columbus's letter to the Catholic Monarchs on his third voyage to America.
Washington Irving: The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, 1828
[for passengers who decide crossing the sea in humble dinghys in boats
whose destiny does not resist a blow]
Who imagined the terrors of moving blindly
no maps nor lights
only guided by desire
the will of the exhauted?
The hour in which the peñero will line up towards silence
and his pointed nose will cut the violet water of the pier.
The itinerary is written on stones.
The journey to the silence is just beginning.
"It's like being surrounded by walls of water".
It has fifty heads.
And from each of them comes a black tongue.
On the shoulders of the Typhoon
it sets fire and burns everything in its path
only crying remains.
Hesiod told us that the voices of dragons
were terrible
they were the very voices of the gods.
She is alive
because they haven't found her dead.
She is alive because they have not told me that she is dead.
That's why he doesn't cry
there is no sadness on his face
just calm.
The helicopter only flew an hour
it was very valuable
each flight hour is worth $ 8,000
said the mayor.
That's why the search only lasted an hour.
For me she is alive.
She is alive
because they haven't found her dead.
Look ma'am,
I am complying with letting you know
that your daughter is drowned.
Your daughter is dead.
Look ma'am
I am fulfilling
with taking away
the breathing
all oxygen
that fits in your lungs
with these few words
with this sentence.
We saw absolutely nothing,
no evidence,
not only of bodies but no object
no article of clothing,
no shoe
nor sandal
not a pinch of gasoline
from the boat.
Not a piece of cloth
not a backpack that floated
between transparent plastics
undulating
like false jellyfish.
Not a broken life jacket.
Nothing is the memory
of their passage
by the ocean.
It has no name what one is feeling seven months later. It has no name. This not knowing. Whether they eat, whether they died. Whether they sleep in a bed at night or whether they have shipwreck nightmares in the dragon's mouth. We know nothing.
The unspeakable. We are adrift how do you say. We don't know where the troubled waters lead us, how far can we dive under these surfaces, if fearsome reptiles swim here of dark and cold skin, like oblivion.
The depth and extension of the Venezuelan humanitarian crisis, as well as the systematic censorship and persecution of freedom of expression practiced by the authoritarian government of Venezuela, make necessary to search for new ways of narrating what is happening in my country.
From that search La Boca del Dragón was born. The words try to keep alive the memory of these migrants of uncertain destiny who faced unimaginable dangers in search of hope.
Marielba Núñez
November 2021
My gratitude to the Venezuelan poet Jacqueline Goldberg and the American carillonist Pamela Ruiter-Feenstra, who have encouraged me to undertake this path. Thanks!
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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