Miguel Tinker Salas

Oil was everywhere.

You could not escape it.

I was born in eastern Venezuela in an oil camp named Caripito.

My father was not...

in the upper echelons of the oil industry.

He worked in the docks with his hands.

He would leave in the morning early and come back sometimes by four o'clock covered in oil.

My mother would have to wash him down with kerosene to get the oil stains off.

I recall that very vividly as a child, seeing him having to clean all the oil off of his body and off of his clothes.

It was this city within a city, a state within a state that operated independently of the larger society in Venezuela.

It was this American-U.S.

enclave.

You had the professional senior staff camp.

You had the junior staff camp, which probably meant mostly Venezuelan professionals.

Each one had their own social club.

Each one had their own residential area.

So Venezuela constantly went through a period of boom and bust cycles.

You had freeways, high-rise structures.

You had American-style department stores.

We had the Concorde landing in Venezuela with direct flights to Paris.