i was so sure i learned the right pronunciation but when i tried my phrase book spanish of my archive all airport nobody could understand a word it brought home when i was told in the briefing sessions like i'm starting work in a foreign country for an american oil company i have learned just this creole that represent the united states here in the eyes of the venezuelan that surprised me on that ride was  in other residential areas i saw houses built in the old spanish tradition i almost felt i had my pome when we passed the big sears roebuck store but the center of the city is spent and you begin to realize that maritimo is almost four hundred years old the narrow downtown streets along which we drove were once invaded by morgan's pirate raiders the contrast really hit me when we drove up to our hotel just about the most modern one i've ever seen it's a great introduction to a job in venezuela but it's only for one night in the united states and daddy is down here in venezuela he wrote a letter from america about but by now he's down here with a lake mary cobble all seals are that's where daddy is working jeff and when he finds a place for us to live we're going archival started with a ferry ride across the neck of the lake near the entrance from the caribbean seemed narrow here but it's actually sixty miles wide at one point and about one hundred twenty miles long after leaving the ferry the drive to log in the us took about an hour most of it along a road built by creole and the other oil companies back in the thirt the offshore wells run along the edge of lake maracaibo for more than forty miles sometimes reaching beyond the horizon it's quite a si part of my work will be in the office here and part out on the lake helping with supervision and planning for this  my first stop was at the administration building where i checked in at my office boss the district the problem into near is a young couple they give responsibility earlier i found that the engineering staff is both venezuelan and american or north american as they say here then i spent the evening getting settled in my corner a long and lonely evening here without you the next day i was taken out on the lake to see the field procedure before that day was over i felt as though i were back in the navy as we headed out into the lake i saw that there was no open water and it just rolls of toilet and as an engineer i know that what i saw is just part of it that under the water there are hundreds of miles of pipeline connecting the w the wells form a geometrically exact pattern carefully space to tap the oil in the most efficient manner creole in the venezuelan government work together to make sure that the field is planned for the best long term utilization of the country's oil resources for example a careful check is kept on the pressure of the gas which forces most of the oil to the surface without pumping the gas which comes up with the oil is not wasted or burned off seven miles offshore i saw one of our huge plants which injects the natural gas back into the formation that maintains the pressure to keep the oil flowing i'll be working on the barges a lot of the time and i have to speak spanish because ninety two percent of creoles employees are venezuela that includes a large number of the engineers and more than half of the supervisors like the tool pushers who bought the  employee relations policies are about the same to an oil companies here operate under modern labor law i already feel at home in my job even though i sometimes go to and from work in a boat or it's a different country and i'm a foreigner here but the venezuelans have already made me feel well all i have to do now is lick bad language problem and here's the latest on our house i've been looking over all the staff houses and my favorite is the kind built high off the ground to let the breeze under and incidentally provide a wonderful open air i was pretty happy about the possibility but it didn't work out as luck would have it the house has been assigned to another family who've been waiting some time meanwhile living in one of the quanta and so that's how we have to be moving into their on october first i rushed right over to see need just about everything we have a home except the kitchen sink so you gotta start packing you're prepared for a heavy social life too everything from bridge parties at home to sports at the club my favorite spot is the pool even though it's mighty lonely there without no fun at all really looked over the school it's also maintained by the company the principal is a north american but education is in english and spanish they try to make all the children and will start learning spanish in the first grade those kids made me feel a little ashamed of my spanish a lack of that everything i've described inside the oil can hold is now trying to get away from the old idea of a company eventually they want their people to live in regular town where that's possible i saw some results of this new policy when i visited creoles refinery and  we drove through the residential area where many of the homes were built by private contract partially financed by the company the houses are sold amended to anyone not just creole employees the worker is even helped with his down payment but after that he and his family are on their own just as in the united states instead of company commissary they have privately operated shopping for some of them started with loans from creel the idea of this community integration project is to make people independent instead of having to look to the company for every it's an course landing at micah t a right on the shore of the caribbean then we started up through the mountains on one of the most remarkable highways in the world they  it took us just twenty minutes to climb to three thousand feet the altitude of caracas suddenly we were in the city the downtown area is dominated by the central seam unbeliever a building development something like radio city except the super highways go through it and under i have the driver take me for a ride around the city he showed me the new sections in the east where just ten years ago there were sugar cane  some of the residential areas are almost  but others are so quiet and tranquil that you seem to be in another world since that first day i've spent most of my time studying spanish i'm even writing this letter between classes but tomorrow is sunday and i expect to see more of the city i told you how modern much of caracas is well if the rest of the place is modern they will have to call in a new word for university city believe me this is no ivy covered camp university city is one of the impressive sights of caracas another example of the prosperity oil has helped to bring to venezuela whose university isn't tucked away by itself it's part of the city and it provides the city with many things from medical care to a beautiful stadium for soccer and track and another for baseball the kind of ten year olds are especially proud of their low rent housing project it was apartment building in clusters on the hillside we have nothing like them at home but some things are just like all the new business sections the shop windows filled with good purchased in the united familiar look of all the american cars not to mention the traffic i was told that many families in caracas still live in grace's old homes like believe on showing only blank walls on the outside and looking toward beautiful inner paola's open to the s corporation that means i'm really learning the language now just wait until you hear me when you reach  well that's how it goes you work hard to impress your family and they end up telling the porter what luggage he had the fine it's good to have them here though and i'm looking forward to a good life with them during this assignment in venezuela