[Roommate and friend of Mike Ruppert, Carlos Ruiz supplies us with details of Mike’s illnesses and a couple of photos of from the Venezuelan clinic where he has been receiving care.—CB]

LIVING WITH MIKE RUPPERT IN CARACAS

COMPOUNDING PROBLEMS AND THE DIFFICULTY OF POSITIVE THINKING

By Carlos Ruiz

© Copyright 2006, From The Wilderness Publications, www.fromthewilderness.com.  All Rights Reserved. This story may NOT be posted on any Internet web site without express written permission. Contact admin@copvcia.com. May be circulated, distributed or transmitted for non-profit purposes only.

November 2nd 2006, 3:54 PM[PST] – I have been an FTW subscriber for two years and am currently in Caracas. Mike and I have been living in the same apartment for just over a month.

Some time after Mike touched down in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, his “Burning Bridges” article was the dramatic new addition on the FTW website. I was sitting in a local net café no more than a week after myself arriving in Chavez country from my native England – similarly, with no intention of using the allocated return flight home.

There was hardly any suggestion, even in the subsequent two-part story, of the troubles involved for a 55-year-old making the move to a flamboyant (and often intimidating) Latin American culture with next to no knowledge of the language.

With few friends and in justifiable fear of stepping outside his Altamira ivory hotel in search of intelligent, communicable life, the average day had become a waiting game. Mike passed the time watching TV he couldn’t understand while making excruciatingly slow progress with elementary Spanish books and tapes.

During this period Mike was subject to a ‘date-rape’ drugging in which he awoke in his hotel room from a stupor to find his cash disappeared and credit cards maxed. His mundane routine had become too much, and one of his only solitary excursions to a nearby bar had resulted in a crime for which there was no evidence to present to anybody. Humiliated and confused for a long time after this, it was Ivan (a Venezuelan friend of mine) that later identified the drug as Burundanga.

Burundanga is the name of the plant itself; the root of the more commonly known drug named Scopalomine or simply truth-serum. Burundanga is especially dangerous in social settings, for it can be rubbed onto and absorbed by the skin itself. Within minutes you are turned into a pliant zombie, and can easily be manipulated to make multiple cash withdrawals.

I myself was the victim of an ineffectual attack together with a female friend of mine at a music event. She complained of feeling dizzy and then mild visual distortions. After being taken home she could not or did not feel able to sleep and spent the night at a friend’s house. My dose was lower still, and I could not report anything except a sensation similar to combining marijuana with alcohol.

Though waist-deep in bona fide Socialist Revolution, obvious clues are rarely found in the Eastern ‘bubble’ that represents safe, white, clean Caracas. For two months, Mike was insulated in a tribute to American cultural superiority, and his reasonable expectations of acceptance by the government – wholly unfulfilled – were eating at his confidence.

Mental stability is impossible when you have no income and feel $75 lighter each time you climb out of your hotel bed in the morning. Survival anxiety starts to kick in as you are repeatedly forced to sell precious remaining ounces of gold for $150 less than the market price. Your body’s defense systems drop off as energy is expended worrying and considering possibilities. Isolation from friends in an alien environment only compounds the increasing helplessness.

I had no idea what problems Mike was going through on our first meeting, but it soon became clear. Mike is almost definitely the most open person I have met, but is equally able to appear as if everything is fabulous while his world is crashing down around him. Sometimes it is difficult to know whether he is uncontrollably laughing or crying. Shortly after he was notified about his two kidney stones, I had to glance up at his face but yes, he was definitely laughing. “I’ve already had third degree burns and peritonitis,” he said; two of the five most painful experiences known to man.

It has been just over a month so far, but with more drama than any season of scripted TV. Sometimes funny, other times so catastrophic there wasn’t much I could say. Mike on occasions appeared so vulnerable in every sense. Results ranged from having a digital camera stolen from his backpack on a crowded morning subway train on the way to the hospital, to entering a restaurant but losing his footing and performing several heroic maneuvers on the wet floor before finally, and humbly, accepting defeat and crashing to the floor.

The medical problems seemed to cascade all at once. We walked from my apartment to the local ‘Barrio Adentro’ healthcare complex as Mike’s urinary problems and low energy levels worsened. These are the famed clinics, mostly filled with Cuban doctors sent to Venezuela in exchange for oil. We were instantly led into a triage-style hall of beds – 36 in total, and all were empty. A middle-aged Cuban doctor named Margarita (pictured below) was seated at a desk in the corner with two assistants and after a brief introduction, the consultation began. No paperwork. No waiting.

Dr. Margarita

While Margarita explained that we should return the next morning for a series of tests, Mike’s emotions overwhelmed him. In case you didn’t know, Mike was once left in a U.S. hospital bed with a ruptured appendix for four days without treatment due to lack of medical insurance. After being pressured to save his life, they performed the operation and then sent a bill for $50,000.

The picture below was taken on the following afternoon after completion of a urine test (high calcification of prostrate gland and urinary tract), blood test (elevated cholesterol and triglycerides, low blood sugar) and ultrasound scan (two kidney stones). We walked in the midday sun back to Margarita’s clinic, and on the way, Mike collapsed onto the stairs outside the Health Ministry building. He was quickly ferried downstairs and out the back, and before we knew it, Margarita was administering a blood pressure test (dangerously low) and a dose of high-strength Cuban coffee.

Barrio Adentro Clinic Waiting Room

This photo shows Mike sleeping off the caffeine hit. This is Margarita’s triage-style clinic, which is actually the “Miracle Mission” (Mision Milagro) department. The patients in the foreground are all waiting for eye cataract operations. Mike has that problem too, but it can wait.

The following day we went to the Universidad Bolivariana where they too have a Barrio Adentro hospital, for X-rays by a doctor who is a relative of our Venezuelan friend Ivan. Mike’s camera had been taken on the outward trip, so he was on his last legs both physically and spiritually by the time we arrived. He was seen without delay once again, as seems to be the norm for foreign patients. The doctor took one look at Mike, felt his skin and took the blood pressure – it was somewhere in the 90s over 60s. He was instantly given two liters of dextrose via IV and three hours later, the X-rays were complete. Mike stepped off the bed and declared himself ready to run a marathon.

On arriving back home, the long-distance runner was again stretched out. Symptoms of dizziness, tingling in the lips and fingers, and physical exhaustion were recurring more often and for longer periods. A phone call a few days later to Stan Goff confirmed what the doctors were unwilling to suggest without conclusive evidence – that some of Mike’s key problems were tell-tale signs of adult onset diabetes. The others remain a mystery.

Rapid service seemed to fade on our next excursion to a clinic some distance away where Mike had been referred for further examination of the urinary problem and the kidney stones. We arrived early, but after being instructed to return at lunchtime, we were told that the clinic’s urologist would not be back until January.

I always knew from reading FTW and Crossing The Rubicon how Mike perceived the world. But it was only from knowing him personally that I understood how he perceived and valued people. He not the supreme judge of character, perhaps too willing to give people the benefit of the doubt to deserve that accolade. However, he is nevertheless an expert in predicting human behavior when faced with given situations--in communicating with friends, enemies and those that cannot be placed neatly in either category. That is what I have learned from Mike, and why I now understand how I came to view him as a friend before we had ever met.