WORKERS’ PARADISE: Hungry Venezuelans Flee in Boats to Escape Economic Collapse.
One evening at the end of September, Ms. Piñero, 47, climbed aboard a boat in a small town on the country’s northern coast. She dropped to her knees, praying to God that she would survive the journey and find a better life in Curaçao.
The other passengers, tears in their eyes, began to pray too, some joining hands in a circle on the beach. They muttered hopes that the Coast Guard would not catch them, that they were good people, that they were mothers and fathers.
They waded chest-deep into the water, hoisting their few possessions overhead, and climbed into the boat. Its motor started and it steered toward the horizon.
Even the smuggler seemed distraught at the misfortune bringing him profits.
“I would prefer that the crisis ended and my business was over,” the smuggler said after they had left. “I would prefer a thousand times that there was no crisis and we could live in the Venezuela from yesterday.”
Can you guess what word NYT’s Nicholas Casey failed to use even one time in his report on Venezuela’s economic crisis?