Judibana, the reputed “Garden City” of the Amuay oil park that is part of the Paraguaná Refining Complex (CRP) in Falcón State, is abandoned and in decline. As in other regions of the country, public services are very deficient: there is no water, the electric service fails, electric transformers on the poles burn out all the time, and on the road you have to be careful not to fall into “car-eating” holes.
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José Teo López, a resident of the town, explained that on the crossing of Juan Crisóstomo Falcón Avenue and 6th Street in Judibana, there was in a pothole that affected all the vehicles that dared passed by the crossing, since it is the main avenue of the city, so they decided to join together to repair it.
“A neighbor gave us cement, we looked for stones and fixed the hole. It was not repaired with asphalt, but with cement, although you can see the difference in color, at least we, the old people who live in Judibana, are not going to fall into it every time we come to this crossing in the community,” he said.
He pointed out that they are studying the possibility of applying the same solution in the different streets of the community, in joint work with the neighbors of each sector. “All of Judibana is full of potholes. This plan served as a test to put it into practice in the entire area.”
In this first try, López worked with Martín Capote, Juan Carlos Ocando and Jesús Urbina. He hopes that more people will join in to improve each area.
Judibana was a community that was born with the Amuay refinery, and its houses are even American-style. They are mainly home to oil workers and retirees from the oil company, but due to the Venezuelan diaspora, there now live mainly elderly people alone who have refused to leave their homes, even though their children and grand children have left the country.
The community is one of the prettiest in Paraguaná: its layout is perfect, and it was once known as “the garden city” due to its parks, plazas and green areas that were very well maintained. It has hospitals, a shopping center, bank offices, churches, plazas, walkways and, of course, the administrative building of the Amuay refinery.
“We have to do that work at the entrance to Neoa. I don’t believe that the manager of Neoa doesn’t see the big hole in the entrance, because he has to go through the place every day to go to his office,” Lopez questioned.
Needs abound
The residents of Judibana had always had priority attention from the CRP (Complejo Refinador Paraguaná). In fact, the public services of the residential area depend on the Paraguaná Refinery Complex. Unlike the other parishes and municipalities of Paraguaná, they had constant water through mains every day, and when there was some eventuality with any other service, it was repaired immediately.
“Right now we have serious problems, the CRP doesn’t have a transformer, and those who have been burned, the families who have been left without electricity due to the explosion of the transformers, have been without power for several days, because the CRP doesn’t have a transformer,” Lopez recalls, while referring to the fact that Calle 6 is currently without electricity due to the same problem.
They live in drought
On the other hand, they went from having water through water mains every day to every 45 days. “There is no ‘level’ (water in reservoir tanks), Hidrofalcón does not send water, the CRP has low levels. They are fighting over the water supply despite the fact that this is a community with elderly residents, who spent their lives working for the Amuay and Cardón refineries. These old people brought the country forward and now they are having a hard time. It was their due to rest in their homes in their retirement and now they spend their time walking around looking for water to solve their problems.”
The inhabitants of Judibana hope at some point to return to the garden city that characterized them for so many years, and also to have stable public services to meet the needs of its inhabitants.