By her early 30s, Anamaría Font was a tenured professor, owned an apartment in Caracas, and was teaching and pursuing research in string theory. “I could travel, I could get support, I could get grants to buy computers,” says Font. That was in the late 1980s. “This is unthinkable now. Everything has changed. All of those opportunities have disappeared.”
In the past few years, Venezuela’s economy has nosedived. The oil-rich country has gone from being the wealthiest per capita in Latin America to experiencing the deepest financial recession anywhere in decades. Hyperinflation has made food, medical supplies, and other basic needs unavailable or unaffordable. People who once lived comfortably are now scavenging the streets. And Venezuelans are leaving the country in droves—in the first part of this year, an estimated 5000 departed each day.
Siberian-born journalist Anatoly Kurmanaev wrote in the Wall Street Journal on 26 May that Venezuela’s collapse “has been far worse than the chaos” he experienced in the post-Soviet meltdown. For most ordinary Venezuelans he knows, the “foreordained victory” of Nicolás Maduro’s reelection to the presidency on 20 May “snuffed out the last glimmer of hope that their lives can improve through democratic and peaceful means. What’s left is exile or further misery.”
For now, at least, Font is staying in the country where she was born and has spent most of her life. But she retired last year, earlier than she’d ever intended. And she is looking for new opportunities. “We are going through a lot of hardship. We sacrifice time, health, and energy. What for? And how long can we do it?”
PT: Where did you go to college?
FONT: Simón Bolívar University. At the time it was new, and it was the best the country could offer. Many professors were foreigners. The libraries were good, the labs were good. The students were good. I liked biology, chemistry, science, mathematics. I was talking to people at the university, and the people in physics were very nice. They were trying to attract new students, and they got me.
After I graduated, I went to graduate school at the University of Texas at Austin. Compared with other students, my level of preparation was high.
PT: Did you like Austin?
FONT: One reason I liked it a lot was because there were so many Latin American students there in physics. It was very lively—Fernando Quevedo [now head of the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy] and Cliff Burgess were there. There were many good people. The relativity group was good. Also, Steven Weinberg had arrived there a year before, and John Wheeler was there. Weinberg was active in inviting people who worked at the frontiers, in the hot topics of the time.
PT: What did you do after graduate school?
FONT: I went to France for a postdoc, and after two years there I went back to Caracas. My PhD was paid by a fellowship from the Venezuelan government, and the condition was that I had to return and work in academia. I felt it was my obligation to go back, and I wanted to go back. I had a very good offer from the Universidad Central [Central University of Venezuela], salaries were fine, working conditions were decent.
At the beginning I had to teach a lot. I don’t know how I managed to teach and do research. I had to go somewhere else to use what was at the time email—it was called BITNET. I lived one hour away from the university and used public transportation. But I was very productive. I got tenure after about two years. I also got a prize from the Polar Foundation in Caracas. That helped economically. With part of the prize, a loan from the university, and my savings, I bought an apartment.
PT: What did you like about working in Venezuela?
FONT: When I started my career, the country was scientifically strong and getting stronger. Like me, many people had returned after having government fellowships abroad, and research at the universities and other institutions was improving—it was getting to a very good level. Salaries were competitive, even with the United States and other places.
I am in the faculty of science, which includes biology, chemistry, mathematics, and computer sciences. My main research subject is the application of string theory to the construction of models of fundamental interactions. I look at string compactifications and their duality symmetries and analyze phenomenological implications of string models.
Overall there are many women on the faculty; there were and still are. Ever since I was in university, I always wanted to have an academic life here. But now, the young people who finish their undergraduate or graduate studies don’t want to take up positions at Venezuelan universities.
PT: Can you still work productively in Venezuela?
FONT: No. In 2016 I was still working, finishing projects, starting new ones. But since July or August of last year, conditions have gotten much worse. Internet is very poor. We have shortages of paper and ink. In my department, eight people resigned in the past year. Compared with two or three years ago, about a third of the students have left, and no new ones have been coming. This is no longer a place to do research.
These days, I don’t do much in Caracas except go back and forth between home and the university. If I want to go to the movies or to the theater, it would be expensive for me with my salary. Everything is changing, even as we speak. Prices are going up and up. And security is poor. I don’t stay in the office until late, as I used to. It’s not safe. I go home before dark.
I myself took the decision to retire. Some years ago, I thought this was absurd; I would never retire when I was still young and productive. But then I realized it’s hard with my salary to feed myself or to have a decent quality of life. It’s no longer possible to pay for medical costs or to travel. I realized that if I want to do research, I will have to go somewhere else.
There are also shortages of medicine. I have suffered that myself. I had to have a biopsy, and there were no needles. I had to wait until needles arrived. I am at an age now where I could have health problems, and if you need special medical attention or facilities, these things are hard to find. When you are worried about surviving, taking care of your family, your health, you cannot concentrate on work. There are still people who do it. I try.
PT: Do you still do research?
FONT: Yes. It’s what keeps me going.
PT: What contributes most to the problems in Venezuela?
FONT: Several economic and political actions, or lack thereof, contribute. The country is continuously printing money and not removing exchange controls, which ends up hampering industry and fueling the black market and corruption. The government has installed an assembly with supra-constitutional powers that can issue arbitrary decrees contrary to existing laws.
And the state-owned oil company is not producing enough to keep the country going. The sanctions by the US and Europe further limit the government’s access to funds. They are imposed on some government officials or government companies. They are not directed at the people, but they make the government’s handling of the economy more erratic, more irresponsible, and we feel the effects. I don’t know what the international community could do to help. They could do concrete things like send medications or food, but then the Venezuelan government has to allow for that, and it doesn’t.
The situation has been getting worse and worse since about 2012. But it’s been really bad for about a year. That’s when prices got completely out of control. I honestly don’t know how to improve the situation, how things can change. That is part of the uncertainty that makes life so hard.
PT: What are your plans?
FONT: I don’t know. Since I am now retired, I don’t have to teach. I may go somewhere else, where I can get a scholarship for a few months, and then return to Caracas. I retired to have a Plan B, to have more freedom. I am not planning to apply for jobs, but maybe I can continue to get support in Spain, Germany, and Trieste for short times. Since 2015, every time I have gone abroad I got my tickets paid and help with expenses. What I manage to save, I can use the next time I travel, or for my expenses, my savings, my future.
And I would like to teach again. I was teaching until the end of January, and I had very good students. I think of these young, promising students, and now there are many courses that don’t have professors. Or they have professors who don’t have experience. People who graduated recently, even people who have only an undergraduate degree, teach advanced courses because the faculty have left or retired. But there are still very good, motivated students. I want to be a professor for these students.
PT: Is that why you stay in Venezuela?
FONT: I still feel Caracas is my home. I have my house, my books, and my mother is here. To start again would take a lot of energy, and I am not sure I have it. But maybe I will have to put myself to the test.
