Venezuelans in South Florida Stop Work To Gather After Hugo Chavez Death

Employees at a Venezuelan-owned business reacted to Chavez's death

Marcos Solortano moved to South Florida with his family 10 years ago because he says Venezuela wasn’t a place for anybody to grow up.

“I came here because the government didn’t work. The insecurity in Venezuela was really bad so that’s why I came here to the United States," said Solortano.

He just started working at Venezuela Aqui, a Venezuelan packaging and immigration consulting office in Davie.

Maria Sapikas is the manager.

“We work for Venezuelan people for as long as 12 years," she said.

Since they work closely with the South American country, they have been paying close attention to President Hugo Chavez and his illness.

Marcos says he even followed it closely on Twitter.

“That’s how we keep track of the days that Chavez has been absent," he said.

The people at Venezuela Aqui are usually hard at work serving the community but as soon as they got wind that Hugo Chavez had died,  they celebrated.

They called family members and continued to cheer as they watched the news and the people in the streets but just as soon as the joy set in reality hit quickly.

Sven Mathura is another employee at Venezuela Aqui and he said: “We really don’t know where we stand so we’re hoping that we’ll have some sort of stability in the country, there’s a lot of new things that need to be changed a lot of laws but we really don’t know so were hoping for a change.”

Even though emotions of Chavez death are mixed. They say they will still celebrate with their countrymen here in South Florida
 

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