A U.S. fleet off the coast adds to 'surreal' feel in Venezuela

U.S. warships steam toward the southern Caribbean.

- MERY MOGOLLÓN AND PATRICK J. MCDONNELL

TEENAGERS play ball and bike at Los Próceres, near the Fuerte Tiuna military base in Caracas, Venezuela.

The Trump administration denounces embattled “narco-president” Nicolás Maduro and doubles a bounty on his head to $50 million. Rumors of an invasion, coup or other form of U.S. intervention flood social media.

For the beleaguered people of Venezuela, mired in more than a decade of crisis — hyperinflation, food shortages, authoritarian rule and rigged elections — a new phase of anxiety is once again rattling nerves. Even so, Venezuelans are trying to soldier on.

“We try to keep up our activities, our schedules despite the uncertainty,” said Leisy Torcatt, 44, a mother of three who heads a baseball school in a nation where a passion for sports helps fend off despair.

“Our daily problems continue, but we cannot become paralyzed.... We keep on going forward trying to work out our differences," she said.

There is an inescapable sense here that matters are largely out of people's control. The massive antiMaduro street protests of past years did little to dislodge, or undermine, Maduro, and the opposition has long been deeply divided. Authorities have jailed dissenters and broken up coup attempts.

And now, once again, Venezuela appears to be in Washington's crosshairs.

"We have already seen it all," said Mauricio Castillo, 28, a journalist. "It's not that we have lost faith in the possibility of real change. But we are fed up. We cannot just stop our lives, put them on hold waiting for 'something' to happen." Here in the capital, Venezuelans are accustomed to the enhanced martial ritual: more blockaded avenues, more troops on the streets, more barricades shielding the presidential palace of Miraflores, where Maduro launches diatribes against the "imperialist" would-be invaders.