Mickey Mouse arrives to the temporary shelter. La Guaira, Venezuela, July 2026

Three weeks have passed since the earthquake.

Around the world, that is often enough for a disaster to begin disappearing from the headlines. News moves quickly. Another crisis emerges, another story takes its place, and gradually our attention shifts elsewhere.

Recovery, however, follows a very different calendar.

It does not unfold over days.

It is measured in months, and often years.

Over the past weeks, much of my work has revolved around understanding what recovery actually means. Humanitarian organisations often speak about the “transition from emergency response to recovery”, but behind those words are people trying to rebuild lives that changed within seconds.

One of the things that struck me most while visiting the affected areas was that, despite the destruction, life had already begun to return.

Children were playing again.

Small shops had reopened.

People were cleaning streets and removing rubble from their homes.

Fishing boats had returned to the sea.

Markets were beginning to fill with customers.

The first signs of recovery were everywhere.

Not because the disaster was over.

But because life refuses to stand still.

That is perhaps one of the greatest lessons humanitarian work has taught me.

Recovery does not begin when the last collapsed building is removed.

It begins much earlier.

It begins the first morning a family decides to sleep in their own neighbourhood again.

The first teacher opening a classroom.

The first shopkeeper lifting the shutters.

The first child laughing after days of fear.

The first neighbour helping another rebuild a wall.

These moments rarely appear on television.

Yet they are the true beginning of recovery.

During the past weeks I have also witnessed something that has filled me with enormous admiration.

The response did not begin with international organisations.

It began with Venezuelans.

Neighbours rescued neighbours.

Families welcomed those who had lost their homes.

Volunteers appeared everywhere.

One of them was my friend Giovanni, who immediately volunteered to serve on an ambulance, helping transport injured people during the emergency. He is only one example among thousands. Across the country, ordinary people simply asked themselves one question:

“What can I do to help?”

Perhaps that is the greatest strength of Venezuela.

Not the absence of hardship.

But the extraordinary ability of its people to stand together when hardship arrives.

International solidarity has been equally inspiring. Rescue teams travelled from across Latin America and Europe to work alongside Venezuelan emergency services and humanitarian organisations. Just a few days ago, I read the remarkable news that a Spanish Urban Search and Rescue Team had rescued a child alive from beneath the rubble more than seventy-two hours after the earthquake. In moments like these, hope becomes something tangible again.

As a humanitarian, I naturally think about funding, coordination, logistics and operational challenges.

But standing in La Guaira, looking at buildings I remembered from previous visits—some damaged beyond recognition, others simply gone—I found myself thinking less about infrastructure and more about people.

The buildings can be rebuilt.

The harder task is rebuilding lives.

Helping children feel safe enough to return to school.

Helping families recover their livelihoods.

Helping communities regain confidence that tomorrow can be better than today.

That work has only just begun.

In only a few weeks, I will conclude my time in Venezuela.

I wish the final chapter of my assignment had not included such a devastating earthquake.

Yet perhaps there is one final lesson this extraordinary country has given me.

Disasters reveal destruction.

But recovery reveals character.

Three weeks after the earthquake, what I remember most is not the collapsed buildings.

It is the determination of the people walking past them every morning, picking up another stone, reopening another shop, returning another child to school, and quietly rebuilding their future.

That is the Venezuela I will carry with me.