Greetings from Mykanos.

Adriano tells me that August hereabouts has traditionally being the month for flying kites. Why? Because it tends to be windier than average.  This is borne out by August being well and truly hurricane season in the Caribbean. Witness the death and destruction caused recently to the island of Dominica by tropical storm Erika.

Here, we have roadside vendors selling a range of kites, from the massive to the meager, and eager boys trying desperately to get their chosen aerial apparatus off the ground and into the updrafts. Unfortunately the convection currents are not always consistent.

There is one blowhard that is depressingly consistent however and that is Nicholas Maduro, current President of Venezuela and heir to the so-called Bolivarian revolutionary legacy of the late Hugo Chavez.

Currently President Maduro is creating serious shenanigans in the area bordering Colombia and Venezuela.

The Colombian town of Cúcuta and the Venezuelan town of San Antonio del Táchira are divided by the shallow and narrow Táchira River, but for generations they have essentially formed one community with many people from both countries living across the border in the other. San Antonio, and its nearby neighbour San Cristobel, are just like suburbs of Cúcuta. In fact, thousand of kids living in San Antonio troop across the bridge spanning the Rio Táchira every day to attend schools, all of which are on the Colombian side.

However it is not just school kids that use that bridge. There has also always been a constant flow of traded goods crossing the border, and a great deal of smuggling; both the opportunistic type, where subsidised goods from the socialist paradise of Venezuela are smuggled into Colombia and sold at a profit (petrol is cheaper in Venezuela, whereas toilet rolls and laundry detergent are available in Colombia), and the more sinister drug smuggling, often carried out by guerrilla groups and paramilitaries associated with drug cartels.

It was a contretemps concerning the latter that led to the current crisis.

According to President Maduro it was Colombian paramilitaries who attacked members of a Venezuelan anti drug-smuggling team, injuring some of them. According to other Venezuelan sources, it was a disagreement between members of the Venezuelan security forces and their partners in the Cartel de los Soles (Cartel of the Suns) drug cartel, with whom they are in partnership (allegedly at a high level in the Venezuelan military).

Now President Maduro would say that this account is a fabrication by the U.S., Colombia and Colombian ex-President Uribe, who together are plotting to assassinate him and end the socialist Bolivarian revolution … and maybe some people believe that. What would I know?

What I do know is that President Maduro used the incident as an excuse to expel thousands of Colombians living on the Venezuelan side of the border. He closed the bridge, forcing them to wade across the river carrying what belongings they could on their backs, and bulldozed their houses, so that they could not return. He claimed they were all Colombian paramilitaries, although they were obviously just hapless and helpless families caught in the middle of a political charade.

The irony is that many of the expelled Colombians were in Venezuela at the invitation of former President Hugo Chavez, who welcomed any Colombian who shared his Bolivarian revolutionary socialist ideals, and who would vote appropriately for him as President. They fulfilled their purpose, are no use to Maduro as he has done such a bad job that even those who believe in socialism want to get rid of him, so now they are being deported in their droves.

The further irony is that Maduro himself was born in Colombia, near Cúcuta, and his family moved to Venezuela in the same way as did those he is kicking out. He is now starting to expel Colombians living in Caracas, as Colombians are obviously responsible for all of Venezuela’s present woes … rampant inflation, shortages of essentials, declining living standards etc.

And so we are at an impasse.

President Maduro claims all the negative things reported about the mistreatment and deprivation of human rights of the Colombians being deported are lies, and as he controls all media in Venezuela, the Venezuelan media agree.

In the meantime, President Santos of Colombia says he is going to take Venezuela to the International Criminal Court.

But he has to be a bit careful as Maduro can influence the never-ending talks called ‘the peace process’ (3 years and running) taking place in Havana, Cuba, between the Colombian government and the ‘Marxist’ FARC guerrillas. It is Santos’ only hope for a place in history as he has been disastrous at everything else.

Yesterday however, I read that even the FARC are distancing themselves from their erstwhile champion and protector, the increasingly rabid Maduro. They feel he is out of order and are siding with the Colombian government, which is quite a surprise in itself.

So what will happen?

Well, I am no pundit, but I suspect the real reason for the brouhaha is to give President Maduro an excuse to declare a national emergency, impose martial law and suspend the forthcoming elections, which he is almost certain to lose, as the low oil price means that he cannot bribe the electorate as he did last time.

So there you go; quite enough politics for one Letter I would have thought, and please accept my sincere apologies for imposing it on you. It’s just that, particularly with the huge focus on refugees currently trying to get into Europe, I doubt anyone outside our region has heard about this and thought you might find it of interest.

At the farm we are having a rather different challenge with visitors.

As always we are awash with birdlife, some local, some visiting from afar. Colombia comes first in the number of bird species … exceeding 1,900 … and even though they don’t all live in the coffee region our dawn chorus rivals the massed London choirs doing ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ on the last night of the Proms.

We have always put peeled plantain out for them on a feeding table (as if they can’t peck through the skin themselves!!) and even though they have been hopping and chirping in and around the trees for many thousands of years before we moved in, Adriano believes that if we don’t put plantain out for them they will go hungry.

Unfortunately our pussies are of the same mind, believing that if we don’t have our feathered friends in and around the place they, our furry friends, will go hungry. And they are all very adept hunters; even the wobbly Torsalino.

So when our avian acquaintances are too lax in their choice of perch, not noticing the silent, still, stealthy sicario (local term for assassin) secreted nearby, we have to try and save them from becoming an amuse-bouche prior to a bowl of Whiskas by offering them something safer to sit on.

Which, so far, has been me.

Needless to say, I feel very privileged and not a little humbled to be able to offer a safe haven in time of need.

Now if only Nicholas Maduro wasn’t such a  … well never mind