Life as an expat in Maturin

1. Are there good paediatricians?
Yes, there are.  All over Venezuela you can find good doctors.  I don't know who is good in Maturin, but I'm sure you can find good pediatricians there.  Obviously not every doctor is good so you will have to ask around.

2. I know that getting simple grocery items (milk, toilet paper, baby products) are scarce. Anyone can recommend ways of making this issue easier to deal with? Can anyone provide information on how they cope with this issue?

The only "easy" way to mitigate it is with money.  If you have the money you can pay 2-5 times the marked priced of the goods to street vendors (as a reference, powered milk costs 32 BsF (32 cent USD) and it is sold at 150-200 BsF (1.5 to 2 dollars usd).  Otherwise there's no easy way to mitigate it (you would need contacts with people that have access to it)..  If you are earning in USD it should be easy as the regular prices of food are very low compared to other places. 

Things like meat and chicken will be hard to come by though.  You will find them but only the expensive cuts/versions.  Not the cheap ones.  Again if you have enough money it won't be an issue

Another reference.  An EXTREMELY well payed engineer earns 300 dollars a month in venezuela, that should be enough to maintain a family of 4 (if doesn't have to pay rent). how much are you gonna get payed ?

3. Are fresh produce (fruits and vegetables) easily available? 
Yes. they are.  Again price is the only issue but these are found everywhere (unlike milk) and they are "cheap" in international standards, they are getting expensive for us though.

4. Upon arrival at the airport, do customs officers have a record of seizing items from your suitcase?
Yes and no,  I do not recommend to check in your luggage Colognes, jewelry, perfumes, laptops, cameras or other valuables.  The "Airport personel" are the real issue as they may find a way to open your bags somewhere before the baggage claim.  So try to bring valuables on your carry on.  Or bring them along in BOX as cargo with insurance (make sure they will pay in USD and not in Bolivares if something is missing).  Smaller things are more likely to be stolen. 

Usually (not always) if you have your valuables in your suitcase by the time you claim your baggage you won't have problems with the Customs officer.  However they might be retained if the officer believes it is merchandise and will ask you to present a receipt and pay taxes for them.  This is not that common but it happens if you have a lot of "new in the box" items.  Or if they just want an excuse to get money from you.  Just be aware of this issue and bring the receipts of whatever you have in case you get a one of "those" officers.

5. Are there good day-cares and pre-schools?
Here you have 2 problems. 
1) Money:  day cares are EXPENSIVE for venezuelans (if you are earning 3000-6000 USD it won't matter to you)
2) Pre-school: You might have problems finding a place to enroll your children.  Since your baby is not going into pre-school for a couple of years, it shouldn't be a problem as you can start looking pretty soon

6. Are there social and leisure activities that are children oriented (swim, music, gymnastic classes)?
Don't know.  There should be some

7. How difficult is it to obtain a Venezuelan Driver's Licence
You need to have a valid visa to get one.  Other than that it depends on the place.  Don't know how difficult is in maturin.

Thank you very much for your feedback Gunflame . Very much appreciated. The more feedback I get, my anxiety about the move reduces.

Hi everyone,

My family and I will be relocating to Maturin in Feb 2015 from Kuala Lumpur Malaysia.
My concerns are:

1) Are there any specific expat community to live in Maturin?
2) What are your thoughts on the San Miguel Golf an Country Club?
3) Activities for kids...specifically toddlers? Are there Nurseries/Montessori available for my son as he is accustomed to nursery 5 days a week here in KL along with other activities such as swimming, little gym, playgroups and outdoor play.
4) The previous post stated that milk is scarce. Any particular reason?
5) Are cars expensive?

Thanks in advance!

1) Don't know... Maturín is a very small city, I would qualify it as a medium size town instead of city. I haven't been to Maturin in like 7 years, and the few times I went there I only spent a few days.  I do not think you will find a strong expat community but I could be wrong. 

There are some Expat communities that are usually found in every city in Venezuela,  Chinese, Italians, Spanish and Middle Eastern (arabs/lebanese/turkish communities).  I'm pretty sure you will find some presence of them in Maturín. 

2) Don't know if it is well kept or not.  Usually golf clubs are for the wealthy and if you earn 1000 USD a month in Venezuela you can consider that you have a very high income. Never been there, don't know anything about it.

3) How old is your kid, boy or girl? Yes, there should be nurseries in Maturin, though they are expensive for our standards.  Usually activities for toddlers are not common in Venezuela (age 1 to 4).  Toddlers in here spend most of their day in day care or at home with their family (grandparents, mothers or a hired caretaker).  Maybe the country club or the nursery will offer you some special activities, but I don't think there will be many.

Outdoor play in Maturin seems highly unlikely for 2 reasons.  The weather is extremely hot over there, a lso there are some security concerns so I doubt anyone would want to take the responsibility of watching several toddlers in a park.  After the 4th year of age things get easier as you have several alternative, like dance, music, martial arts, baseball and other things that the kid can do. 

4) Basic economics.  Basically our economy is very screwed up and the goverment is more worried about stealing than fixing it.  The second worry they have is to win elections so there's not much production and well, it is a whole can of worms, but our economy is crap right now.  Like I said the only easy way to fix it is to have enough money to buy overpriced products, other than that you will fight scarcecity like everyone else.
Note: Overprice products means paying 3.00 USD for 1 Kg  of powder milk instead of 0.70 USD.  1Kg of powder milk can produce between 8-12 liters of milk depending how you prepare it (I like it thick so it is 8 L for me).

5) Yes, they are very expensive.  I'm about to sell my car. It is a Hyundai Getz, 8 years old, 100k kilometers, and I'm planning to sell it for 8000 USD (at Black market prices).  The problem is that new cars are NOT that expensive, but they are IMPOSSIBLE to get. 

Something VERY important.  While officially we have 3 different exchange rates for the USD (6,3 BsF, 12 BsF or 50 BsF for 1 USD) there's the 4th and UNOFFICIAL rate.  This rate is over 120 BsF per USD and it is the rate you will want to sell your USD to make them worthwhile.  When I say 8000 USD I mean 8000*120 .  If for example you take the next rate (50 BsF/USD) you would need almost 20.000 USD to buy my car.

Thank you very much Gunflame for your very helpful and insightful response. If I have any more questions I would be sure to post here.

I would like to emphasize that I do NOT recommend anyone to come live here at this point in time.  Things are bad and they will get worse.  However, it is still possible to come to Venezuela and live "somewhat comfortable" but you will still have to deal with a lot of issues that seem bizarre and incredible everywhere else in the world.

Remember even if you have the money you WILL have trouble with the scarcity of goods, it is just that money will allow you to mitigate the problem (mitigate is not the same as erradicate).

Oh I almost forget, while cars, spare parts and mantainance are expensive, gas is basically free, so if you used to spend 200 USD in gas a month here you will spend about 1 USD a month.  There have been talks to increase the price of gasoline to more "realistic levels", even if that happens I highly doubt it will be more than 40 USD a month (4000% price increase)