Blog 355 Part 1 – A Hero Named Juan – Blog Written 31 May 2026

 This Blog is about my friend Juan Acosta Paredes, a very unassuming man who is one of the few genuine heroes I know.

This is a photo of a hero I know called Juan.  I took this photo in 2011 soon after I met him for the very first time.  

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I found these definitions in Merriam-Webster when I googled the word “hero”.

1 (a)  “A mythological or legendary figure often of divine descent endowed with great strength or ability” “These records recount a rich collection of mythic heroes, gods, and goddesses.” —Miriam Van Scott b “an illustrious warrior or soldier” “… explaining that he was at work on behalf of the war hero Andres Alvino Cáceres …” —Maria Arana c “a person who shows great courage” “the hero of the hurricane rescue” d “a person admired for achievements and noble qualities” “His father has always been his hero.” “… Spinoza and Einstein, who are heroes for the human species …” —Christopher Hitchens

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I can define a hero much more easily than Merriam-Webster.

My last Blog focused on some of the Rogues in my personal Rogues Gallery.

A hero is someone who is the complete opposite of a Rogue.

A hero is someone who keeps going no matter how impossible it is to keep going.

A hero is someone who never – unless death stops him - breaks his word.  See? It is easy to identify a hero.

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This is another photo of Juan I took shortly after he first arrived in Australia in 2011.

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Juan Acosta Paredes was born in Caracas, Venezuela and was brought up in an urban slum called a Barrio.  There are many barrios in Venezuela.  Juan’s father did not stay long enough for Juan to ever know him very well.

Not many decades ago, Venezuela was one of the richest countries in the world.  It has huge oil reserves and it was a founding member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

Juan’s mother managed to find work at one of the universities in Venezuela and because she was a university employee, Juan was permitted to study at the university without having to pay fees. When he was 20, Juan moved from Caracas to Maracay City in Aragua State and studied Environmental Engineering in the Central University of Venezuela.  His university studies lasted from March 1987 to December of 1994.

Juan graduated with a Bachelor in Environmental Engineering and majored in Agronomic Crops.

If all this seems confusing, I can translate it into simple English.

Juan has an almost magical ability to turn land that has been poisoned by human beings into clean, wonderful land that once again produces nourishing food that is not poisonous in any way.

Juan established his own land remediation business in Venezuela and began turning landfill dumps into clean land again.  

Venezuela was very fortunate to have him and his wife Alicia as citizens, but Venezuela turned on all of its citizens except for those on the governing elite whose only aim was to steal the wealth of the country and transfer that wealth into their own bank accounts.  As Venezuela plunged ever closer towards poverty, the governing elite watched their massive, illegally gained wealth, grow steadily.

Initially, the head of the gang of thieves who plundered Venezuela was a former military officer named Hugo Chavez.

This is what Wiki says about Chavez.

Born into a middle-class family in Sabaneta, Barinas, Chávez became a career military officer. After becoming dissatisfied with the Venezuelan political system based on the Puntofijo Pact, he founded the Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement-200 (MBR-200) in the early 1980s. Chávez led the MBR-200 in its unsuccessful coup d'état against the Democratic Action government of President Carlos Andrés Pérez in 1992, for which he was imprisoned. Pardoned from prison two years later, he founded the Fifth Republic Movement political party, and then receiving 56.2% of the vote, was elected president of Venezuela in 1998. He was reelected in the 2000 Venezuelan general election with 59.8% of the vote and again in the 2006 Venezuelan presidential election, with 62.8% of the vote. After winning his fourth term as president in the 2012 Venezuelan presidential election with 55.1% of the vote, he was to be sworn in on 10 January 2013. However, the inauguration was cancelled due to his cancer treatment, and on 5 March at age 58, he died in Caracas.

It is possible that Chavez genuinely won the election for President of Venezuela in 1998, but the voting in his other three elections was a complete fraud – reminiscent of a joke that went the rounds in Australia in the 1960s about elections in Russia.
This was the joke:

Question: Did you hear about the thief who broke into the Kremlin? Answer: No Question: He broke into the Kremlin and stole Next Year’s election results!

Chavez was another criminal who cared about nothing except his own money supply.

And the people of Venezuela suffered hugely as a result.

Contrary to what we usually think, most thefts are committed against those who have the least.  Those who are wealthy are much more difficult targets for thieves.

Chavez stole vast amounts from the poor.

The result for Juan of the mass theft by Chavez was that at the end of March 2011, he got off a plane in Adelaide and somehow found his way into the city centre.

He knew no one and had nowhere to stay.  He spoke not a word of English.

Juan walked from the Adelaide city centre up Glen Osmond Road and found a motel with a vacant room.  He stayed in the motel for a week.

Why had Juan made the huge trip from Venezuela to Adelaide?

Juan and his wife Alicia were dismayed by what was happening in their beloved Venezuela and realized there was no longer any future for them or their children.  They knew if they did not get out soon, they might never be able to get out.

Juan spoke only Spanish and arrived in Adelaide on a student visa to study English in the Carrick Institute on North Terrace, Adelaide.  

Juan finished his English language course in September 2011 and returned to Venezuela, complying with the requirements of his visa.  

Juan probably did not know it then and would definitely laugh if you told him this now, but in March 2011 Juan had begun his journey of transformation from “ordinary person” into a special breed of person called hero.

I am so proud to be able to tell you that Juan is my friend.

To be continued …