Crosses mark graves amid overgrown grass at Corazon de Jesus cemetery in Maracaibo, Venezuela, November 21, 2019. Death has become an overwhelming financial burden for many of Venezuela’s poorest, who already struggle to find dignity in life. They scrape together food and shelter needed to get through each day. So a relative's death becomes the breaking point in a country where most earn a minimum wage of roughly $3 a month. Some overcome the financial burden of a relative's death by renting caskets, a cheaper option than buying. Others turn to amateur morticians, who embalm bodies at home and convert wooden furniture into coffins. When families can't afford headstones at the Maracaibo public cemetery, the rain erases any sign of a grave. (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)





Jose Calderon lifts his shorts to show tubes that are part of his prostrate treatment in Maracaibo, Venezuela, November 20, 2019. The 86-year-old said the tubes should be changed monthly, but he's only been able to afford for them to be replaced twice this year. (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)





An oxidized coffin lies next to a grave that was dug up by thieves at “Corazon de Jesus” cemetery, or Heart of Jesus cemetery, in Maracaibo, Venezuela, November 21, 2019. Thieves often raid graves for valuables, while public cemeteries often go abandoned, overgrown with weeds. (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)





A man's body lies in a coffin before being cremated at a cemetery Maracaibo, Venezuela, November 23, 2019. The man's family said they cremated him because it is much cheaper than burial, and took his ashes home. (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)





Catholic women hold hands during a procession commemorating the feast day of Our Lady of Chiquinquirá, the patron saint of Zulia state, in downtown Maracaibo, Venezuela, November 18, 2019. Opposition leader Juan Guaidó this year launched a campaign promising to oust President Nicolás Maduro and return the nation to its bygone prosperity. While the power struggle plays out, millions of Venezuelans remain caught in the middle. (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)





Cemetery worker Denny Pereyra rests momentarily while digging graves for children in an area of the municipal cemetery reserved for common graves in Maracaibo, Venezuela, November 28, 2019. Death has become an overwhelming financial burden for many of Venezuela’s poorest, who already struggle to find dignity in life. (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)





Sergio Morales, right, and Joelvis Cantillo, build a simple coffin at their furniture workshop in Maracaibo, Venezuela, November 20, 2019. Two years ago the carpenters started building coffins for less than $100 instead of furniture due to the high demand for cheaper coffins. (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)





Community activist Carolina Leal uses a cell phone to light up the work area for Roberto Molero as he prepares the body of Teresa Jimenez, 91, after she died of natural causes in her home in Maracaibo, Venezuela, November 17, 2019. Molero embalms bodies with no training other than seeing it done during a decade that he work as a driver at a funeral home, while Leal assumes the role of funeral director in her poor and often violent Maracaibo neighborhood, hoping to rid families of unnecessary misery she's seen too many times. (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)





Fernando Gonzalez touches the head of his daughter Anabella as he looks at her body one last time in Maracaibo, Venezuela, November 27, 2019. Gonzalez said doctors told him his 11-month-old died of malnutrition, however, “Sepsis. Central nervous system infection” was written on her death certificate. The father said he was thankful his boss at the cemetery donated his daughter's wake and cremation services, because he didn't have the money for a funeral. (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)





An image of the Virgin Mary hangs from a brick wall next to the room where the corpse of Teresa Jimenez is prepared following her death from natural causes at the age of 91 in Maracaibo, Venezuela, November 17, 2019. The cost of transporting a body, buying a casket and burial plot for a funeral can run into the hundreds of dollars, or more, while most earn the minimum wage of roughly $3 a month as hyperinflation devours pay. (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)





Cemetery worker Roberto Jesus Sangroni, known by his friends as “Makuka”, covers the body of Nerio Jesus Garcia with lime, moments after his autopsy to help reduce the smell, two days after his death as he prepares the body for a wake burial at the municipal cemetery in Cabimas, Venezuela, November 30, 2019. Garcia's mother found his corpse with a gun shot between his eyes on the bank of Maracaibo Lake following a phone call from a prisoner that her son had escaped from jail. (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)





Miguel Blanco, who was born with Hydrocephalus, lays in a bed where his brother places a photograph of him when he was a toddler in Maracaibo, Venezuela, November 27, 2019. Blanco, 28, lives with his unemployed mother who can only afford to feed him once a day. (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)





Cemetery workers lift a corpse from a coffin to a metal plate as they prepare the body for cremation at a cemetery in Maracaibo, Venezuela, November 27, 2019. Some overcome the financial burden of a relative's death by renting caskets, a cheaper option than buying one. (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)





Carmen Garcia paddles a raft as she and her long-time boyfriend Juan Carlos Pirela start collecting their fish nets in hopes of a catch for food to eat in Lake Maracaibo in Cabimas, Venezuela, November 25 2019. For many in Maracaibo, Venezuela's economic crash in the last five years hit especially hard. Once a center of the nation's vast oil wealth, production under two decades of socialist rule has plummeted to a fraction of its high, taking down residents' standard of living. (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)





Zaida Bravo, who suffers Parkinson's disease and is malnourished, waits for dinner on her dirty mattress in her one room living quarters in Maracaibo, Venezuela, November 28, 2019. The 48-year-old's sister Ana Bravo brings her food when she can, but for the last four years the older sister has had trouble affording even rice or cornmeal. “We can't find her medicine or even know how to help her, so we're letting what happens happen”, Ana Bravo, 57, said. “Sometimes, I'm afraid to go inside and find her dead”. (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)





The figure of a human body stains the floor of a morgue inside the municipal cemetery in Cabimas, Venezuela, November 24, 2019. Some overcome the financial burden of a relative's death by renting caskets, turning to amateur morticians, and converting wooden furniture into coffins. (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)





Children sleep in the street near their mother's food stand where she sells food to people attending an event marking the feast day of Our Lady of Chiquinquirá, better know as “Chinita”, in downtown Maracaibo, Venezuela, November 17, 2019. For many in Maracaibo, Venezuela's economic crash in the last five years hit especially hard. Once a center of the nation's vast oil wealth, production under two decades of socialist rule has plummeted to a fraction of its high, taking down residents' standard of living. (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)





Roberto Parra carries the remains of his son Matias Alejandro alongside his wife Maria Isabel Parra and daughter Alejandra Parra at San Sebastian municipality cemetery before burying him in Maracaibo, Venezuela, November 27, 2019. Parra said his 19-day-old boy died after he was born with lung problems at a public hospital, where, after his wife was turned away from the first hospital, was left to deliver alone in a dirty chair before doctors rushed her up the stairs with her baby's head already exposed. Although the baby was born with respiratory problems, they were told to take him home because he could get sicker if they stayed. (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)