“Boys don’t cry, damn it!” How many times have we heard this? I, for one, heard it many a time from my father, scolding my younger brother for crying over something (being hungry, tired, etc.). My poor, misguided family forced the boys to swallow their pain.
When, on December 17, Presidents Obama and Castro announced a prisoner exchange and the restoration of relations, millions of Cubans living on both sides of the Strait of Florida began to speculate.
If we allowed ourselves to be persuaded by the news going around the Internet, we would conclude Cuba has one of the worst educational systems in the world – and that’s not the case.
I’ve heard that shame is popularly known as the “secret” or “hidden” emotion. We’ve all experienced the feeling at one point in our lives, an episode we do not wish to share with anyone, not even our closest friends.
Today I will only share one of the moments we should be prepared for, but that, even so, never fails to inspire deep emotions. The youngest of my girls is seven and in the first grade at a day school in the area of San Justo.
I’ve been hearing that sleep is one of the most important activities in a person’s life since I was a little girl. “People who don’t get enough hours of sleep are always irritable or in a bad mood,” my grandmother used to say.
In recent weeks, social networks were once again filled up with comments about the life – or, better said, the death – of the world-famous leader of the Cuban revolution, Fidel Castro. We even talked about his possible death at home…
As of late, I haven’t been able to sleep all too peacefully, it must be the daily worries that have multiplied since I find myself out of work. The fact of the matter is that my nights are filled with strange dreams, sometimes nightmares, like the one I’m about to recount.
“Let’s go, time to brush your teeth and go to bed,” I say to my children from the kitchen, while I prepare their school lunches and drink a cola I got for my birthday. “Why do we always have to go to bed so early, mom?” one of them grumbles.
I have a little girl for a neighbor who has the great fortune of having a foreign father. Don’t jump to any conclusions: I don’t believe Cubans are worth less or generally worse than foreigners. On the contrary…