Author: Irina Echarry

For me it’s amazing to see people so involved in a simple game. You feel as if they have something of value at stake (be it even vanity or pride) every time the players come out onto the field.

“Why is he hitting it?” I asked myself as I watched from far as a young guy beat a pig. To its added misfortune, the animal had been condemned to live without seeing the sun in a thrown-together pen made of metal sheeting and rebar.

Several generations of Cubans never witnessed acts of repression in full public view. Recently seeing people on television violently “repudiating provocations” frightens me, regardless of towards whom it’s directed at. To again view acts of explicit violence committed by human beings arouses much sadness in me.

I saw him knock on the door of Pedro’s house. He stretched out his hand holding money and left with the packet in hand. He must have been barely nine. While he was walking I saw him raise the little box to his nose, close his eyes and take a deep whiff. Anyone would have thought he had breathed in the aroma of some kind of extremely rich candy.

If someone were to ask, “How did The Catcher in the Rye influence your adolescence?” they would certainly receive many varied and dissimilar replies. Some of us Cubans had the good luck to read J. D. Salinger’s novel in the precise moment that we needed it most.

In the beginning the complex had extreme laws regarding the adornment of one’s apartment. For aesthetic reasons, you couldn’t paint the face of your apartment in a color different from the rest. The areas in front and behind the buildings were communal. Activities were held there like meetings, parties or general clean-ups. We all felt responsible for our environment.

When I first began to write for this website, I published a diary entry about stray dogs. The problem of the abandonment of our loyal companions continues – so a question tormented me: loyal to whom? To be honest, I believed negligence was an incurable evil rooted deep inside many human beings. But a recent experience has given me a hope that once again lights up my days.

I don’t know his name; let’s call him Ramon, that’s the least important. He’s thin, brown-skinned and appears to have racked up a good number of years. I see him daily seated on the wall in front of the bakery, carping quietly about his problems.

In front of my building are two benches where several youth from the block sit to talk. In these cool January days, when I’ve taken the dog downstairs for a walk, I’ve sat near them and have been able to hear their discussions.

Traveling is a constant in the thoughts of Cubans. I wonder if this is because of the prohibitions on traveling abroad (Cubans who wish to travel must obtain a letter of invitation from someone in the destination country; they cannot just apply for a visa and then go directly to the airport to buy a ticket).