Author: Veronica Vega

Reading the Havana Times interview with Carles Bosch, director of the documentary Balseros, I remembered the impact the documentary had on me. As for any Cuban marked by the experience of emigration, every character became a kind of alter ego whose destiny I could not be indifferent to.

El post de Ia colega Yusimí Rodríguez “Un pretexto para hablar de racismo”, me recordó una conversación que tuve hace tiempo, con una amiga. Ella, que por ser negra había padecido desde su infancia manifestaciones de segregación, al final del debate estuvo de acuerdo conmigo en lo relativas que pueden ser las causas de discriminación.

I thank Yasser Farres Delgado for having taken the trouble to read and reply to my post Where’s our common sense? The simple fact of debating about this regrettable reality is a way of pulling ourselves out of the apathy we suffer.

Death is such a taboo for us that any news of it takes us by surprise. If the deceased was young and, to the best of our knowledge, healthy, our stupefaction is combined with a sense that they were cheated.

When I interviewed a Babalawo [a priest of the Yoruba, or Santería, religion] a few years ago for Havana Times, I was alarmed at the murky vapors emanating from the religious offerings that are common sights in Havana.

I can’t help thinking how old and oft-repeated this scene is in my memory; and in an effort to avoid the effects of the heat and the near claustrophobia, I gaze outside. I observe the dome of the Capitol building, now bristling with walkways and veiled in mesh. Then, I hear someone behind me say…

I wonder what kind of debate we would have if everyone exposed what they are protecting from the word go, where everyone was aware of their unavowed commitments, and whether that could be a point of departure for change, beyond cyberspace, in the tangible Cuba.

Some years ago, I interviewed Cuban writer and filmmaker Elvira Rodriguez Puerto, who lives in Munich. When I asked her why she left Cuba, she replied: “Every time a Cuban who travels abroad decides not to return to Cuba, people say: ‘they stayed, they didn’t come back!’…”

I have the sensation that Cuba is changing at a much more frenzied rhythm than can be perceived by plain sight.
When I talk with friends and acquaintances, the twists in the conversation reveal a surprising and frightening panorama.

If there is something we can reproach progress for is having weakened human beings in terms of self-control. The virtuosity of machines, our high-tech prodigies are useless if humanity does not come to terms with those things it cannot change: attachment, suffering, mortality.