Author: Veronica Vega

It’s understandable that tourists who visit us (if they don’t just want the postcard that Cuba sells them) want to meet some native Cubans, talk in a pleasant space and listen to opinions firsthand, as it’s impossible to get to know the country in just a few days.

I found out about them from a leaflet a HT colleague sent me and thanks to the adoption network they’ve created on the internet, I was able to put Pangur up for adoption, a pussycat I took off the street. Now, they are helping me to spread the image of a puppy my son and I saved after he was hit by a car.

The truth that Cubans don’t dare to publicly speak in their own country, has been continuously manifested in an exodus which has lasted just as long as the Cuban Revolution has.

Martin Guevara’s article “How it felt to be a child of worms” made me reflect on where and how the distorted feelings that make people believe they have the right to publicly humiliate others originated in Cuba.

Time frames are symbolic, but a new year is always an opportunity for us to settle debts. Therefore, I’d like to thank the readers who commented on my post “About Freedom”, apologizing for such a late response and to answer some of the questions put forward.

I was inspired to write this post by a recent conversation I had with other HT colleagues. We were talking about countries where people have freedom of speech in other countries and how it relates to Cuba.

Cuba is experiencing an awakening. During the mourning period for the passing of Fidel Castro (sincerely or pretending to do so), people began to question matters and there were unspoken or explicit displays of relief.

With the harmlessness that indirect references give us (films, comments made by emigre friends or relatives), Cubans make a god out of US citizens, even though they have great geographical, cultural and political differences.

Everybody knows that death sustains life and that life sustains death. Maybe it´s because of this undeniable fact that a group of friends gathered together to remember the poet Juan Carlos Flores on the day that he would have turned 54. We had an extraordinary experience.

Who doesn’t remember the emotions we had when we faced life at the peak of our youth? The discovery of requited love and the strength to dream which we find along with it, the power to go headfirst into the future…