Jorge Milanes’s Diary

My friends and I filed on in. Once inside, someone began to turn down the lighting as a brave soldier among the recruits sang the significance of the tradition, which was all done in a fairly theatrical manner.

Over the last few days I’ve had problems with the telephone here at work. It seems that changes are being made to the local network. Nonetheless, I came up with a way to communicate personally.

To live in Old Havana is to enter into direct contact with living folklore: people playing the drums or singing to the rhythm of salsa or dancing reggaeton to sound blasting from a car cruising down the avenue.

To get to work today, I took Obispo Street at the hour the stores were opening for business. From a distance I could see a mass of people had gathered, which made me immediately think that a line had formed to buy God knows what.

“Laying the first stone” is a phrase that more than one Cuban boy or girl has communicated, or at least heard. It’s not new in settings where there coexist the glamour of one’s early youth and realization of a teenager’s inexperience.

It’s not that I’m a man of another era, but one day when I was walking through Havana’s Plaza de Armas, I ran into a man who was tall, with light-colored eyes and almost blond hair.

My cousin burst into our house almost sprinting. He said that because a change in the schedule, he had to go by and pick up his colleagues in front of our house.

A soft breeze whiffs through the trees in the Plaza de Armas, the site selected by the Spanish conquistadors for the founding of Havana in 1519. Today this is the place where many lovers meet up to be together.

I was recently in Santiago de Cuba, a city that guards its histories and charms, as well as the immense warmth of its people and the climate that’s endured there.

My friend is right when she says that even in the most difficult moments of life, when sadness seems like it will dominate your spirit forever, there appears that instant of humor that allows you to measure your anguish.