My friend Paula wrote me from the United States. “People are strange here, it’s not like down there” she told me. “Where we live, people are really snobbish. No one even looks at anyone. To many, we’re just a bunch of dirty immigrants…”
Whenever there is talk of Cuba’s camp facilities in any of our media, everything is looked at through rose-colored glasses. The reality, however, is quite different. This past Friday, August 29, campers who arrived at the Las Cuevas recreational center were able to confirm the deficiencies of the facility in person.
As it turns out, it seems everyone who leaves Cuba is having a rough time. Many of my old friends kept in touch and sent me the occasional email shortly after leaving, but, a few months later, next to no one writes me. When they do write, their messages are brief and do not offer much information about how they’re doing.
It was the fifth time I’d gone to the dentist’s that month. I’d gone that afternoon because I had an appointment, but the person who’d made this appointment for me hadn’t gone to work that day, so I had to go back another day.
I had two chipped teeth. I’d let time pass to see if I could live like that, at least for a few years, but it proved impossible. Soon, eating any kind of food became bothersome. I had to bite the bullet and go to a dentist at the Finlay polyclinic, in my Havana municipality of Marianao.
I have written before about the public square and market in the neighborhood of Marianao where vendors resell food product. I don’t know when I’ll be able to write an article that says something favorable about the place and consumers there.
There’s nothing better for a romantic reconciliation than doing something that breaks with routine. An invitation from some friends who had rented out a beach house (at the extremely low price of 30 CUC for an entire weekend) came to us like a gift from heaven.
Something I still don’t understand is why they insist on linking the issue of homosexuality with politics. During the march, people shouted “socialism yes, homophobia no” in unison countless times. Of course, there was no shortage of the habitual “Long live Fidel and Raul!”
He who is gay is gay: and nothing will make us change our preference, much less trying to vary our tastes to please our family or society. I, at least, have always fought back against those who didn’t accept my condition.
On April 23, I was notified by phone that, after many months’ wait, I was finally going to be paid the royalties for an illustration of mine that had been used as a book cover. I was happy to get the news and the next day, I headed over to the Letras Cubanas publishing house.