Osmel Almaguer’s Diary

A few years ago, a carpenter used to work alongside our house. With my father’s consent, he set up a little workshop there and paid us 400 pesos a month (about $16 USD) as rent. Over time the carpenter became friends with my father, who then reduced his rate to 300 pesos.

Something I won’t forget about our trips to Holguin was the welcoming parties the family threw for us; our relatives would sacrifice a few of their farmyard animals. I also recall us taking strolls through the city, but the only thing I remember is that there were a lot of parks.

We quickly found a place to stay the night, and for 40 pesos MN (US $2). It was a comfortable place, with a bathroom, front room and kitchenette. We didn’t have a lot of money, and we needed it to last us the entire week.

The Isle of Youth doesn’t make its inhabitants younger, or those who visit it. It owes its name to the camps of hard-working youth that lived there in the 1960s and 70s; they came there from all points of the country to urbanize the island.

However, back pains, thirst, hunger and fatigue were not obstacles to enjoying the beauty of the fields of the Cuban west, until we finally took a little siesta. We took pictures that we would never see, because the camera broke and the film was exposed.

My girlfriend is named Milaisy. She lives in the capital of Pinar del Rio, the most western province of Cuba. She’s trained as a psychologist but works in public relations for Cauce Publishers. Our relationship is influenced greatly by the distance between us, which conspires against our romance.

When I was little, my parents made me obey them by telling me that “El Loco” (the lunatic); would get me if I misbehaved. Though I never saw him, I imagined he must have been a hideous creature. Then I discovered that El Loco didn’t appear when I acted up, but only sometimes when walking down the street.

Since the beach is free, the seashore is the preferred destination for almost everybody. That’s why people from all over the capital meet up at the same places and form this mass that I try to avoid, maybe because I was raised in the tranquility of my home on the outskirts.

If Vivaldi had been born in today’s Cuba, we would not know his paradigmatic work The Four Seasons; rather, he would have probably composed something called The Two Seasons.

Without the need for large investments or grandiose gestures, but by implementing a simple change and situating each person in their ideal station, we could resolve many of the problems that today strike us with great force in this country.