Pedro Pablo Morejon

Yamila is a jinetera, as we say here in Cuba for a woman who prostitutes herself to foreigners. She is 27 years old and absolutely stunning. What we Cubans call “a knockout”. She was born in ‘92, right bang in the Special Period.

Ever since I was five and began school, I’ve been told what is right and what is wrong. They wanted to teach me how to become like Che, who I only knew what I was told about him. I was made to repeat hollow slogans and mottos. They decided what I had to learn, what I didn’t have to learn. What I should and shouldn’t believe.

For those who don’t know, these conferences take place once a year: a number of writers from the children’s, poetry and fiction for adults genres compete.

I live in a town in the province of Pinar del Rio with just over 6,000 inhabitants, where shortages are proverbial. Its little markets or vegetable stands are rarely ever stocked. It’s one of those “lifeless” towns, as people say.

Every afternoon, when I finish work, I head to the train station. There, alongside hundreds of passengers, a dirty, uncomfortable, slow train, which never leaves on schedule by the way because when it isn’t being checked over, it’s waiting for the engineer, or the engine has a problem, etc.

I used to dream of being a writer. I wanted to write everything ever since I became a teenager: Detective novels, romance novels, historical novels, erotic novels, everything.