Though some refer to my province as “Cuba’s Cinderella”, my city of Guantanamo is really not much different from other provincial capitals around the country, with the possible exception of Havana, Santiago de Cuba, the second most important city on the island, or, say, Matanzas.
I usually share both the good things and bad things that happen to me with my relatives but that evening, I didn’t tell anyone at home I had found the bill. Perhaps it was out of fear everyone would suddenly want me to buy them something. I know my brothers well. Looking back, though, I think I simply wanted some time to decide how I would spend the money I’d found.
While waiting for something to take me back to my neighborhood, at the outskirts of the city, I had the most pleasant surprise a poor person can have: I found a bill lying on the street – wet, dirty and crumpled. I didn’t want to unfold the bill there, fearing the owner could come back and claim it.
How many times have you heard someone call someone an animal because of their brutality and violence be it verbal or physical. The funny thing is calling a person an animal is not an insult because in reality we are animals, the main difference being we can reason and think.
“Living by one’s wits” is a Cuban idiom used to describe the behavior of people who go through life without working, finding ways to skimp off other people or to make money informally.
It has become tradition for the principal of the school to deliver a speech that underscores the importance the school has as a forger of the country’s future workers, professionals and artists. Usually, this speech has some of the political content we insist on finding in all our daily experiences in Cuba, invariably touching on the US blockade, imperialism and the revolution.
I’ve heard several people say positive things about Cuba’s new First Vice-Minister Miguel Diaz-Canel. They say that, when he was the Party Secretary for the province of Villa Clara, he would ride around town on a bicycle, in humble sports clothes, just another common, unassuming resident of Matanzas.
It is a sad song that gets to me. But, even though the lyrics clearly evoke the figure of the former leader of Venezuela, the way he shared his country’s riches with sister nations and his struggle for Latin America, it is not Chavez that this song brings to mind when I hear it.
Cuba has changed a lot over these past two decades. Since the release of Strawberry and Chocolate, the only Cuban film ever to be nominated as Best Foreign Film at the Oscars, the country and its people have experienced many changes… but they haven’t been enough.
Today, on the eve of Mother’s Day, I want to refer to a number of comments I received a few months ago, in response to the post “The Height of Forgetfulness”, which I had published on this site. I believe those who accused me of being irresponsible were right. In fact, that is precisely what I felt…