Arlety is a friend of our family who we haven’t seen in a long time. She was an athlete who remained in Europe when she went there on tour with the Cuban team. Like all professional-level athletes and doctors on internationalist missions who decided not to return, she was considered a traitor and would never be allowed to set foot on the land of her birth.
Apart from two cousins serving on international missions in Africa, I don’t have any other family members abroad who I yearn to see. I do have friends on every continent. Most are old friends from college who now find themselves in the most unlikely spots on the planet.
“With children, you either love’m or you hate’m.” That’s what my grandma used to say, unambiguously. “There’s no middle ground when it comes to one’s love for children. The parent that doesn’t love their children, simply hates them. And since your father doesn’t hate you,” she would add smiling, “he loves you madly.”
Leaving Cuba, by whatever means, has become the most cherished dream of many Cubans, just as many Americans dream of becoming millionaires. Although our new immigration regulations seem to open a path to this utopia, international aid missions remain the easiest way to realize this.
On Monday morning I could hear the sound of my neighbor’s alarm clock as if it were in our house. It was 5:00 a.m. as Martha slid out of bed, discouraged, muttering to herself, “Another day of battle.”
When I was a child, I wouldn’t have accepted anyone telling me that there was racism in Cuba. In school, it was instilled in us that in our country there was no prostitution, poverty, drug addiction or racism.
I finally reached Santiago de Cuba but had to look closely to make sure I was in the right place. The entrance to the city made you wonder if you were actually in Santiago or if the driver had made a wrong turn and had driven to some other unfamiliar place.
Fortunately our whole family was safe. There were no injuries or deaths. The only incident among a family member had involved another cousin who lost his home, but he was taken in and received all the assistance possible. Among my friends, two were left without homes and another one lost some of the walls of her house.
I’m thinking that today I can finally get a good night’s sleep. Hurricane Sandy began plowing through Cuban soil last Thursday during the early morning hours, and since then there have been more than a few bad moments.
All around the world people are writing stories and articles on the internet telling about their lives as well as discussing what’s happening in their neighborhoods, provinces and countries. Cubans are one of the few peoples on the planet who can’t do this freely, at least not the way we’d like.