Veronica Vega’s diary

A friend who is about to take her first trip abroad tells me she has already packed her bags and that she’s borrowed nearly everything she’s taking with her. As we know, in Cuba, not even thirty-seven years of work in the public health sector gives one enough for a trip abroad…or to have things to pack.

I recall my high school history teacher once telling us that, “before” (the revolution), chick-peas were used as pig fodder. This anecdote promted some rather nasty jokes and comments. It was the glorious 80s, but the thick, yellow soup was a common lunch or dinner dish on most Cuban tables.

I thought I knew death – at once the negation and the complement of life – but I now feel obliged to admit I only had a mental image of death, a theory. True death, tethered to the intensity of one’s affection for the loved one we lose, is very different from this rational interpretation of death.

In The Last Leaf, the ill person, who would look out the hospital window from her bed and see how the winter winds stripped the leaves off an old climbing plant, became obsessed with the idea that her life would end when the creeper’s last leaf fell.

Every so often, early on a Sunday, two Jehovah’s Witnesses – the kind who, certain of their noble mission of saving souls, go from door to door confront all manner of reactions – knock at my door. Putting on my best face, I tell them that I believe in god but that I already chose my path.

A woman who’s taken in a stray dog and eight street cats told me she saw a TV show that described the habit of having so many animals as a “condition.” “It’s called Diogenes Syndrome,” she said, somewhat embarrassed.

I still remember the impression that the first Christmas trees I saw in Cuba at the close of the 90s made on me. Their sparkling decorations seemed plucked right out of a fairy tale, promising a world of warmth, love and tolerance…all available in hard currency, of course.

Next to no one is going to like this post, but I’ll take my chances. I am worried about the direction humanity is heading in. I am not referring to rising violence or corruption rates or to environmental damage. I say this on the basis of the ratings that a certain type of humor secures for foreign television series.

After reading the post written by fellow Havana Times blogger Warhol P, “Cuba: How Low Can We Stoop”, something of a reflex response to the title came to mind: How low did we already stoop a long time ago?

All writers dream with launching a book without having people yawn out of boredom. If capturing the attention and earning the admiration of an audience is a success in and of itself, then poet Antonio Salvador (born in Puerto Rico, but every bit as Cuban as the rest of us) should no doubt feel very satisfied.