Cubans and Logging In to the Future

Alfredo Fernandez

HAVANA TIMES — Having left Cuba less than a month ago has proven a major revelation for me. Yes, because for a Cuban crossing the limits of the island for the first time brings with it a peculiar significance to the trivial act of traveling in today’s world.

Shortly after arriving to Ecuador, which is far from being a developed country, the unnecessary sacrifice that Cubans are subjected to daily becomes all so clear.

It’s impossible for me to understand why in Cuba we don’t have full Internet service, a tool that interweaves much of the daily life of the inhabitants of the planet.

I also can’t understand always having to search for something to eat on the island? A brief visit to any market in Ecuador and you will find a diversified and affordable offer, even for the less fortunate pocketbook.

I’ll never forget that “conversation” between Eliecer Avila [then a student leader at the Computer University] and Ricardo Alarcon [the former chair of the Cuban parliament], where Alarcon, in one of his usual statements answered the student by saying, that “travel would be the best way to end the doubts of the people on the legitimacy of the Cuban system.”

To be honest Mr. Alarcon, now that I can verify what I always imagined, I reassert what I invariably thought: the difficulties faced by people in Cuba are absolutely unnecessary.

Twenty days ago I left Havana and to this day I cannot find the slightest reason for complicity with what Alarcon defends to the limit. To the contrary, thinking of Cuba I can only feel sorry for my country, even more so for those who have not yet traveled, enabling them to enter into the future and see like me, that which they have known for a long time.