Returning Home to Argentina

Esteban Diaz

My re-adaptation to Argentina is slow; much more so when one observes the radical differences that distance this society from Cuba.

At the Ezeisa Airport (Buenos Aires), my mom and cousin came to meet me.  I was carrying a lot of baggage, since I had accumulated a lot of things over the years.  We had to catch a bus because the taxi fare was way too high (it would have cost around $35 to get my house).

Fortunately I could rely on my mother, who can put up with anything – just like me.  We handled the bags with no problem.

The bus trip took about an hour to get to my house.  On the way, I took a “tour” through the depressed neighborhoods of that part of Buenos Aires, making myself visually aware of the current condition of the Argentina in which I had grown up.

So accustomed to Cuban society, the only thing that came to my mind was all the violence —physical, verbal, economic, etc. — that Buenos Aires suffers.

It’s not that there are no problems in Cuba, but if I had to compare them with Argentina’s, I could make a balance sheet to demonstrate that the differences between social classes and the degree of alienation here are abysmally worse than in Cuba.

I will take advantage of my short experience in Cuba and try to sort out the current situation in Argentina, adapting myself to its social relations without forgetting what I learned over the past years on the island.

Trying to contribute so that Argentinean society makes deep changes to eliminate the wrongs we suffer will be a big challenge.