See You Later Cuba

Esteban Diaz

A month ago I was thinking with no hesitation about my return to my country.  However, passport problems —which were impossible to solve during the end of year holidays, especially since the Argentinean embassy in Cuba was closed for such matters— left me with free time to be with friends and to walk through the streets of Havana, cracking the shell that surrounded me.

I had of course, like any human being, been able to adapt to daily life in Cuba.  I developed ties with friends and had a two-year relationship.

Living my young adulthood outside of Argentina and the contact with Cuban society had made me feel closely attached to the island: to its happiness, progress, frustrations and future.

The time it was taking to resolve my passport problem was eating away at the roots of my decision and making me question my returning to Argentina.

It had been four years since I had last touched the soil where I was born.  Likewise, my not having been involved with Argentineans since the second year of my university program had pretty much isolated me from that country’s development and culture.

I had connected more and more with Cubans and those youth from other Latin American countries, causing me to almost forget the feeling of “being Argentinean.”

At the moment, I’m almost 5,000 miles from the island that welcomed me with its whole heart, opening up doors in my life and leaving its imprint in the deepest recesses of my being.

I wish to express my most sincere respect for the Cuban people for their kindness and their daily struggles and resistance against the bureaucracy and imperialism.

I thank them for teaching me to be a little more human and for giving me so much happiness over these years.