Traveling in Dreams

Irina Echarry

In front of my building are two benches where several youth from the block sit to talk.  In these cool January days, when I’ve taken the dog downstairs for a walk, I’ve sat near them and have been able to hear their discussions.  Most of them yell, so it is not hard to eavesdrop.  Almost all of them talk about wanting to leave the country.

They’re young people of both sexes between 15 and 25.  To me, it seems they should be thinking about other issues: their studies, the future, relationships, concerts, etc.

Nevertheless, they spend the evenings and weekends sitting on those benches imagining if they were in “la Yuma” (abroad), if they had a car, if they could leave for the beach in Cancun.

I thought it was funny when I heard this, but at the same time it scares me.  Don’t these youth know that they live steps away from the sea?  Don’t they like the blue of our waters, if only because they’re ours?

When I asked why they wanted to leave, the few who responded allowed me to view great unawareness and a deep existential hole.

Yosbel prefers to work in whatever occupation outside of Cuba, as long as it would bring her in a good income. “…even dealing drugs,” she says, smiling.

Kirenia knows that she’ll marry some foreigner that her aunt will send her from Italy; so her future is “settled.”

Andrés criticizes everything he can: the family he was born into, public transportation or the poor quality of Cuban baseball.  He doesn’t see anything positive; in fact, he was born with Retinosis Pigmentaria, a difficult to overcome illness that requires rigorous treatment, which he follows year after year.  Andrés is 17 and wants to quit his first-year studies to become a phys-ed instructor.

“What would you do if you could travel?” I asked.

“I’d stay, of course,” he replied.

“But what would you do in the country where you stayed?” I probed.

“I don’t know…anything.”

Don’t these youth know that it’s necessary to prepare for life? …that everything one studies is never enough? …that there are more important things than having a car?

They’re not interested in their environment.  They don’t go to concerts or exhibits. They don’t read.  They don’t go to the cinema and they barely watch television – they only sit on the benches dreaming about their “other life,” the one they want.

I don’t like criticizing younger people or trying to look superior – that makes me feel older than I am.  But in this case I was compelled to read them a poem by Kavafis so they could understand me better.  Poems can show you the way.

I read them the end of “The City,” though I don’t believe they liked my reading a lot…instead, I made them laugh.

I read them the following:

New lands you will not find, you will not find other seas.
The city will follow you. You will roam the same
streets. And you will age in the same neighborhoods;
in these same houses you will grow gray.
Always you will arrive in this city. To another land — do not hope —
there is no ship for you, there is no road.
As you have ruined your life here
in this little corner, you have destroyed it in the whole world.