About Cuba and Cubans
HAVANA TIMES – I confess that writing about my country has become an agony; my hands refuse to put into words all the bad things that are happening. The other day I was at a private video library where I go to copy movies, and most of the conversations revolved around the same topics: the viruses ravaging the population and the blackouts. No one there was talking about films or series.
A woman, around seventy, was wearing flip-flops, and you could see her swollen feet. She was still dealing with the Chikungunya virus, but she no longer wanted to stay home—she needed a distraction. She chatted with people and talked about her private life without any embarrassment. She spoke about her son, a surgeon who emigrated to the United States, who was already working at a hospital but doing the job of a nurse, about the discrimination he faced, and how they didn’t give him enough weekly hours to earn more money.
Another woman told us how she ended up with an apartment by caring for an elderly woman. The old lady’s son left for Miami with his wife and children a decade ago and wants nothing to do with his country—and even less with returning. He only makes sure to send a hundred dollars a month. His decision was to give up his mother’s apartment—even when she’s still alive—leaving the caregiver as the heir when she dies. Lack of maternal love? Abandonment? Both.
Lately, I barely communicate with my friends on WhatsApp; I feel them more distant, quieter. We’re living in a paralyzed Cuba, where every day we lose hope and our goals. I’ve never been as depressed as I am now. During the 1990s Special Period crisis, I always found ways to have fun; I was also young then, which is its own kind of happiness. What we Cubans are going through now is unprecedented, a fierce form of survival. Beyond the worries about food and disease, we carry a sadness that is becoming chronic.
Read more from the diary of Irina Pino here on Havana Times.