Oriol’s Bus stop

Jorge Milanes Despaigne

Caibarien is a town located in the north part of Villa Clara province. Having enjoyed an economic bonanza in the first half of last century, it — like other areas of the country— has suffered from a lack of resources.

The result has can be seen in the steady deterioration of its old buildings, which came to be especially noticeable with the arrival of the Special Period crisis on the 1990s.

Although today one can see a few Chinese Yutong buses running up and down its main streets, the fact is that mass public transportation has virtually disappeared; horse-drawn wagons are the principal means of moving people through the town.

But starting a few years ago, many of the residents of this town and others began working offshore on the cays, those notorious sources of hard currency that the government receives through growing tourism.

In fact, those Yutongs are what transport those workers to the cays, or if they’re going to or coming from the provincial capital of Santa Clara, more than one local has also been able to catch a ride on them.

“Sure we still have memories of bus transportation in Caibarien, like the bus stop that owes its name to the man who almost every day was unfaithful to his wife, until she came home from work one day,” my aunt told me.

What had happened is that this man had been romantically involved with his neighbor. On one occasion though, his wife came back home when she found out that she didn’t have to work. Maybe she was thinking of catching up on some outstanding domestic chores and so she decided to go back home. In any case, what she discovered was her husband in the middle of committing infidelity.

But there occurred something even more embarrassing: the man found himself in a state of priapism [persistent erection]. It was necessary to urgently get him to the hospital covered by a sheet, a predicament that became the talk of the town.

A short time later a bus stop was situated almost directly in front of that same house; therefore, people began calling it “Oriol’s stop.”