A Visit from Abroad

By Lien Estrada

HAVANA TIMES – My mother mentioned her sister’s upcoming visit from the United States. Instantly, I remember that I need new strings for my guitar; the last ones I could get were homemade, but the seller assured me they worked well. A new set costs around 2,000 pesos (half an average monthly wage in Cuba). “If you have someone who can bring them, even better,” the seller recommended, “because there they are not hard to find or expensive.”

For this reason, I asked my mom if she could please tell her sister to bring me a set of nylon strings. She replied that she would tell her without any problem. Then I also remember that I needed a guitar pick to play. But in my mind, the pick was followed by an almost endless list: from the smallest and simpst items like headphones, USB drives, agendas, to those essentials like shoes, clothes, and not forgetting the computer that broke months ago, an android phone, I would love a Canon camera with its lenses, tripod, case…

As expected, the request did not make it there. Of course, we didn’t allow it. The flash drives also remained as intentions. Because from my aunt, or anyone else, we shouldn’t take advantage. Besides, this idea of ​​trying to solve everything through someone else is not advisable. But in these situations, you almost always experience that feeling of knowing that you live in a kind of prison even if it doesn’t seem like it. Where every item, no matter how small and insignificant, becomes relevant, more than expensive, extremely valuable. If anything (a safety pin, a hook, a needle) is lost, it generates impotence and pain.

In Cuba, where the lack of even the most basic things, not to mention the maximum, marks our lives from birth until death (I am thinking that it still marks us even if we emigrate, as if we don’t), everything takes on an extraordinary hue. Even knowing in advance that it shouldn’t be like this, that in other worlds, in other lands, what we appreciate so much is within the realm of the mundane, the inconsequential.

The day of the visit arrived. We are happy because everyone there is fine after all. My strings and picks are already in my hands. It is always a joy to know that we have someone to ask for help, and they respond positively. I decide to stick with this last idea and try to discard the other one in which perhaps we will be dependent all our lives not precisely due to circumstantial reasons, as declared by the president of Cuba, but because of the political and ideological limitations of those who govern.

Limitations so frustrating that they are inevitably related, of course, to the individual and collective attitudes of all of us who live on the island. But recognizing the complexity of the subject, I think it’s better not to dwell on it right now. And yes, instead on the blessing of all encounters with the people we love and respect, with those who respect us and love us. Whether they have the solution to our material needs or not. For this reason, I feel grateful.

Read more from Cuba here on Havana Times.