Three Wishes for Cuba
By Julio Antonio Fernández Estrada (El Toque)
HAVANA TIMES – If I were to come across the little golden fish, and it, with its fishy voice, told me I had three wishes to make, I’d need to be prepared. It occurs to me that the wishes shouldn’t be for my own benefit because everyone knows that those who wish for themselves are somehow punished in the end.
I should wish for Cuba, for Cubans, and maybe then the little fish—or its cousin, the tough little shrimp—would get me out of trouble.
Perhaps I could also stumble upon Aladdin’s lamp. I’ve always had luck finding interesting trinkets. If the genie were to ask me what I wanted, I’d need to know what to say.
In the ’90s, there was a popular joke about a man returning home after a long, exhausting day of work. Carelessly, he kicked an old object lying on the ground, picked it up, dusted it off, and, to his surprise, a genie, freshly steaming out of the lamp—because the object turned out to be the magic lamp, abandoned in the middle of Havana—granted him one wish.
The man protested at first, demanding his other two wishes, but the genie “set him straight,” explaining that he only granted one wish and told him to hurry up, as he didn’t have all day. Desperate, the man thought for a moment and, with a grimace, asked the genie for an apartment, as he had housing issues. At the climax of the story, the genie, utterly furious, yelled at the man, asking if he really thought that, had he had an apartment to offer, he would still be living in a lamp.
This is why the topic worries me. I’ve spent my entire life thinking about the three wishes. We even used to play with this idea at home when I was a child, imagining what we would wish for if the situation arose.
Once, I thought of using the first wish to ask the genie what the two best and most important wishes would be. That answer would cost me my first opportunity, but it would ensure I got the other two right. Now I realize what I really wanted was to turn the genie into Chat GPT. Perhaps, at that moment, I was already envisioning artificial intelligence without knowing it.
Another funny story, this time from Soviet folklore, tells of a fisherman trying to catch something with his small net at the mouth of a river. Caught in the old net was a little talking fish, who offered the poor man three wishes in exchange for being returned to the water.
Agitated, the man tested the fantastic creature with his first wish: “Let all the rivers in the world turn into vodka!” exclaimed the fisherman. “Granted!” said the fish. The man dipped a jug into the water, and upon drinking, was left speechless. It was the best vodka he had ever tasted.
Excited, the man shouted his second wish: “Let all the seas in the world turn into vodka!” When he heard that this wish, too, had been granted, he ran to where the river met the sea, and upon tasting the water, his joy was even greater because the vodka was even finer than before. The little fish then reminded him that he had one wish left. Desperate, the man ran back and forth along the small pier, and finally, resigned, said, “Fine, then give me a bottle of vodka.”
In Cuba today, the only “genie” you’re likely to find is the kind synonymous with decent frustration. “How I feel when you leave the bed unmade!” “How I feel when people smoke on the bus!” “I’m so fed up with the president!” and so on. It’s like a sweet righteous anger diluted with formal education.
No one grants wishes in Cuba—not at Christmas, not on New Year’s, not on Farmer’s Day. Maybe the Virgin of Charity, Our Lady of Regla, Saint Barbara, or Saint Lazarus do, but that’s a different level of spirituality. I’m talking about supernatural beings here.
So, I’ll take the opportunity to make three wishes for Cuba and Cubans, just in case I get lucky and come across the lamp, the golden fish, or whatever it may be.
I wish that in 2025 the lights won’t go out—not the lights in lamps, refrigerators, or bulbs, and not the light in souls, hopes, or pending dreams.
I wish that in 2025 voices won’t be silenced—that we continue to speak to mothers, fathers, partners, friends, neighbors, compatriots, the government, the leaders, the oppressors about what we feel, what we are, what we believe, what fills us, and what drowns us.
I wish that in 2025 there will only be floods of joy, blushes igniting cheeks, collapses of ill intentions, and penetrations that aren’t from the sea or pirates. Let marital beds shake and let family cupboards overflow.
First published in Spanish by El Toque and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.
I was born in Cuba and came to America when I was 2 years old with my parents. I am now 67 years old. My mother is still alive here in America and is 87 years old. We have many relatives still living in Cuba as prisoners of the Communist Regime Government. The Cuban government blames all of their problems and failed policies on the American Embargo. The truth is that the communist government in Cuba is bankrupt. America needs to lift the embargo completely and tell the Cuban government that they can purchase anything and everything that they need from America but it has to be paid for in cash, no credit, in cash upon delivery of merchandise and goods. Let’s see what the Cuban Governments excuse is then when they can’t blame the embargo for all of their failed Communist ideologies. What will be there excuse then when the embargo is lifted. Cuba is Bankrupt.
Amen! Freedom for our Cuban brothers and sisters love from Canada!
Our family has visited almost every year for more than 25 years. One of the most beautiful countries and people in the world, and we’ve visited and I have lived in more than 30.
It would be paradise if the needlessly inhumane and petty embargo is lifted, and if the government tried to change the system to one more common in certain truly progressive European countries like Sweden, Norway, Poland, etc.
However.,I understand that even if they wanted to do that, given the embargo, it would be impossible.
Is this stuff written in Langley and mailed from Miami, or do they draft it in the Miami field office?
No place in the world could sustain itself against a Helms/Burton stranglehold, yet even now, 25+ years later, that odious law’s goal of a “transitional government” has been rejected by the Cuban people.
My name is Yuri Mesa I’m keeping American born and matanza Cuba left Cuba during the 1980 Mariell boat lift 90% of my family still lives on that island the biggest prison in the world which is known as Cuba and yes I said it correctly the biggest prison in the world because you are literally a prisoner of your own country you have no rights you have nothing all you can do is wake up every morning and do the best you can to try to put a plate of food on your families table so that your family is able to eat you have no freedom of speech you have no freedom of anything and I mean nothing that’s the honest to God’s truth
One comment for Andres!!
If the Embargo is a farce like you say, then why have it for the beautful cuban people??
For 60+ years!!! It’s criminal
The US embargo is a farse. It is an excuse for a failed government that wants to be in power and promote the same misery throughout Central and South America. The government of Cuba can trade with the rest of the world. The embargo farse is plain unadulterated male bovine excrement !
My wish for cuba is a way to respect each other the way we both respect other people who are not cubans
End the U S. economic embargo/blockade now. Take Cuba off the State Sponsors Of Terrorism list. In spite of any problems with government management, the embargo and the SSOT designation are the two biggest problems the Cuban people face. The majority of Cuba. Americans, at this point, including many who are opponents of socialism, feel the same way.
My hope would be that the mistake the US made 65 years ago can be reversed. Had America traded with Cuba, Russia would never have gotten involved and the disaster of the past 65 years would have been averted.
I’ve been to Cuba twice in 2024. As a United States citizen. I’m upset with my country because of their stubborn refusal to eliminate the trade embargo which does not hurt the Cuban government, only the Cuban people. I had to get there by flying from New York to Toronto and then to Holguin from there.
But let’s be completely honest here. The Cuban government is the bad guy. They have an unsustainable system. A friend of mine who is a physician earns $65 a month. I made very good friends in Cuba. In total, I’ve only spent 11 days on the island. And in Holguin and Guardalavaca, which is likely worse than Habana. I find the people to be amazing.
But regrettably, my country will not do anything at all to resolve this situation and with the new leadership coming in in a few weeks, any hope of a restored economic relationship with Cuba is done.
Once again the Cuban people will be pawns.
But again, it is the Cuban government. They literally cannot keep the lights on.
What we all cubans should WISH IS THAT CUBA BE FREED OF EVERYONE OF THEM RAUL CANEL AND ALL OF THE ANIMALS IN THE MILITARY ETC ETC NOT TO TRAVEL TO US TO THEM 1 YEAR LATER usually go back and eat lechon and moros like nothing
I have been to Cuba more times then I can count on my fingers. It is such a beautiful country. What especially makes it beautiful are the people. I have not been back this year because of the unfortunate issues that Cuba is facing. I truly wish the government could see that they need to do more, the people if Cuba deserve more.
What Cuba needs is an intervention from the free world to get those narco traffickers of the Castro family and extended powers that keep the Cuban people hungry and abused. Down with the PCC . FREE POLITICAL PRISONERS
My wish is that my husband’s nephew can leave Cuba with his family so they and his boys wouldn’t have to sleep in a hot room ever again.