When Voices Fell Silent

By Aurelio Pedroso (Progreso Semanal)

HAVANA TIMES – A long time before those Italians came to the colonial city of Trinidad back in March 2020 and the country began to be consumed by the dangerous virus, lots of us were already protesting or complaining about how hard our everyday lives were.

Some people raised their voices a little louder and others were more muted in more intimate settings with family or friends, but they all had a pretty common denominator.

We were still a while away from the worse moments that soon came after.

There is countless evidence that could be shown to a non-legal court about how things have gone from bad to worse.

In my own personal case, I have the example of a small garden/backyard in the building. As punctual as a Swiss watch, you could hear people’s voices selling some kind of service from the early morning hours until dusk.

From behind and moving forward. The tamale maker was the last one to end the night and the guayaba or coconut cake seller was the one to kick off the day, always with a cheeky grin every time somebody asked him when he’d have meat pasties.

In this short period, some people with their announcements recorded with cries that scare children, ice cream sellers would pass by as would those who announced even gaceñiga cake and breadsticks; the lady selling brooms, mops and clothes pins; people who would buy empty perfume bottles and not to start a collection exactly; carpenters promising small repairs; mattress repairers; people who would do you the favor of improving TV programs, at least with a decent antenna so you can see the horror with better definition; the fearless cyclist who promoted these delicate sweets called  “señoritas”, and one or two illegal vendors with products that were more far-reaching than the whispers in a confessional.

Right now, the only thing we can sometimes hear is the century-old whistle of the knife and scissor sharpener and the people with vegetable carts, who don’t raise their voices too loud to announce the onions and garlics they have at an exorbitant price because the other voices have fallen silent, because of different reasons we are all familiar with.

Read more from Cuba here on Havana Times.

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