What a Story This Is in Cuba 2025!

Text and photos by Nester Nuñez (Joven Cuba)

HAVANA TIMES – At nine o’clock at night I was in a corner of the rooftop, trying to light some bits of wood to make coffee, accompanied by my dog, who lay nearby with her tail between her legs. And that’s exactly how I felt, honestly: resigned to the heat-filled nights and the constant loss of pride, trying not to mutter futile complaints or give in to the temptation of banging pots and pans because, in the end, it leads nowhere.

As I struck the lighter again and again, I hummed, “you’re green wood that won’t burn, tra lalá tri tri tri triií, a tree that puts down no roots…” And when my haggard face reflected off the polished surface of the coffee pot: “You live without thinking about tomorrow. The weeks slip by, tra lalá tri tri tri triií.” Then, looking out into the night over the city: “I, who gave you all my love, now suffer and despair for not seeing you share… And I love you, and I love you just as you are, tra lalá la la la lara, tra lalá tri tri tri triií… Nothing, I mean nothing to you, companion if you are one, you keep that to yourseeeelf…”

My neighbor, who had come up to check how much water was left in his tank, said: “Compadre, here, light it with this,” and handed me a Cuban history workbook, so dry and brittle it seemed ready to burn like Bayamo for a just cause. I thanked him and immediately thought, a bit begrudgingly, that I’d have to offer him a cup of coffee in return, even though this coffee was meant to keep me awake so I could work through the night—assuming they stuck to the blackout schedule. But you can’t be stingy, asere. Giving away a cup of El Morro coffee won’t make you any poorer.

So, I tore out the last page, number 51 of the workbook, but before crumpling it and setting it on fire, I read it—because I can’t help but read anything that falls into my hands. The instruction went like this:

You’ve finished studying the history of Cuba for sixth grade and are ready to write a short text on the following idea: I feel proud to be Cuban.

That’s when I lost what little calm and self-control I’d built up for nights like this one. I read it again. I ended up smiling and almost crying, a little crazy. What if everyone over the age of 12 born on that island, whether we live there or not, wrote a text on the idea “I feel proud to be Cuban”? Let’s assume we’d all be limited to the same 22 lines the sixth graders were given to answer.

“With a machete in hand, Antonio digs out the dirt that has built up for years between the edge of the pavement and the round manhole cover. Then he uses a steel bar as a lever and pushes with all his might. When the cover finally pops out of place, it makes a metallic noise like a giant coin dropping from the sky. Nervously, Antonio and his wife look inside. Yes, it’s flooded. At least it’ll serve to flush the toilet and clean up well, she says. They both smile, proud of their ingenuity.”

To the Student:

 (…) You are receiving this activity workbook, which will help you continue reinforcing what you’ve learned and deepen your knowledge of our national and local history (…); this way you’ll better understand who we are and where we’re going (…).

In it, you’ll find excerpts from historical documents that will help you better understand the actions of the heroes and martyrs of our homeland (…).

This workbook will bring you much joy. Take good care of it.

THE AUTHORS

The lighter finally ignited the yellowed page, which lit the stick, which didn’t want to heat the coffee pot, which didn’t want to brew the coffee I needed to stay up all night to work. Before that, I had already read on the back of the scorched page Some of the most notable dates in Cuban history you will study in sixth grade. Listed were the Protest of the Thirteen, the murder of Mella, the fall of the Machado government, and that of Paquito Gonzalez Cueto. Also included were the deaths of Ruben Martinez Villena, Antonio Guiteras, Jesus Menendez, Aracelio Iglesias… The authors also listed the approval and implementation of the 1940 Constitution, the “death” of Eduardo Chibas, Batista’s coup d’état, and the assault on the Moncada and Carlos M. de Cespedes barracks.

Minutes later, feeling resolved and generous, I reached my hand through my neighbor Ernesto’s open window with a steaming mug. He told me not a chance, that he didn’t want to wake up, that if the power came back he’d sleep with the fan on full blast to try and get some rest, but thanks anyway for the coffee.

But the hours passed, and still no electricity. The silence was oppressive. Someone flew over the cuckoo’s nest—or rather, over the neighborhood. That is, a silent thief slinked by, hunting for the next distracted soul to violently snatch a phone from. Or, with much less probability, someone passed by to spray “Down with Someone” or “Down with Something” on the wall of a ration store. Then, almost certainly, an owl passed. It wasn’t seen, but its cri-cri is unmistakable. Steady, predatory, and bold, it was off to hunt blackbirds in the park. Animals have it easy when it comes to food.

“Yamila, Antonio’s wife, walks like this. She’s looking for her son to help with the house chores. She skirts the pair of dumpsters where, at night, rats in sandals strut down the street for everyone to see. (A bunch of skinny sewer rats…) She reaches the spring, scans those cooling off or having fun, those who’ve thrown a party to escape their stifling, foul-smelling rooms, because it’s been 50, 70, 90 days since the water supply collapsed. Looking for her son, Yamila sees people sharing a bar of soap during their daily bath, and she can’t stop watching one specific hand scrubbing a face and then moving the lather to intimate areas. Bajanda. Bajanda andanda. Andan acabandan, Yamila mutters and walks away without laughing or crying, without pride or rage, and without asking herself why this primal repartero stanza invaded her mind instead of shame, anger, or a desire to revolt against the brutal conditions her people live in during this third decade of the 21st century.”

Research how people in your town, municipality, or province expressed their rejection of the hardships they suffered during the years from 1902 to 1935 (p. 18, C/A).

I lay on the couch to rest my back, but I didn’t turn on the solar lamp. It’s easier to think in complete darkness—no distractions. The workbook is a little gem. Besides narrating past events, it’s History in itself. It was printed in 1994, though it doesn’t specify when the authors actually wrote it. Either way, that outdated, biased, shallow compendium—even considering it was made for children—holds a piece of Cuba’s educational legacy and is, of course, a reflection of the ideology that ultimately prevailed. It doesn’t aim to foster empathy, serious inquiry, creativity, or love for the country, but to reproduce a dogma where villains are purely evil and heroes and martyrs are untouchable.

To “assess the attitude” of the latter and earn a good grade, all the student needs to do is repeat three or four essential adjectives that are hard to forget: brave, determined, honest, empathetic, and mention that they came from a humble family, if that’s the case. The whole point is to repeat dates and facts. To memorize. It’s not about independent thinking, because that could lead to dangerous conclusions. How different—or similar—are today’s conditions from those that led to past uprisings? What would any of the heroes or martyrs in the workbook do if they were alive today?

“The domino game is dead. No one’s pairing up, no one’s cracking jokes, no one’s spreading juicy gossip. Business is tanking, state salaries are a joke, and with the new internet prices, there’s not even enough to zone out watching YouTube memes. Still, the boys need to feel their blood pumping, to believe they can make decisions for themselves and aren’t just corks drifting in the currents of national politics and economics—murkier and more polluted than the river flowing a few meters away. So the most leader-like one says: Let’s go to the next block and throw some punches! and the others follow like they’ve found the solution to all their problems.”

Look up the definition of Democracy in the dictionary. Explain why we are one of the most democratic countries in the world (pp. 48–49).

The neighbor will be fanning himself on the sweaty sheet. His name is Ernesto, but neither his name nor his thoughts will be recorded in a book or workbook. History, with a capital H, only saves the names of those who stand out—and preferably die—for a cause, for certain convictions. For regular people, all that’s left are common nouns: the people, peasants, students, workers…

Of course, we are more than that. We are real people who aspire to be close to our families, to work in peace and live with dignity, to meet certain material and spiritual needs. But when the environment becomes too hostile and instead of aiding progress it delays or blocks it, then ordinary people find ways to organize. They stop acting alone or spontaneously and, in a collective struggle that History will eventually record, they create a new order of things.

 “When Yamila arrives and sees her son wasting his energy uselessly, her first instinct is to take off her sandal and chuck it at his head, but then she thinks it’s better to see him boxing than wasted on alcohol, zombified by the kímico drug, or locked up in jail. Besides, he’s throwing punches on pure instinct, holding firm, taking blows from the other guy—just like in life. Keep your guard up and wait for your moment, wait! For now, the boy isn’t giving up, and that’s what matters. I’m very proud of you, Yamila tells him when the bell rings. Somewhere in those battered heads and bodies, a strategy is forming that will allow them to win.”

Look up the word Revolution in the dictionary and write down two of its synonyms (p. 44, C/A. On the Revolution in power and the construction of socialism).

They never turned the power on that night. Just for entertainment, I burned the workbook pages one by one on the rooftop. It was sad to watch them turn to ash as the wind scattered them across the rooftops of other houses, flying aimlessly over the city. If I felt any joy at all, it was in seeing that the last few decades of Cuba’s history weren’t there—not in the workbook, not in the textbooks.

We still have time to push for the truth we’ve lived—and are still living—to be written down fairly.

First published in Spanish by Joven Cuba and translated and posted by Havana Times.

Read more from Cuba here on Havana Times.