There is a kind of syndrome that always attacks the traveler who puts the feet in Cuba and that this one will not understand until a while. It is a virus that, Once inoculated inside us, It can only grow in size until we devour us. Too many people suffer from it. I also, and irreparably. And it's called nostalgia. Cubans know them very well, Because that nostalgia has sculpted the spirit of the two million people living outside the country. For that reason it has a custom definition, What is "Gorrión". I am not Cuban, but foreigner, But that feeling is not alien to me when leaving the island.
It has been almost a year that I have spent in Cuba. It started with good manners and an unusual cold wave. And ended with random applause, that put me in a matter of little time in Havana: a great exercise of agitation of prejudices. Who has not ever wondered about the situation of the island?
Havana is a chipped city in every corner; The facades announce the passage of time in which there has hardly been concern about the exterior appearance of the homes. But Cuba is much more than that apparent ruin. I don't want to fall into topics, Nor do I want to refer to the usual defense fronts of the political system of a country (Health and education), Among other things because in our country we also enjoy those rights.
I will not get tired of repeating that this island is a bewitched place
I will not get tired of repeating that this island is a bewitched place. Clear, It is likely that the tourist there are those who try to hiss. But when you are friends with a Cuban, This will give you more than you have. There is a solidarity reef in his spirit that the visitor of tourist places is likely not to appreciate.
The most repeated phrase in Cuba may be: "This is not easy". One thinks that the revolution, that dream that came blowing from Santa Clara and entered the capital of the country on January 1, 1959, It was an frayed utopia.
I think that for the inhabitants a lot of that, especially for the youngest, who were born and grew with certain well -being, At least immaterial. But tourist influences, family members abroad and, in the end, The overseas air, They also bring the increasingly frequent desire for technology, fashionable, of travel abroad. Of abundance.
When you are friends with a Cuban, will give you more than you have
"And now the guidelines are invented". The phrase, of a passenger of a taxi with which he shared a career, It sounds like neglect, to the nth layer of varnish. It smells like exhaustion. The guidelines are the proposed measures in 2011 For the Communist Party and whose heart is the economy. And it is true that this protest, A voice in the desert, It is very common.
It is easy to defend a political system without living under its tutelage. In the case of Cuba it is very common to defend it, especially if we observe it as if it were a museum piece. You have to listen to discordant voices, than in Cuba, truth, They are many. Now, What would happen if they entered jets, After an abrupt fall, A democracy to the European, With your freedom of capital and all those consequences in the service of money? Would the architectural jewels of Havana become a fashion stores, like that insult to the culture that is the Gran Vía de Madrid?
Would the architectural jewels of Havana become a fashion stores, Like that insult to the culture that is the Gran Vía de Madrid?
I have no idea, But I know that, After the fall of the Soviet block, Sociologists coined the term "Homo Sovieticus" to define a certain carved spirit under a particular political system, incompatible with the demands of another system focused on the benefit everywhere.
Beyond those omnipresent complaints, that in Cuba they abound almost as much as in our bad homeland, The largest of the Antilles is also a great teachings vending. Solidarity is one of them; also your entrepreneurship. I do not mean various mills to survive, also, but to his recent impulse to self -employed. Our country, Faced with a lousy economic situation, It does not have the same creative impulse. Havana is full of small coffee shops, pizzerias and different stores that take from people many of the things they know how to do. Sometimes with difficulties by bureaucratic labyrinth, But strongly. We could already learn.
Cuba is a great teaching vending. Solidarity is one of them; also your entrepreneurship
Actually, A town is generally above the state that groups them: Power is in the town. And that reality ends up always manifesting. Cuba collects contradictions, But thousands of tourists go to this island in the form of Cayman even being very contrary to a too particular government. For something it will be.
Before the triumph of the revolution, especially in the fifties, Havana was a golden dream. Since the beginning of the century, When the United States moved many threads of power, It is true that the city shell leaves us stunned. You have to see the impressive coastal profile, Your tunnel and sewage duct system, pioneer in the world. You have to see, also, The routilance of buildings in the fifties, Many of them raised with American capital. And you also have to know that a good part of the population lived apart from the splendor of tourism and the game while John F. Kennedy He enjoyed Caribbean pleasures at the National Hotel and Frank Sinatra enlivened the meetings of the mafia. It should have been there, tell me, To understand the old revolutionaries.
Before the revolution, A good part of the population lived outside the splendor of tourism and game
I love that island, As I sang Pablo Milanes. And I understand many positions, including those of defenders, although the past 26 July, Revolutionary day, I wondered how in Santiago de Cuba there was so much speech in favor of what Cuba is today. I do not know, José Mujica, A guy who legalizes marijuana and supports the decriminalization of abortion in Uruguay despite his personal position (against), articulates such an ardorly defensive speech ... you have to understand that roots of a generation that suffered the cruel dictatorships supported by the US in this region and what happened in Cuba, A lighthouse that illuminated all of Latin America. It is not strange, then, that one supports Cuba as rejection of the United States and their misdeeds, The same ones that continue to commit now on behalf of the market.
My memory of Cuba also has more to do with the heart than with any rational exercise
My memory of Cuba also has more to do with the heart than with any rational exercise. And I think that feeling is almost universal.
The best metaphor of the spirit of this country of eleven million souls recently occurred, With the sudden death of Juan formal, The leader of the Van Van orchestra, One of the groups with the greatest recognition inside and outside Cuba. The wake was held at the National Theater, where close to the ashes of Formll there were instruments available to whoever wanted. In this, Pedrito Calvo, former group singer, Together with other great musicians of the island, They began to interpret «Sandunguera (Above level)», song composed of the deceased. People were parading in front of the remains of form when the musicians began to move the skeleton while they sang: "Sandegaring Sandunga, You are going over your waist/ do not move more like that/ that you leave the level./ And they say that/ that girl there is no one to put the brake ... ".
