Strange Christmases

Workshop of Rebeca

From girlhood, the happiest time of year for me was Christmas.  Maybe because the general atmosphere that surrounded that date was happiness and relaxation.  All the adults became friendlier, maybe because they received their “bonuses,” which generally equaled another month’s salary, making them more tolerant of the smallest and youngest of the family and of the neighborhood, who back then were like an extension of this.

I always observed with curiosity, but also with the naiveté of a girl, that my aunts and my mother, days before the key dates — Christmas and the day of the Three Kings — would restore old toys and dolls, cleaning them and making them new clothes, so that everything was shiny.  I remember that one of my aunts made tin soldiers, which my grandfather later took charge of painting suitably.  All this process of pouring the melted tin in the molds fascinated me, and I watched with delight.  I never associated this busy workshop with anything but another chore, in a home where everyone was very hard-working.  It was not until my cousin Ignacito, the most mischievous of us, approached me in secret and told me:  “Cousin, the parents are the Kings.  If you want to prove it, the night before stay awake like me to see my father dressed as a King, placing the toys around the Christmas tree.”

After he made this confession to me, I realized that these restored dolls and toys had become the property of other children in the neighborhood from families with fewer resources than ours.

I adored my cousin, he was my hero, and tried to follow him in all his antics.  I joined him the night before the anticipated day.  Trying to fight sleep, finally Morpheus overcame me before I could see my fantasy shattered.  But now things would not be the same, and in later years, I did not feel like leaving water and straw for the camels.  Nevertheless, I do not know for what hidden reason, I continued believing and feeding that illusion for several more years.

I grew, and with my adolescence came the year fifty-nine. The first thing that I saw vanish was that pretty family that I had always so much enjoyed: my aunts and uncles and with them my cousins.  That was a strange pain that I had never before felt, as if something was broken inside of me.  Later my friends left.  No more walks to window shop, no more scent of fresh pine in the doorways of the stores, no more garlands or toys.  All that disappeared.  I never again heard those Christmas carols and songs, not in the streets or on the radio, much less on television: they were replaced by marches or anthems.

For more than fifty years I longed to again hear a Christmas carol or song.  This never happened.  Nevertheless, this year, with the new boom in the small businesses and the ingenuity of the self-employed, we have spent the whole summer, until today, listening to the improvised ice cream carts, announcing themselves with music of carols, which evidently (because everyone has the same) have been incorporated, possibly with the music that comes with the garlands, which are sold at the currency raising shops — as we call the hard currency stores.

This has become something like that “you did not want soup, but you drink three bowls.”  Nothing, that for more than half a century was a shortage, now has become an overdose.  The only signs that it’s Christmas are those little carts and the paladares, the private restaurants.

Translated by mlk

December 8 2012

 

Walking With "The Enemy"

Old view of the city from El Morro.

We have spent more than fifty years hearing talk of “the enemy.”  All the blame for our deficiencies is charged to this, just like all the evils and misfortunes, product of carelessness, inattention and neglect, also go to his credit.

With that idea they have tried to hypnotize and “idiotize” the population of “our beloved planet,” and regrettably, in many cases they have achieved it.  But in spite of all that, when someone thinks about emigrating, it is always to the country of the “enemy” (USA).  Also on occasion to others, which they use as a bridge, in order to achieve the same end.

Many of us have resisted letting ourselves be influenced by such fallacy, but even so, due to all the notoriety that precedes the matter and to the prejudices sown around it, we take care not to fall in the ideological trap, and to pander to the representatives of power.

Just a few days ago I received an e-mail from a very dear American friend, where she announced to me the visit of a friend of hers of the same nationality who wished to get to know me, and in turn he was the bearer of a gift that she was sending me.  I was very satisfied to meet him and to report that the friend of my best friend, was a charming “enemy.”  Empathy soon arose between us and it remains for us to meet next time.

Last Friday afternoon, this one invited us to go to see the traditional ceremony of “the cannon shot,” a custom that exists since the epoch of the brief English occupation, when at exactly nine at night, they closed the doors of the walls that protected the city, and that they now recreate with a pretty representation in the Cabana Morro Tourist Complex.  I was pleasantly surprised by how well restored and preserved is this emblematic place, thanks to the work of the Office of City History, the only state entity, that without fear of being mistaken, we can say has been busy rescuing and conserving some of our traditions.

We had a great time in the company of him and his parents.  It was what could be called a beautiful night of “walking with the enemy.”

Translated by mlk

November 25 2012

 

Violence

Patchwork by R. Monzo

Much is publicized, even by the United Nations, about Cuba being one of the countries where less violence exists.  It is true that we do not have wars or drug trafficking.  But what is undeniable, in spite of the fact that the national press does not speak of it, is the domestic violence, like other kinds of violence carried out, due to many reasons.

Recently there occurred a lamentably bloody event, among members of a sector that is supposed to be cultured and refined. The media have not reported anything about it, but now it is popular knowledge, the crime perpetrated by one of the most outstanding musicians of the Philharmonic Orchestra, a young cellist, ranked among the best in the country.

Rumor has it that she had been a victim, like so many other musicians of the despotism with which the Director General of the Amadeo Roldan Complex, Mr. Chorens used to treat them.  It seems that the straw that broke the camel’s back was the denial of a trip abroad, highly anticipated by this virtuoso of strings.  Expressing her indignation on learning of the refusal, she made public among his companions, the vengeance that he was going to perpetrate:  I am going to hurt him where it hurts most, she said.

She went to the house of the Director, knowing that the director’s mother would be there alone, and finished her off with a blade, repeatedly stabbing her until she died.

This is only one example of the many acts of violence that are practiced daily in our country, and about which the media never report.

There is a lot of contained hatred and frustration, any incident can be the trigger to make them explode with the same fury as a volcano expelling the lava contained in its interior.  No one talks about it.  The worst is that like everything kept hidden, no one is careful, especially not foreigners, who are sold the line about the safest tourist destination.

As long as the press is not free and transparent, we are going to be believe that we are living in a true paradise.  I do not like the “police blotter,” but I also do not agree with hiding the news, that one way or another affects us all.  Nor am I going to become a spokesman for the same, but this event has upset the artistic sector and still nothing has been published about it.

Translated by mlk

June 10 2012

 

The Loss of Self Esteem

Some days ago I read in the international press a story entitled Serving, not servile, by the journalist from Juventude Rebelde (Rebel Youth), Jose Alejandro Rodriguez, where he laments the tendency of Cubans to appear servile to foreigners.  In one of his paragraphs he said and I quote:

“Neither can it be forgotten, in order not to repeat it, that certain public institutions have well matched this neo-servile tendency when in a political double standard they demand certain attributes and guidelines of a Cuban in order to access not a few sites, in contrast with the permissive submission with which they treats the foreigner.“

“If the Cuban were to travel more he would be able to see more and value more, by contrast, the good things of his country,” he continues in another paragraph.

If there is a guilty party in all this deformation of the Cuban, it is due principally to the government which, during the last half century, has treated its own people like third class citizens.  At first they enclosed us on this little island, without permitting us to have contact with the outside: that lasted several decades.

The only valid references were the Cuban dailies and some Soviet magazines. We who worked were prohibited from writing to our family or friends in capitalist countries, above all in Europe, on pain of losing our jobs.  Remember that the State was the only employer. Likewise, particular trips were prohibited or extremely restricted.

All this served to intensify the material misery and therefore morale. A feeling of distress began to grow because of not possessing the most urgent articles, which was transformed little by little into envy towards those who had access to them. The few trips to the outside were for the party militants or the youth with the most proven loyalty to the regime. Here it began to get worse and to develop the double standard.

One had to pretend and pretend well in order to be deserving of the trust and, therefore, of the little trip that would permit us to breathe a little and to be able to bring shoes and clothes to our relatives, and in a plastic bag the little food that the airplane let us ingest, so that the child at home or the old one could enjoy it. Economizing to the max on food, although that would involve hunger, in order to return to the fatherland with a little money, plus the little soaps gathered in the hotels.

With the economic crisis at the beginning of the 1980’s and the lack of tourism, flights from the Comunidad — Cubans abroad — were authorized.  Those countrymen of ours who were denounced in meetings when they expressed the desire to leave, these same ones who were insulted and told never come back, now as if by magic would be converted from “worms” (the epithet that had been screamed at them), to butterflies and would come to save the country’s weak economy and to fill a little the empty bellies of the relatives and even some of the neighbors of those who had been insulted.

I have here other manifestations of the double standard: lying to keep a job, lying earn a little trip, lying to be able to enjoy a reunion with family and friends and lying to try to contain proportionate happiness, at least publicly.

Now, many years have passed, the Special Period that started at the beginning of the 1990’s does not seem to have ended.  Because of that, as soon as tourism began to increase, the siege of the visitors increased at the same time.  The bid to see who is the most favored has made many men, women and even children seem like street clowns, trying to win over the foreigner, which is likewise a cunning way of begging.

One must not blame only the suffering people; one must consider the circumstances that have surrounded all this moral deterioration. When a society loses its civility, loses the family and all its values, anything can be expected from it.

Cuban pride is very battered. That national feeling that we used to have, that made us walk with our heads held high and treat others correctly, without difference, including the tourists, without having to lower our s ingratiate ourselves, we have been losing it almost without noticing.

The daily urgencies and the lack of good education, have made us underrate ourselves. I remember when I was a girl, for us a tourist was more ordinary. The only thing that sometimes made us turn our faces towards them was the bright attire that they wore.

As far as the flower vendors of Old Havana, I believe that the costume is excessive or unnecessary. It seems when one walks through the restored streets in that part of the city that one is moving on a movie set. This is too much for me, just like the flattery and mollycoddling that they dispense to the tourists provided that they buy the merchandise that they offer. It would seem that in the whole colonial zone, they were the estates of the big movie companies.

Translated by mlk

May 12 2012