Manuel Vázquez Portal, Grupo Decoro
HAVANA, August – In Cuba time is worth so little that no one respects his own time or that of others. Wasting time is the most widespread and entertaining occupation. People get old yapping on a street corner without noticing their brains are getting soft. To make someone wait by being a
half-hour late to an appointment, or for a train to leave three hours, or two days, late is so common that to demand otherwise would seem an act of madness or the height of arrogance.
Accustomed to listening patiently to feature-length speeches, Cubans have lost any sense of the usefulness of time. An abundance of long-term development plans has led them to believe that there is time enough for everything. Forty-one years under the baton of one leader has engendered the
mirage that nothing changes.
It is not unusual for a receptionist to make you wait 15 minutes while she offers her newly-married friend kitchen tips. It is not unprecedented for an attorney who has given you an appointment at 8 a.m. to show up at 9:30 with the excuse that his bus was late. Just as there is nothing strange
for foodstuffs that were supposed to be available in stores the first week of the month to show up at the end of the month, or for the milk meant for the children’s breakfast to be sold at dinnertime, or for the doctor to show up an hour-and-a-half late to see patients at his office.
Yet, in the midst of this chaos there is one element of extreme punctuality: funeral homes. You are so used to being late to an event and having to wait anyway that you would think funerals would be the same. Nothing could be further from the truth. If a funeral is set for four o’clock, you’d
better find a way of getting there, because if you are but one minute late, it will be all over and you will miss that one last look at the dearly departed from this vale of soy beans. The Cuban funeral system is decidedly punctual. It’s as if people were in a hurry to see the face of God after
so many years in hell.
Versión original en español
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