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FROM
CUBA
Outcasts.com
Rafael Ferro
PINAR DEL RÍO, Cuba, July (www.cubanet.org)
- The marginal neighborhoods of this city
have their own life. Their inhabitants show
their faces and you realize how desperate
they are. Those faces are like a sign of
the life their owners have been forced to
lead.
I visited one of the marginal neighborhoods
of the city. It can be said that it's the
banner marginal neighborhood of the locality.
It is called the Maica district and is one
of the most densely populated. It has a
main street that is only paved halfway.
After that it turns into an impassable road
of mud and smelly puddles. On the right
side of that street are other streets that
lead into the eastern part of the district.
They're all dirt.
I took the first street and went as far
as the bodega, the corner grocery store.
A bodega is almost always a good place to
listen to rumors around the city that later
can take form and become news and, in the
best cases, give shape to a good chronicle.
I arrive at the store. An old friend works
there. His name is Argeo. I greet him and
he gives me a half dozen cigarettes. He
almost always does this and I thank him.
The store is literally empty. There are
neither people nor products in it, except
for cigarettes and cigars. It's the same
panorama in nearly all the bodegas in Cuba.
On the island the products sold to the populace
through the ration book are distributed
at the end of the month, which means a person
doesn't have much to buy the rest of the
time.
The few people who go to a bodega do it
to buy cigarettes or cigars. The old man
with whom I spoke this morning came for
that reason. Argeo sold him the cigarette,
and the old man asked me for matches for
a light. I gave them to him and, thanking
me, he leaned against the counter to calmly
smoke. My friend Argeo says to him:
"Look, Hildalgo, this friend of mine
is a journalist. But he isn't one of those
government ones, he writes for abroad."
"We're screwed then," replied
the old man. "We'll never be able to
read what the man writes."
He is right. Almost everything I write
is published on the internet or abroad.
And the internet is prohibited for everyone
in Cuba. Perhaps the old man doesn't know
anything about the internet, but he's old
enough to know about bans and prohibitions
in Cuba. "Are you retired, old man?"
"Well, I'll tell you I was retired
by force. It's now been 45 years since this
government retired me. I was rather young,
don't you think? I was 35 years old."
The old man takes a long puff on the cigarette.
"I was the owner of this very store,
my friend. Shortly after January 1st of
'59, the government took it away from me.
Then and there I swore I would never work
with these people. All my children left
for the United States ten years ago. I live
here with just my wife. Now they support
me. First I supported them. It's got to
be that way, doesn't it? I made my money
with my store. Previously, anyone could
make money. Now there's no chance for anyone.
Look how the store is, it shows the misery
in every corner. Did these people take it
away from me for that?"
Versión
original en español
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