A wonderful feature at Jose’s Cubanology blog is the poignant essays he highlights. His latest is from Nick Dominguez, a child of Cuban exiles raised in Britain. He has a deep-seated longing for his lost birthright, Cuba, and an unexplained emptiness in his heart.
A chance encounter in Ireland provides the conduit that unleashes his Cuban soul.
Excerpt:
“You look like a Cubano” he said as I told him of my origins and he shook my hand and introduced himself as Juan. Juan was exactly the same age as myself and from Havana and he told me that he had been a scientist in Cuba and that he had been part of a scientific delegation to Europe and that he had defected at Shannon airport. Half an hour later Juan finished his shift and joined me for a couple of bottles of wine at a table outside. As we watched the swans dive for fish in the waters of the River Corrib he told me of the hardships and sufferings of the people of Cuba and of how much he missed his family back in Havana. I guess it must have been a real shock for him as much as it was for me to meet there, right at the spot where Columbus had last stood on dry land before reaching the New World. As the night wore on we got more than a little drunk and we sang Guantanamera to the amusement of passers-by before shaking hands and saying goodnight.
I strolled home feeling light headed along the dark mysterious waters of Galway Bay until I reached the house where I was living, all the time thinking of my uncanny meeting with Juan, an exile from what should have been my hometown. As I sat in my arm chair and poured myself a drink, I turned on the TV to watch Ireland’s RTE network’s coverage of the Atlanta Olympics, only to find that they were showing the final of the Women’s volleyball between the US and Cuba. The Cubans won the Gold Medal that night and amongst the team was a woman with the very Irish name of O’Farrill, another strange coincidence I thought, and just after meeting Juan as well. It was so uncanny and I felt like walking down to the bay and stowing away on a ship bound for the Caribbean or swimming for it. Damn Castro, damn the embargo I thought I wanted to be in Havana, I wanted to walk along all of those old streets like La Calle Galliano and Neptuno and Prado that I’d heard my mother and father talk about. I wanted to smoke a Monte Cristo and sip on a Daiquiris at the bar in El Floridita, with the ghost of Papa Hemingway floating in the background and failing that I would have settled for Coconut Grove in Miami’s Little Havana. I fell asleep in the chair that night and dreamed in Cuban. One day I know I will walk through those streets and return to the place where I should have been born and raised and live in a free and prosperous Cuba that is neither a one party dictatorship or a playground for rich Americans to exploit. A Cuba that is independent, tolerant and that is the paradise that Jose Marti dreamed of.
Really, this essay is a must read, it’s beautiful, and will make you weep. Please, take some tissue and go read Sitting on the Dock of the Bay here.
That reminds me of “Sitting on the Dock of the Court,” where Oscar Corral is headed. When is his case going to court? I want to be there for that circus show when the prostitute testifies against him. I notice that the cub reporter has not blogged for the past ten days and has been erasing all comments on his blog regarding his arrest.
Check out this Varela cartoon of Corral and the hooker
http://bp2.blogger.com/_oZkkaRPxxfE/RroFXfPJCHI/AAAAAAAAAEc/7ioZj-tcqcY/s1600-h/CORRAL.JPG
It’s amazing how many of us have that yearning, that sense of loss. And I thought I had it bad growing up in New York in the 1960’s. Thank you, Ziva.
Keep the faith Nick Dominguez………you Will be walking through those Habana streets before long.
An awful lot of Cubans and their descendants were robbed of their birthright and heritage. Many never even got to experience it firsthand in Cuba itself. There’s no way to compensate for that criminal deprivation; there’s not even a way to put a price on it.
The loss, I’m afraid, is to a large extent irreparable, since the Cuba that was lost is simply nonexistent now. What is left in its place is a very different creature, and not for the better. Perhaps, in time, a better Cuba will emerge, but by then it may well be too late for those who were cheated out of what was rightfully theirs.
That’s why, when I hear about “reconciliation,” I can’t help but grimace. Even if we manage to forgive, we must never, ever forget.
Asombra, everything possible must be done to preserve the documentation,photos, etc., the memory of Cuba bc. When I think of the enormity of the destruction…well time for the tissues again. It’s too much–forgive? I don’t know about that.
Ziva, I hesitate to get more into this because it’s painful. The people who made Cuba what it was are either dead or too old to have much (if anything) to do with a future free Cuba. Those in Cuba still young enough to make a difference in that future Cuba are largely or completely the products of a perverse, twisted, inhuman, malignant system based on lies, fear and hatred. They simply could not help being formed, or rather deformed, by such upbringing and exposure. It’s sort of like people living in a toxically radioactive environment; it may not kill them overnight, but you’d better believe there will be seriously adverse consequences.
I don’t see how so much damage over such a long time can be undone, except at the material level, which is not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the human element, which has inevitably been significantly compromised. Until enough time has passed that the people there now have been effectively replaced by a fresh crop NOT exposed to or deformed by the radiation, so to speak, I don’t believe Cuba will truly recover. By then, as I said, it will be too late for those who were robbed of what was or should have been theirs. That includes us. It is extremely depressing, which is why it’s so often glossed over or sugarcoated with pretty fantasies, and I understand that, but that doesn’t change reality.
Asombra, that is exactly the enormity of destruction I was talking about, the destruction of, for want of a better term, civil society. The infrastructure can be rebuilt quickly with enough resources, but the beautiful, civil, unique society that was Cuba bc, that contributed so much to our civilization, is now only a remnant, it is forever gone. It is an irreparable loss, leaving wounds that cannot be healed. For those of us old enough to have been a part of that, either directly or like me, from the influence of Cuban individuals in our lives, it is intolerable. It is incumbent upon all of us to preserve the history of that civilization.
Yes, Ziva, we should try to salvage what we can, but there’s no way to undo the damage and the incalculable harm. Those who were robbed and cheated will stay and die that way, if they haven’t died already (like my father, who even after much of his mind was gone kept asking me if I’d booked the plane tickets for our return to Cuba).
So many people were seriously screwed by this needless, useless FRAUD. I’m not even talking about material losses, significant though tose were, but about psychological damage and emotional suffering. Nobody who hasn’t experienced that can really understand. Many, if not most, of the worst offenders in this crime got or will get away with it, at least in this world. Like I said, it’s almost too depressing to contemplate.