Cuba blog girl is back in action!!!! For your reading pleasure.

[Jammyisme]

Concerning the migration talks between Cuba and the United States which are taking place today in Havana.

Carlitos finally made it to Atlanta, after trying five times to cross the Straits of Florida. On two occasions he was intercepted by the U.S. Coast Guard and returned to the Island. For months he saved the yellow form they gave him to request – legally – a visa from the United States Interest Section. However, he preferred a faster way to leave behind the room he shared with his grandmother and the police harassment in his neighborhood. He was also captured by the Cubans, on August 13 three years ago, when the boat’s propeller broke and his trip ended in a jail in the village of Cojimar. There he was fined and a plainclothes office began visiting him to demand he find a job.

After demonstrating his few talents as a sailor, this young man of 32 managed to go to Ecuador, one of the few countries that still does not require a visa from Cubans. The South American nation was the trampoline to enter the United States, where he is now trying to start a new life. He left his GPS in the hands of some of his friends who had helped him in his journeys, along with that form he had never filled out to ask for a humanitarian visa. He did not leave for a pre-determined destiny, rather he feared turning into a frustrated forty-year-old. Not even in his most optimistic days could he foresee he would come to have his own roof, or a salary that would save him from having to divert State resources to survive.

Like so many other Cubans, Carlitos had no hope that the promises made to him when he was a child would materialize. He did not want to grow old sitting on the sidewalk in front of his house, taking the edge off his failure with alcohol and some other pill. He planned every kind of escape, but finally his uncle paid for the ticket to Quito with the illusion that he would be able to get the rest of the family out. He still dreams of boats that draw near in the middle of the night and take him back to Cuba in handcuffs, smelling of salt and oil. He wakes up and looks around to confirm that he is still in the little apartment he has rented with a girlfriend. “Once a rafter, always a rafter,” he muses, while turning over his pillow and trying to dream on solid ground.

[Jammyisme]

This afternoon, hours after the death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, Reinaldo and I were able to approach the Department of Legal Medicine, where autopsies are performed, in Boyeros Street.

A cordon of men from State Security were watching the place, but we managed to approach Reina, the mother of the deceased, and ask her the questions in the recording posted here.

Pain, indignation in our case… sadness and fortitude in hers.  Here is the recording, amateur and in very low light, but the heartbreaking testimony of an anguished mother.

English transcript of Yoani Sanchez video interview of Reina Tamayo, mother of Orlando Zapata Tamayo

Yoani Sanchez: We are here to express our condolences. We would like to know at what time did he pass away, what do you know about his last minutes, what are your feelings right now, and what is going to happen after he is released by the coroner?

Reina Luisa Tamayo Dangier: I am Reina Luisa Tamayo Dangier, the mother of prisoner of conscience Orlando Zapata Tamayo who was interned in the hospital of the Habana del Este Prison. Last night he was moved to the Hermanos Ameijeiras Hospital where he passed away at 3:00 PM.

I can tell you I feel a horrible pain, but I am holding on, enduring through this pain. I was able to be at his side until he passed away and now hope to have the courage to dress my son Orlando Zapata Tamayo.

We will leave for Banes, Holguin Province, Embarcadero road, house number six, where we will hold the wake before our family altar, at my home, for as long as required.

I want to tell the world about my pain. I think my son’s death was a premeditated murder. My son was tortured throughout his incarceration. His plight has brought me great pain and has been excruciating for the entire family. Even, as he was transferred to this prison, he was first held in Camaguey without drinking water for 18 days. My son dies after an 86-day hunger strike. He is another Pedro Boitel for Cuba. [Pedro Luis Boitel died in 1972 during a hunger strike while serving a 10-year prison sentence in Cuba]

In the midst of deep pain, I call on the world to demand the freedom of the other prisoners and brothers unfairly sentenced so that what happened to my boy, my second child, who leaves behind no physical legacy, no child or wife, does not happen again. Thank you!

[Jammyisme]

Bicycles


Twenty years ago our streets began to fill with bicycles and empty of cars. It wasn’t in fashion to protect the environment, nor to get exercise, rather it was the direct result of the end of the Soviet subsidy. The preferentially priced oil supplies from the East were interrupted, public transport collapsed and my father lost his job as a train mechanic. In those days, getting to work could take the equivalent of half a day and we frequently traveled hanging out of the doors of the bus, like bunches of human grapes.

Then the successive shipments of bicycles from the land of Deng Xiaoping arrived, and were distributed among the outstanding workers and vanguard students. Now the reward for a meritorious task or for unconditional ideology was no longer a trip to East Germany or the delivery of the latest model Russian Lada, but rather a shiny Forever brand bicycle.  Parking lots where the light vehicles were protected from thieves sprang up everywhere and my father opened a workshop to repair punctures. Innovations also appeared with the addition of baby seats, trailers and front baskets. Even women of an advanced age, reluctant to show off their legs while they worked the pedals, ended up adapting themselves to the rhythm of the times.

With the dollarization of the economy high level officials, artists and foreign residents were permitted to import their own cars, while tourists could rent a Peugeot or Citröen. So the streets experienced once again the steady rolling of tires. The number of bicycles dwindled because ships full of them no longer arrived, spare parts became scarce, and Cubans got tired of pedaling everywhere. A slight improvement in the bus service has led many to get rid of their rolling comrade, as if by this gesture they could rid themselves of the crisis.

[Jammyisme]

   Kisses For One Night

With a tight sweater and gel-smeared hair, he offers his body for only twenty convertible pesos a night. His face, with its high cheekbones and slanted eyes, is common among those from the East of the country. He constantly moves his arms, a mixture of lasciviousness and innocence that at times provokes pity, at others desire. He is a part of the vast group of Cubans who earn a living from the sweat of their pelvis, who market their sex to foreigners and locals. An industry of quick love and brief caresses, that has grown considerably on this Island in the last twenty years.

Havana has the air of a brothel at times, particularly if you pass through Monte Street where it meets Cienfuegos. Young women in their flashy – if a little faded – clothes offer their “merchandise,” especially after night falls and the spandex doesn’t look quite as baggy nor the circles under their eyes quite as dark. These are the ones who can’t compete with those who can snag a manager or a tourist to take them to a hotel and offer them, the next morning, a breakfast that comes with milk. These are the ones who don’t wear perfume and who finish their work in the cramped quarters of a solar or even on the landing under the stairs. They traffic in groans, exchanging spasms for money.

These men and women – merchants of desire – avoid tripping over the uniformed police who guard the area. Falling into their hands can mean a night in a cell or, for those in the city illegally, deportation to your home province. Everything can be “resolved” if the officer accepts the hint of a probing thigh and agrees to withhold an official warning in exchange for a few minutes of privacy. Some officers return regularly to take their cut, in money or in services, that allows these nocturnal beings to continue taking up their positions on the corner. A woman who refuses the exchange can find herself in a prostitute reeducation camp, while the men might be charged with the crime of pre-criminal dangerousness.

And so the cycle of sex for money comes full circle, in a city where honest work is a museum relic and the needs bring many to position their bodies and swing their hips in hopes of an offer.