I got up a dawn to go to America Arias Hospital, more commonly known as Maternidad de Linea. I was there to accompany a friend who had gone to terminate a pregnancy. Just like everyone else, she had been given an appointment for 7:30 in the morning.

This beautiful Art Deco hospital, designed by the architects Govantes and Cabarroca with some Romanesque-inspired influences, still retains a few of its original light fixtures which denote the year of its construction, 1930. Notable also are the beautiful granite floors with their motifs of contrasting colors. The wonderful stained glassskylight, in danger of being lost, still bathes the walls with soft pastel light, while the allegorical sculpture depicting motherhood on the first floor stands in front the main entrance to the building.

In the large waiting room, whose entrance faces H Street, we found ourselves among a large group of patients and those accompanying them, who had been there since early in the morning. The murmur of voices was growing, filling up the space. Suddenly, a deafening noiselike the roar of an enginewas heard coming from the adjoining the room. This caused those present to raise their voices in order to be heard to the point that the noise became unbearable. Then, the scrawny woman in a custodian’s uniform, who was supposedly keeping order in the place, shouted, “Quiet in the room!”

I had to keep from laughing. I went up to her and quietly asked, “How is it you are asking people to be quiet when in the other room there is a noise that sounds like it is coming from an airplane?” She smiled and said, “They are doing some construction and what you are hearing is equipment removing the debris.”

I looked through the glass door to the other room and was astonished to see an artifact that looked like a small tractor sliding with great effort over those wonderful floors and almost grazing the central columns of the main entrance.

At that moment a young woman dressed in a denim mini-skirt, that covered her only just above the legs, and a short tank top, that left her ample midsection and an odd tattoo right above her tailbone exposed,made an appearance to ask the ultrasound patients for their referral papers. “An odd look for a hospital,” I thought.

Motivated by the delay and the wait, I decided to go the the hospital’s management to complain about the noise and rude treatment, and to offer some suggestions regarding the inappropriate attire of some of the hospital’s workers. Judging by the look on the face of the director’s secretary, my complaint was not well received. As a justification she told me they were doing as best as they could considering that there was reconstruction taking place so that they could continue providing services not only to their patients, but also to other hospitals in the area, which were experiencing similar problems. She told me to file a written complaint with my name, address and ID card number, to which I responded that she could count on it.

Finally, at 11 AM a nurse popped into the waiting room to inform everyone that she was sorry, but that the exams would be further delayed because there was only one anesthesiologist in the entire hospital, and at that moment he was in surgery. After an hour they began to let in the restless and nervous patients based on their order they had arrived.

The uniformed woman blocked the door so that those accompanying the patients could not enter the exam area. Then began the skirmish to offer small gifts such as packages of cigarettes and little “empanadas de enfrente” in hopes they would be the key to get through the barricaded door.

Armed with empanadas and other treats, I managed to get to the second floor, where the procedures are carried out, in order to lend moral support to the patient like the other friends and family members who were doing the same, offering moral support to our patient. There I observed that approximately a third of the beautiful facility was closed off with signs saying “closed due to danger of collapse.” It also pained me to see how the construction workers mistreated the floors, carelessly dropping their heavy tools.

Nervously, I watched the coming and going of the only wheelchair, that was missing the foot supports and the rubber rims on the wheels, being used to bring out the patients who were coming out of the anesthesia. Finally, the creaking rhythm of that chair revealed my friend, who, happily, was responding well and recovering quickly from that painful mishap. The complete of our beautiful architectural heritage, which we left behind and whose abuse I witnessed for many hours.

November 19 2012

About six months ago I started to make travel arrangements for the minor son of a friend who lives abroad, and for that purpose she awarded my power of attorney to represent her first-born. I would like to note that on “our beloved planet,” for some things they are minors — for example to buy or sell, or to make a will — but for others, being imprisoned or executed for having committed an offense against national security, they only have to be 16.

The first thing I had to do was to go to the civil registry to get a documents proving birth, single status, lack of a criminal record, etc. This meant, of course, interminable lines, expenses to have them stamped, little gifts (i.e. bribes), and above all lots and lots of patience.

Once I acquired the national documents, I had to stand in more interminable lines, to legalize them (all paid for in convertible currency), at the State agency dedicated to this. Afterwards I presented them to the embassy that was going to receive him, in this case Spain, where the lines are amazing and the treatment offered is not the best. I had to go there several times because the information received was inaccurate and the documents asked for were difficult to get.

Once all the paperwork with the embassy in question in finished, then comes, in the case of males, the worst nightmare: release from military service.

Having already completed these steps, we just had to go through the crushing machine at the Immigration Office. I have to admit that the treatment there is friendly. But it’s also good to note that despite this nice treatment, the efficiency isn’t the best, because almost all the personnel is new and is not well-trained.

You must come armed with patience and optimism, because you’re going to have to stand in those infernal lines many times: sometimes because you don’t have a document they didn’t tell you about, others because every time you go they ask for something new. In short, you have to go to the place many times, instead of the two times you thought: once to deliver the request and once to get the answer.

Thus, lurching along bad-humoredly from line to line, time passes and you become exhausted, and are paying sums you hadn’t counted on. None of them ask your pardon for the procedural blunders they commit, and they all act as if they’re doing you a favor and not violating your most sacred rights: to be able to freely enter and leave your own country as many times as necessary, without their preventing it.

Finally, today after so many months, so many mistakes, and so much physical and mental exhaustion, they have awarded to the boy I am representing his longed-for exit permit, to be able to be reunited with his mother, who lives abroad. This has been just like the case of another Elian, but in reverse.

November 21 2012

A few days before the elections in the United States, on November 2, the newspaper Granma published a statement by Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Relations, where it again castigated the United States Interest Section — SINA — in Havana, accusing it of interference, for offering support to civil society and the Cuban peaceful opposition.

The issue of access to the Internet and providing free information at the embassy, which goes against the exclusionary policies of the totalitarian authorities of the archipelago, returns to the public arena. The invalidation of the Cuban opposition, by calling it mercenary, is repeated. The rejection of the proposal by President Raul Castro to hold talks with the U.S. government is put forward as a practice of the past Cold War.

And finally, the threat: “The Foreign Ministry denounces the illegal, meddling, offensive and provocative activities of the United States Interests Section and demands an end to its permanent incitement to carry out actions aimed at subverting the constitutional order that the Cuban people have chosen in a legitimate and sovereign way. The Foreign Ministry confirms that Cuba will not give ground to interference and will use every legal means at its disposal to defend the sovereignty won and to enforce respect for the Cuban people and the country’s laws.”

In Tuesday’s U.S. elections, on November 6, the Democratic Party candidate Barack Obama was reelected for a second term. The current Cuban leaders appear to take a deep breath following the results of these elections. Now it is not about apologizing to the free world, perfectible democracy and the American dream.

It is about asking ourselves, beyond any other consideration, how it would have been it we could not count on the solidarity and support of the people of the United States as represented by their leaders.

We must remember that, after furtively imposing a totalitarian system, alien to our culture, our traditions and the most legitimate interests of the Cuban nation, the totalitarian authorities could not care less about the fate of those not communing with their purposes. “We don’t want them, we don’t need them.”

Under this core belief of the Castro regime, more than two million compatriots were forced to emigrate, the majority to the United States, which welcomed them and where today the Cuban-American community is among the most significant.

And the emigration continues, even supported by the continuous requirements of the Cuban rulers to U.S. authorities, from whom they demand compliance with the immigration agreements and the granting of twenty thousand visas annually.

Ah! Because currently those who emigrate are classified by the authoritarian government of the islands as… economic migrants.

Some elderly say that to protect is one of the first responsibilities of a leader. Now, when we review the letters exchanged between Fidel Castro and Nikita Kruschev during the October Crisis of 1962 — five decades ago — published in Granma, with the same paper and the same ink as the declaration of earlier times, we understand how close we were to that improvised nuclear holocaust.

The Soviet premier said, in his letter of October 30, 1962:

“We have experienced the most serious moment, in which we could have triggered a world thermonuclear war. Clearly, in a such a case, the U.S. would have suffered enormous losses, but the Soviet Union and the entire socialist camp would also have suffered greatly. With regards to Cuba, it’s difficult even to say to the Cuban people that this could have been the end for them. The first flames of war would have incinerated Cuba.”

It seems a temperature overtook our environment during those days that still has not cooled after fifty years. And with reason. The United States government renews its government team every 4 or 8 years. In Cuba it remains the same and the exact same for over half a century.

The Cuban authorities propose talks with the Americans, when they have not been able to recognize, much less carry out, a dialogue with their own peaceful national opposition.

Raul Castro’s government already has a fiber optic submarine cable from Venezuela, which multiplies the internet capability. Yet Cuba remains among the countries with the lowest connectivity on the planet. And so the list of abuses of authority goes beyond reason.

We hope that the rulers of the archipelago take into consideration all that we lack here at home, in order to create reliable bridges to the outside.

It is useful to repeat that the ratification and implementation of the United Nations Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights is the unobjectionable starting point for the necessary and urgent changes for the Cuban nation. Hopefully these  free, democratic and pluralistic elections held in the United States will serve as a useful lesson.

November 15 2012

The small train station bustles with life starting early. Students in the tightest uniforms pass by, and a newspaper seller announces the boring Granma every day. There are paper cones of peanuts, workers selling soft drinks, and several people who have slept all night on cardboard on the floor. The place — despite its insignificant architecture — could be a train station in any city in the world. There is only one thing missing from the scene, something that stands out by its absence: there isn’t a train in sight. The rails are empty and no locomotive can be made out, not even the sound of a whistle in the distance. At mid-morning a lone coach limps in, with the initials DB (Deutsche Bahn) still painted on the side. Passengers board with reluctance, although the odd child still greets them smiling from the window.

Cuba had the first railroad in Latin America, inaugurated in a November like this one 175 years ago. The Havana-Bejucel section was created a decade before Spain — then a metropolis — began operating trains in its own territory. But it is not just a question of dates, but that on this Island the rail lines spread out across the country like a backbone from which sprouted infinite branches. Life in many small towns began to be measured between the coming of one car and another, between the arrivals and departures that appeared on the notice board in each station. The everyday smell came from the “aroma” that arises from the friction of the metal of the wheels on that of the rails. But little remains today of that prominent railroad. One day we said goodbye from the platform to the last train where we felt comfortable, and from that moment climbed aboard another that was an uncomfortable, difficult and distressing experience.

Although in the past year repair work has been carried out on the routes, and the cargo moved along them has more than doubled, the damage suffered by the Cuban railroad system is of a seriousness that cannot be quantified in numbers. The main problem is not the lack of punctuality in the departures, nor the deteriorated cars, nor even the bathrooms so filthy they can’t be called sanitary services. Nor is it the systematic theft of the passengers’ belongings, the mistreatment of the clients by many of the employees, the constant cancellations of departures, or the alarming lack of safety reflected in frequent accidents. The greatest deterioration has occurred in the minds of Cubans, for whom the railroad has ceased to be the inter-provincial mode of transport par excellence. Those millions of people who no long measure the rhythm of their lives by the whistle of the locomotive, who no longer proudly salute from the window of a car. The hackneyed scene of the goodbye kiss in the station, the handkerchief waving from the empty platform, the decades long absence of the principal protagonist: a train about to leave, a long iron snake ready to travel the backbone of this Island.

20 November 2012

God willing, before spring of 2013 arrives, Ernesto, thirty-five years old and the owner of a small confectionery business in the Havana neighborhood ofSanto Suárez, will probably be able to travel to Madrid. He will stroll along the Plaza de Cibeles, and buy something in an outlet store or a Chinese street market. And if his brother-in-law buys him a ticket, he will sit in the south end ofSantiago Bernabeu Stadium and see Cristiano Ronaldo and the rest of the gang play. It is his lifelong dream.

If, in spite of the monstrous crisis devastating the Iberian peninsula, his sister in Vallecas* is able to advance him a few hundred euros to buy the tickets and the Spanish consulate in Havana does not deny him an exit visa at the last minute, he will send an email to his relatives and friends in Spain saying, “Meet me at Barajas Airport.”

Right now the much discussed emigration reform is the second most important topic of conversation among Cubans after the headache brought on by trying to find enough to eat every day. The desire to emigrate to find temporary work overseas to make a few decent dollars or euros, whether it be cutting down trees in a dense Canadian forest, clearing snow in Berlin or selling ice cream in Seville, plays a part in the future plans of many Cuban families.

Some are able to do it because they have relatives who were part of the first red-blooded group to reach the other side of the Florida Straits. After spending money on medical exams and waiting for the green light from US authorities, they manage to finally arrive in the sun-drenched city. Each year more than 20,000 people are able to realize their own American dream in this orderly, legal and secure way.

But not everyone in Cuba has relatives in Miami. There are other ways to enter the United States. As a result of the Cuban Adjustment Act, a bizarre federal law that grants automatic residency to any Cuban who manages to set foot on American soil, people on the island find ways to reach El Dorado. They include tales of heroic exploits such as transforming a 1950s Ford truck into a motorboat, leaving on a surf board or hiding within the landing gear of a commercial jet.

Hundreds of Cubans have lost their lives trying to escape the Communist autocracy. There are no exact figures. According to the U.S. Coast Guard one in three balseros ends up as shark bait. The Cuban Adjustment Act is like a marathon; not everyone makes it to the end. It is like a game of Russian roulette in which you could lose your raft or your life. There are stories circulating on the web of people being swindled by bands of human traffickers. Numerous countrymen have seen their hopes dashed, dying of hunger and thirst on a mountain in Colombia while trying to get to Panama or to a desert on the Mexican border.

If we add to these the regime’s absurd restrictions, which grant it the right to authorize or deny Cubans permission to leave and reenter the country, we arrive at a devastating conclusion: In the past fifty-three years we have lived under a perpetual state of siege. There is always a sense of gratitude when some of these perverse prohibitions are lifted, but GeneralRaúl Castro’s proposed reforms have the whiff of moldy cheese.

The imagination of foreign correspondents comes as a surprise, when they write headlines that starting in January of 2012, Cubans can go sightseeing. How many in Cuba will be able to do that? I assure you that they are the minority. The mandarins and their kin, those yes. They’ve already been doing it. They go to Margarita Island in Mallorca. These “tourists” are the exception.

Most Cubans who travel abroad and whose stay is longer than twenty-four months want to work hard and save money to repair their dilapidated houses, or buy new furniture and a 24-inch plasma screen TV. Only if things are going really well will they think about staying.

We Cubans cannot travel abroad because, in the first place, the money the state pays us is worthless. Even if you worked and saved for several years, it would not be enough to buy a round-trip ticket. Unlike Paco from Andalucia, John from Nebraska or Pepe from Mantilla, we can only travel if an uncle from Hialeah sends us one or two thousand dollars.

Economic dependence on relatives living in the diaspora is almost total. Any good that comes to a middle-class families in Cubans who do not receive handouts from the government, or who are not famous writers or musicians, is dependent on those who live in the “Yuma**,” from where almost all the shoddy material entering the island comes. Improvement in the quality of life for the average citizen is intimately linked to the remittances and aid sent by family and friends living in exile. The same applies to one’s ability to travel. The expenses are covered by residents on the other shore.

We have not even talked about the restrictions contemplated in the new emigration reform with respect to professionals or dissidents.For Raúl Rivero or Carlos Alberto Montaner the regime will continue to deny them permission to visit their homeland. And a telecommunications engineer’s ticket will be cancelled by a grim emigration official alleging issues of national security.

The government washes its hands like Pontius Pilate by lifting restrictions on people like Ernesto the confectioner, with his plans to travel to Madrid. Professionals and dissidents, meanwhile, remain on the black list.

Photo: A street in central Havana,Laritza Diversent

*Translator’s note: A working-class neighborhood of Madrid.
**Colloquial name for the United Staes.

November 17 2012