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On the afternoon of August 3, Vidal is desperate and the others there tell him to remain calm, “you’ll give yourself a heart attack,” they say. But he keeps gesticulating and jumping around without getting Customs employees to do their work any faster. It takes them between 30 and 45 minutes with each client, but sometimes up to an hour.

To retrieve luggage, you must first get into the outer line, and then after two or three hours you can access an office where a passenger must locate their luggage. If an airline representative arrives, the customer can advance somewhat in line but still the average wait is between 5 and 8 hours during the day. Soon you will have to weigh the suitcase and fill in the Customs form. Between one thing and another endless minutes pass in which nothing happens.

In some seats – which once had padded bottoms but are now only metal – those of us who wait exchange stories. “I’m here since five in the morning,” says a father with a small girl. “I have not had breakfast or lunch because I can’t go out,” adds a teenager who points out the padlock that closes the access gate, located on the side of the main terminal building.

We are not imprisoned, no judge has dictated that they lock us up, but we all know that going out to try to go to the bathroom or drink some water can mean losing our place in line. We are prisoners of Customs; inmates without prison uniforms or bars, although prisoners in the end.

We remain in a corridor, between two offices, with a light roof full of gaps and a floor that has not been cleaned in months. There is no bathroom, drinking fountain, or a place to buy something to eat. Outside, first under the inclement sun and then soaked by an intense downpour, are the less fortunate, those who have not even been able to enter the area where they can sit.

“I got in line before noon,” says a talkative lady who is still tired from her long journey from Mozambique where her doctor daughter lives. When she arrived, Customs confiscated an electric oven for not complying with the import requirements and she does not understand why, as of three o’clock this Saturday, she has not been given her suitcase, which has been in Havana for a day.

That ordeal is only experienced by Cubans, including those who reside outside the Island, since most tourists will get their lost luggage delivered to their hotel or the rental house where they are staying. “We are not people, we are animals,” laments a woman who has arrived with her daughter to claim some bundles. She says it almost under a surveillance camera, with a fish eye-shaped lens, at which she stares defiantly.

“Foreigners do not stand in line and if you drop a bill in the right hands you go through very quickly,” complains a young man next to me with dark glasses that hide his eyes, red from not sleeping. “I arrived Thursday on the Aeroflot flight and my suitcase landed yesterday,” he says in a weak voice. He opens a package of cookies and offers them, hands come up fast to get one.

In the almost six hours I spend there, I see everything. A European retrieves his suitcase in minutes and tries to pay the airport employee who slipped it to him, but the man indicates with a gesture that it is better to make the transaction more discreetly. Another, in exchange for two ice cream snacks, wins the favor of a customs official, while a woman passenger breaks into tears of despair under the sign that says “lost luggage.”

Strong ties are woven between the preschool teacher, the reporter for 14ymedio, the young man traveling on an official passport, a woman returning to stay, a reggaetonero, a teenager who grew up in Belgium but whose dual citizenship is not recognized in Cuba, a young man who does not want to protest so as not to stand out, and the retiree who sees “a repudiation rally or a tribute as the same thing,” he says.

No one shows any mercy to Customs: it is the enemy; we, a varied and unarmed platoon. In there they have weights, scanners, forms, arrogance, grim looks; out here helplessness, annoyance, anger… a rage that is taking shape as the hours go by. Vidal is the most troubled because he is the one who has been waiting the longest.

The man shouts that he will complain, that he needs witnesses of so much “abuse”; some laugh softly thinking he is crazy, but most support him, close ranks with him. You can’t be very sane and challenge power in Cuba, much less a Customs that decides what merchandise can make a family happy and relieve their daily hardships.

Everything related to luggage uncovers sensitivities. We packed the gifts for relatives, the medicines for a patient, the order that a friend entrusted us. Behind every suitcase is a drama. “I brought a cream for the bedsores of my grandfather who is prostrate and I have not been able to get it for four days,” says a woman who waits by my side, while the rain sneaks through the gaps in the roof and soaks us.

Another woman takes out a pen to share with those who must fill out the Customs form, although they have already completed one before arriving in Cuba, a blue piece of paper asking if we are bringing live animals or pornography, when the danger is actually something else.

The authorities limit private imports because the State wants to continue selling its lousy products at very high prices in its stores.

For Customs, we are potential criminals who carry a larger number of disposable shavers in our bags, cans of sardines that we do not declare, or shoes that are not our size and that make it clear we are importing them for third parties. We are the enemy and they treat us as such.

Fear shows in every step that the AGR employees take before the tired but attentive eyes of a crowd that after several hours of waiting seems to have lost its own fear. “Either they give me the bags or I denounce them”; “They deal with me right now or this is going to go through the channels [alluding to Miami television]”; “They expedite this or even Raúl Castro will find out,” shout the more daring.

There is a Cuban couple living in the United States who have brought their son. The boy plays on a cell phone but occasionally emits a phrase of despair. Heat and dirt envelop everything. The mother warns him that, although he was born on the other side of the Florida Strait, he has to learn that in Cuba “making anything happen requires work.” Not very satisfied, the little one concentrates on the screen.

A lady notices me. “You are a journalist, right?” she says loudly. A score of eyes look at me. “You are going to have to report this,” voices from several corners demand of me, charging me with the responsibility of writing down the long hours they have been there, the employees’ laziness and their absolute inefficiency. I can’t escape, it’s my turn.

The supervisor explains that “this is complicated every day but today it has been more complicated than ever because the system is down,” in reference to the computer program that collects the data of all travelers who pass Cuban immigration. I like the phrase … and yes, the “system” is on the ground, broken, bankrupt, taking on water everywhere, I add in my mind.

Others do not miss the opportunity and also joke about the double meaning of the phrase. “Look, it fell and we didn’t even have to lay it down,” says a woman with a beautiful rose-shaped tattoo who arrived around three in the afternoon.

“Every time we try to scan a passport, it does not give us the passenger’s record,” the red-vested supervisor justifies herself. “Then we have to ask the security cameras to review the filming of the day the traveler arrived,” she adds. When the “system goes down” they can only know if the person brought more kilograms of luggage than allowed by checking that footage.

In my mind the scene reminds me of the television series where an electronic eye watches everything, whether the passenger was carrying one suitcase, two or none. According to this supervisor, to return lost luggage to its owner, it is necessary to check in the security recordings to see how many packages the traveler took from the airport the day they left.

It is not that the lady thinks us fools, she knows that she is speaking to Cubans, a “domesticated” and controlled group… at least she thinks so. The treatment she gives us is like that of an officer who gives orders to his soldiers. “Don’t disrespect me,” “you have to wait,” “if you don’t like it, leave,” “if you keep bothering us we’ll kick you out of here,” “your problem,” “this is the procedure and we have to collect the money for the State,” the employees say.

After four in the afternoon the rain continues and the water floods the place, some raise their feet in the seats and others are resigned to it. None of the office doors open to summon us to shelter inside them. “Revolution is humanity,” one mocks, repeating a slogan from a billboard. I estimate that every day the place collects thousands of pesos in import fees, but they have not invested much in improving it.

They call me by my name. A Customs officer tells me that I can’t go through with the cart and I appeal to the lady who arrived from Mozambique. We are already friends, there is trust. The hours waiting have united us. They move a metal detector over my body and ask me to go to a dimly lit corridor where I find my suitcase. They also collect my passport and the import form.

The process is just beginning. They tell me to go out again. Outside Vidal looks like a caged lion and the temperature of his protest has risen. We are all soaked, hungry, upset and have that look of those who are already willing to lose everything, including their suitcase. Someone suggests that we go to the State Council and another gives their phone with some recordings to a relative and says “upload them to the internet.”

The screams of the daughter with the newly operated mother increase in volume. We all join. “Let that lady go and just give her her suitcase,” we bellow. An employee comes out and says she was able to scan seven passports to know the “import history of each one.” There are seven chosen ones, seven lucky ones. Vidal is one of them, perhaps to prevent him from continuing to call for a revolt.

The ungainly man puts a makeshift sign on the door: “People outside forbidden to enter the premises.” We are all Vidal, a little crazy, fed up, too mad. Thirty long minutes pass and he comes out with a briefcase and a look that fails to appear relieved. Immediately from inside they say my name and I go back in, and the employee attending me is paying more attention to the ice cream snack she just went to buy than to her work.

At a table with battered corners, another worker fills in a few sheets with a pen stroke where the name of the travelers appears. Obviously “the system has not come back to life and we are in the analog era,” I think. The phrases are rude, abuse is breathed in with the air, nobody says “sorry” for the technical problems that have caused the wait. At times I feel like some abandoned furniture in the middle of the office.

I look for my suitcase in the dimly lit hallway. Every corner of the room is trashed, all tiles have traces of grime and the place smells like dirt. “Where is your Customs form?” He asks me. “I already delivered it with my passport,” I babble, tired and shivering. “No, it’s not here,” he says.

The worst was yet to come. The inefficiency of Customs reached the point where they had given my passport to Vidal, who had quickly left for Las Tunas. In that chaos of documents scattered on the table, they didn’t even check the name, the photo or the gender. As he confirmed hours later, he was given a document twice, once his and once mine. The man, who was running on overdrive, didn’t even notice.

Anger rises, the employee washes her hands. “You have to find out where Vidal lives to get your passport back,” she tells me in a festive tone. I will have to become Sherlock Holmes for a mistake they made. But of course, Customs is untouchable, sure of itself, it doesn’t have to do anything for us, even when it loses the only document that allows you to cross national borders.

They let me carry my suitcase even though I no longer have identification that certifies to Customs that I am me, that I have entered Cuba on a certain date or that I have not brought any imports that require customs duty to be paid. They abandon me to my fate. I am an uncomfortable discard of their lack of efficiency.

I go out and the faces of frustration are still out there. I still have the strength to say that they are awaiting hours of abuse, inefficiency and the possible loss of their documents in the hands of a Customs office that knows how to control but not to take responsibility, an entity that acts as a watchdog but not as a safeguard; an guardian of imports that does not incur duties, only rights.

I run as fast as my legs will let me. I shout the name of Vidal in the parking lot and along the terminal exits, in the taxi area, to see if I can find him before he leaves with my 32-page booklet and filigree sheets. People think I’m crazy and by now they may be right.

The lady who had surgery with the sore leg passes by me and offers words of encouragement to follow. I can no longer cross the fence with a padlock that separates me from the employees of Customs at the Lost Baggage office. There, in the uncomfortable seats, with the dirty and still flooded floor, dozens of people wait to complete the same process that I know well. They have long faces and continue to complain loudly.

Twenty hours later I will rescue my passport thanks to the help of the employees of the JetBlue and Avianca airlines, together with the persistence of Rafael Vidal, who engaged all his energy to return it to me as soon as he realized the error. And the General Customs of the Republic that should have watched over my document and helped me in the process of recovering it? I’m still waiting for an apology.

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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

This confusion of realities haunts me as the car heads towards old San Juan. So when the driver says “people joined together and it didn’t matter if you were an artist or a mechanic, rich or poor, everyone was together,” I fantasize about some workers who drop their picks and shovels on the railroad line to shout in chorus with novelists and troubadours in front of Havana’s Plaza of the Revolution.

The image lasts in my head for a second before I return to Puerto Rico.

Hurricane Maria is an open wound that crosses the Island. “My brother lost everything and had to move from the town where he lived, spent a year and a half without electricity,” says the taxi driver. Interposing some words in English: baby, expensive, dealer, food… a linguistic mix that I hear everywhere in this free state associated with the United States.

Evening falls, headlines around the world point to this place where in the plazas twerking people celebrate the first day without Ricky, the beginning of a new stage, filled with questions. In one of those places, where popular joy, alcohol and hip movements mix, is Alder, a musician who plays the piano and the clarinet. He also dances, but with some care.

“I had sciatica problems last year and I don’t want to be in a wheelchair again but I couldn’t miss this,” he tells me as he glugs down a bottle of a craft beer made by friends. “These are not gone, they remained after the crisis and the hurricane, they are still here,” he says, pointing to the label “one hundred percent Puerto Rican.” Every time he tries to twerk he puts a hand on his waist, “to not do it too hard,” he says.

Beside him, a family has come with two darling and barking mutts, collected from the shelters where they left them when they fled from the hurricane to their families in the United States, who took them in that fateful September 2017. The winds and rains took then more than 4,600 lives, according to a study by Harvard University.

“It was hard because we had to go back to our origins, learn to do things that we hadn’t done for years,” says Nata, a Puerto Rican who has come out to celebrate with her two rescued pets. “There were people here who didn’t know how to live without air conditioning, without their cell phones or without electricity and ‘Maria’ forced us to learn from scratch,” she recalls.

“After that, the telephones did not work so people were in the street. In the villages they had to improvise common pots to feed themselves and the citizenry had to organize themselves to deal with the disaster,” she says. “This all started with ‘Maria’. Without what happened to us two years ago people would not have ended up mobilizing as they have done now, they would not have ended up uniting.”

The tipping point was the recent leak of a chat of almost 900 pages in which Rosselló shared with his close collaborators, his “brothers”, as he called them, hundreds, thousands, of opinions, comments and public policy issues. Sexual jokes and misogynistic jokes also dot the extensive exchange in the Telegram app that ended up sinking his Government.

But the rejection was incubated long before. “This is a rich boy, he doesn’t know what’s going on down here,” says a very thin man on the outskirts of a club that has been closed for more than a year. “He is the son of former Governor Pedro Rosselló González, so he has always had a good life without difficulties,” he explains and heads to a place where, on a rickety sofa, several drug addicts have a peaceful space to inject.

The musicians have been protagonists of the social movement that brought down Rosselló. The voices of Bad Bunny, Residente and Ricky Martin act as a soundtrack to social dissatisfaction and, at the bus stops, young people with wireless speakers blast their rhymes. You can go from one side of the city to the other completing the songs with the snippets that emerge from cars, windows and the voices of Puerto Ricans themselves.

Several phrases call for independence, for taking advantage of the situation to “go beyond and end the colony,” as a young man demands outside a small house near La Puerta de Alto del Cabro bar, a traditional site that has managed to survive despite the onslaught of the big chains. But it is the rejection of Rosselló, the villain of the day, which everyone seems to share.

Alder waited all Wednesday afternoon for Ricky to leave. In the musical studio where he recorded some songs, they stuffed themselves with popcorn, drinks and patience to celebrate the governor’s departure. After seven o’clock in the evening their supplies had run out and “the bastard still did not resign,” he recalls. It was like watching the end of a movie that goes on and on without the credits appearing.

An hour later, they decided to go to the outskirts of La Fortaleza. “It may take time but tonight he’s going, no matter what,” said Adler. In the early morning, he ended up on the bench of a drunk and happy park as if he had been part of the “liberating command” that removed the governor from his post. There was no one on the street who did not feel part of that group as well. They did not need balaclavas or machine guns, they did it with shouts.

Exhaustion and so many impressions mix up everything in my head. I grew up hearing about the two wings, that it is only together that the islands can take flight. Dawn arrives, and on the other “half of the bird” just a few hours remain before Cuba’s official 26^th of July event.

Here, Puerto Ricans exercise their civic force against power, and there, Cubans attend the liturgy of immobility, the worn out ceremony of “continuity,” the motto most repeated by Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel to prolong what has already lasted too long. Here they talk and unite, there we shut up and fear. On the same morning, San Juan is a party and Havana a tomb.

Harry drives an Uber for ten hours a day, his real estate business was ruined by the hurricane. Every person I meet has a before and after ‘Maria’. Just mentioning that name makes people emotional, exploding in an avalanche of anecdotes. “I should have left, because a brother of mine who lives in New York was going to help me get settled there, but I didn’t want to leave my parents alone,” he says.

Skeptical about Roselló’s departure, Harry is one of the few who has not gone to demonstrate or celebrate after the governor’s resignation. “It doesn’t matter, a corrupt one leaves and another arrives,” he says. “Whoever comes will also steal,” he says categorically as we head for Ocean Park in Santurce. A black cloth whips loudly back and forth on a flagpole. “Ricky resign,” it says in huge white letters.

The vehicle turns the corner, passes a Walgreens pharmacy, a McDonald’s and a KFC. Throughout the neighborhood, local businesses try to maintain themselves in the presence of large firms that “sell cheaper and cheaper,” Harry tells me. “Young people prefer to eat a hamburger over a fricasé,” he laments.

Harry has been very worried since Wednesday, when Rosselló announced that he was leaving. “I live from tourism and the people who come here to do business. If they see us as an unstable or unsafe country, they won’t come,” he calculates. He proposes a trip to and from the beach for a good price, but then immediately realizes that I come from an Island; “ah … true you also have enough sun over there,” he says.

I arrive at Río Piedras, where time seems to have stopped. The once populous boulevard is now a street with few businesses and abandoned buildings. A store displays its Made in China merchandise on the sidewalk. Walking, I come across a cart that sells honey, lemon and ginger. I need them because my throat is sore from the Havana rain and the Puerto Rican revelry. I take advantage of the shade and approach the merchant.

“This was full of life before,” he says. Several cats come out of the abandoned house behind me. One, black as night, rubs against my legs to get me to give him something to eat. I cross the street and buy a corn fritter from a woman who has her little post at the entrance to a cafeteria. A recorded voice constantly repeats the list of sales “today only.”

In Río Piedras, near the University of Puerto Rico, people got tired of waiting. A coffee seller evokes the 1996 gas explosion in the Humberto Vidal store that left 33 dead and an indelible mark in the memory of the community. “Afterwards everything went from bad to worse,” he tells me and gives me a cup with a strong and bitter liquid that makes my eyes cross. “We didn’t have to fire a shot and Ricky left,” he boasts.

If it weren’t for a few details of the accent and because the coffee has no hint of roasted peas, I would think I was conversing with any Cuban in a town in the interior of the country. He smooths his hair with hand, raises his index finger and predicts that “already Puerto Ricans are not the same as before, now we know we are strong, that we must respect ourselves.”

Across the street, a Colombian underwear store exhibits bras with lace. “So Cuban,” says the man. I make a move to leave because I suspect that he will repeat stereotypes about my island, the other wing, a wing with its own wounds. I sense that he will recite to me “the conquests of the Revolution,” but I am wrong. “You don’t have this,” he emphasizes with a hint of superiority. “At least we have started along the road.”

I turn to give the cat something to eat but it is gone. The building where it came from smells of abandonment, of that humidity that is encrusted in the walls when people stop inhabiting a place. A nearby graffiti demands that Ricky step down and in the corner a tattered flag beats against a balcony. I squint my eyes and my tiredness or the heat make me see blue stripes instead of red stripes next to a triangle, blood red.

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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.