Back in Cuba With the Gift of Solidarity

Yoani Sanchez - Award-winning Cuban blogger

Back in Cuba With the Gift of Solidarity
Posted: 06/03/2013 3:12 pm

My suitcase is parked in a corner, the tiny gifts that traveled inside
it already in the hands of friends and relatives. The anecdotes -- for
their part -- will need more time, because there are so many I could
spend the rest of my life parsing their details. I'm back now. Beginning
to feel the peculiarities of a Cuba that in my three-month absence has
barely changed. The number of uniforms was the first thing that jumped
out at me: soldiers, customs, police... why do you see so many uniforms
simply on landing at José Martí Airport? Why is there this feeling of so
few civilians and so many soldiers? After the dimmed lights of the
halls, the none too friendly question of a supposed doctor interested to
know if I had been in Africa. Where are you coming from, honey? She
jerked her head around noticing my blue passport with the shield of the
republic on its cover.

Outside, a group of colleagues and family waited for me. The embrace of
my son, the most cherished. Then having again entered my own space and
the unique pace at which life transpires here. Catching up with the
stories, events in the neighborhood, the city and the country. I'm back.
With an energy that the daily stumbling blocks try to cut short, but
with enough left over to undertake new projects. One stage of my life is
ending and another is emerging. I have seen the solidarity, I have felt
it and now I also have the duty to tell my compatriots on the Island
that we are not alone.

I have brought so many good memories: the sea in Lima, the Templo Mayor
in Mexico City, the Freedom Tower in Miami, the beauty of Rio de
Janeiro, the affection of so many friends in Italy, Madrid with its
Museo del Prado and its Cibeles Plaza, Amsterdam and the canals running
through it, Stockholm and the cyber-activists from the whole world I met
there, Berlin and the graffiti that covers what was once a wall dividing
Germany, Oslo surrounded by green, New York that never sleeps, Geneva
with its diplomats and the United Nations headquarters, Gdansk laden
with recent history, and Prague, beautiful, unique. All these places,
with their lights and shadows, their grave problems and their moments
for leisure and laughter, I have brought with me to Havana.

I am back and I am not the same person. Something of each place where I
was stayed with me, and the hugs and words of encouragement I received
are here today, with me.

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