HAVANA CUBA. – When the American Airlines Boeing 747 began to gain momentum on the runway at the José Martí international airport in Havana, Yordanka crossed herself in her seat while tightly squeezing the hand of her 12-year-old daughter who was looking out the plane window with indifference. , how they left behind that geographical piece that we know as homeland.
Yordanka arrived at the terminal five hours before flight 2696 left for Miami, the iconic city of Cubans who decide to emigrate from the ideological and economic nonsense established 65 years ago by Fidel Castro.
“I was afraid that my flight would miss me, I live in an intricate hamlet in the Pinar del Río province – two hundred kilometers west of the capital – and we decided to leave the town at nine at night,” he said with a look of sadness. I dream with my head leaning on a frayed backpack. Yordanka, like a dozen embarrassed passengers who were traveling thanks to the parole program approved by the Biden administration on January 6, 2023, was the first time they had gotten on a plane.
I didn’t think about leaving
“I never thought about leaving my country. My daughter’s father inherited from his father a piece of land where during harvest time we planted tobacco and some vegetables. The longest trip he had taken was to Havana,” she commented. The reasons why she emigrates are diverse. “You can’t live in Cuba anymore. There are many problems and the government has no answers. My family works the land hard and we make no progress. Getting worse. Like the crab we walk backwards. Since January, the shortest blackouts have been eight hours. The longest ones are 19 hours. “My daughter deserves better.”she says confidently.
Leticia, 66 years old, recognizes that “it is very hard to emigrate and start a new life at my age. But Cuba is the worst country in the world for old people to live in. Pensions are a pittance. There are no medications and most of us are starving. Also, too much violence in the streets. My son convinced me to go with him to Texas. He is doing well. He works in an oil business. And although I will miss my people, the government has transformed the country into an uninhabitable place,” she comments.
Hundreds of thousands
The parole program is a dose of hope for thousands of compatriots. As of May of last year, as revealed by a US official, 384,000 Cubans had been approved. “The updated figure is likely to exceed 600,000 people. Young people – the majority – adults and elderly people in their nineties enlist. What Cuba is experiencing is a human drama,” he expressed. The parole or the visa lottery to the United States are the fashion trends on the Island. There are numerous WhatsApp groups and on social networks Cubans follow up on each case approved by the North American authorities. But not everyone is lucky enough to have a relative or friend finance their stay in the United States. Yoel, a bank employee in the province of Camagüey, 500 kilometers east of Havana, indicated that he has done everything possible to “get away from this shit and nothing. I have signed up for courses at foreign universities, saved money to make purchases in Russia and resell here and it has not been possible. Inflation devours any amount of money you may have saved at the speed of light. I am desperate because of the blackouts and not having money to buy toys for my children. “All that remains is to pray and that God remembers that I exist.”
No light, no water
In recent weeks, blackouts have worsened from Pinar del Río to Guantánamo. Ruslán, a resident of the La Felicidad hamlet, in the Guantanamo municipality of Yateras, pointed out that “the blackouts have been fifteen to twenty hours a day. There has been no water for almost two months. People survive by eating boiled bananas and fishing for trout in the dam. See if there is hunger, they even eat the green mangoes. And if you get sick, the nearest medical post is twenty kilometers away. People are suffocated. The only thing left is to protest. But since we are an isolated town, the black berets hit you, they disappear and no one notices,” he says.
Sergio, a resident of the Artemisa province, assures that “in all the municipalities they have taken to the streets the guards who are ready to stop you if you shout something against the government or ring the kettles asking for food. The frustration is tremendous. I feel like I’m trapped in a concentration camp. Due to the lack of fuel, moving from one place to another costs thousands of pesos. What remains is to rise on the mountain.”
An official from the Ministry of Basic Industry told DIARIO LAS AMÉRICAS that “the Felton 2 thermoelectric plant in Holguín will come online in the first days of June and should improve the blackouts somewhat. At least for Havana, the rest of the provinces do not count. The country’s electrical energy system is very obsolete. And no fuel is coming in. Russia gives you a little boat just like Mexico. But it’s not enough. The government has issued guidelines to send non-essential employees home, stop factories and further fuel cuts. If we are bad now, by summer we could be worse.”
The extensive blackouts had already reached Havana, which, being the country’s capital, headquarters of embassies, foreign press and interconnecting municipalities, had not been affected. A resident in the old area of Havana noted that “they kept the capital lit because it is the most dissident province of all. Where fewer people go to vote in the pseudo-elections that the government sets up and those who first take to the streets make a fuss. In addition, top leaders live here. And surely they are afraid that if things heat up the people will come to their homes to protest.”
Be free
A group of mothers residing in the municipalities of La Lisa and Marianao, to the west of the city, have already gone to protest at the mansion where the designated president Miguel Díaz-Canel lives. Last Thursday in the Víbora neighborhood, south of Havana, in the middle of a six-hour nighttime blackout, several neighbors shouted slogans against the government. Abel, retired, said that “not even on the corners can you sit down and get cool. There are a lot of patrols, chivas and mobilized recruits that patrol the neighborhoods. “The situation is tense.”
When the AA plane landed at Miami International Airport, dozens of Cuban passengers began to applaud. Yordanka and her daughter walked quickly to get the checkup. When she spoke on the phone with her husband he told her: “we have already escaped hell” and she felt liberated.
@DesdeLaHabana
