HAVANA CUBA.- On the night of January 5, the eve of Kings DayAfter walking ten kilometers selling strings of onions and garlic, Richel and his brother Maikel (names changed) ate some white rice, some slices of tomatoes and a banana fruit. Then they helped his mother prepare the crates that the next day they would take to his father, who is serving a criminal sentence in a correctional facility in the Quivicán municipality, Mayabeque province, 30 kilometers south of Havana.
Richel, 15, and Maikel, 13, work without a government license to help financially at home. They reside in a desolate room in the old part of the city. They have had a tough childhood. Instructed by their parents, they asked for money, gum and things from foreign tourists who passed by Avenida del Puerto. Richel left school two years ago and Maikel is going down that path.
The brothers’ only distraction is playing soccer on the weekends with an old ball in makeshift goals. A neighbor gave Maikel a pirated Real Madrid shirt with the number 20 on the back. The boy dreams of being a soccer star and being able to play in the new Santiago Bernabéu. “Vinicius and most of the Brazilian players were also poor. They lived in favelas and now they earn millions of dollars. Why not me?” Maikel asks himself in a candid tone.
Neither of them received gifts from the Three Wise Men. “That doesn’t exist, those who buy the toys are the parents,” says Maikel. When you talk to them you realize that they consider themselves adults. They talk about childhood in the past tense. The neighborhood boys call Richel ‘the old boy’, because of his calloused hands. January 6, Three Kings’ Day, was spent helping his mother load the sack baskets with toasted bread, sugar and packets of instant soda, the only thing they could get to take him to his father’s visit. in Quivicán.
Yamila’s dream, 14 years old, is to sing or be a soap opera actress. That’s why a friend of her mother gave her a pink plastic microphone. “He spends hours in front of the mirror singing. I don’t know if because I’m black, poor or because of bad luck, my family never gets up. They have been drunks, thugs, prisoners. My daughter’s father is better not to mention him. I try to earn money honestly. Twice a week, for 400 pesos a month, I clean in a private cafeteria and in several houses. My daughter helps me. Almost all of our money goes to buying food,” says Silvia, her mother.
Every Sunday, Yamila cleans the apartment of an elderly couple who have grown fond of her and treat her well. “They pay her 600 pesos a month and they prepare a snack for her every time she goes. At 14 years old she should be playing with her friends, but our economic situation is very tough. It’s just the two of us and we have to move on,” confesses Silvia.
In Cuba, cases of children working to help their families are increasing. In violation of national laws, dozens, perhaps hundreds or thousands of adolescents become apprentices in paid trades or become prostitutes with the consent of their parents.
In 14 intervene, from the province of Holguín, more than 700 kilometers east of Havana, colleague Miguel García reported the increase in cases of child beggars. In the Pueblo Nuevo Popular Council, several children go to the Bolas Bar paladar to ask for money or food. They call the littlest one El Gatico, because he sneaks through any gap, jumps over walls and appears in the most unexpected places.
According to the report, a girl named Rosita has been asking for money on the streets of Holguín since she was 5 years old. Sergio, owner of a cafeteria in Santiago de Cuba, 957 kilometers east of the capital, points out that in addition to asking for money or food, “in Santiago there has been an increase in the number of teenagers who steal, take drugs or become prostitutes. The central areas of the city, after eleven at night, are the closest thing to a bayú. It is a shame to see dozens of teenagers who have gone astray. Many times their parents force them to look for money.”
Carlos, a sociologist, considers that “beyond the terrible systemic crisis, the inflation and widespread shortages that the country is experiencing, the loss of civic values, dysfunctional families, setbacks in school education and social assistance is what has the greatest impact on these children. and girls who are forced to work. Most of these cases come from broken families. The government institutions have their share of blame, because starting in January 1959, in their desire to mold a new man indoctrinated by the State, they separated boys from their parents at very early ages, with the school plans in the field, among others. They tried to bury old traditions, such as Christmas and Three Kings Day, accusing them of being bourgeois. “The regime tried to supplant the family.”
The State became the owner of everything. Of the present and future of Cubans. The one who rewarded or punished, according to the behavior of his citizens. At the beginning, the toys were also managed by the authorities. On January 6, 1959, Fidel Castro and a group of bearded Rebel Army men boarded a small plane and threw toys in the eastern mountainous area.
The message was simple and direct: Castro was now the wizard king. The Ministry of Domestic Trade began to distribute three toys for ages zero to thirteen. But with the disappearance of Soviet communism and its multimillion-dollar subsidies, Cuba landed face to face in a harsh reality. The state system was incapable of producing sufficient goods.
With the decline of Castroism, faith returned to the temples and customs such as Christmas Eve, Christmas and Three Kings’ Day were recovered.
Zoila, 74 years old, remembers how her parents placed toys for her siblings all over the house every January 6 before 1959. “It was very beautiful. The day most anticipated by all the children. We tried to be diligent students so that the Kings “They brought toys. I still remember my first doll and when I was 5 years old they gave me a Niagara bicycle. I have never been happier. That’s why every Three Kings Day I buy gifts for my grandchildren.”
Lianet, a mother of two children, tries to maintain that tradition. “I can’t describe the emotion you feel. From the children making the list with toys that are impossible to buy in Cuba, to the eve of Three Kings’ Day with the whole family hiding the toys under their bed at night. “The government, with its mediocrity, is not going to kill the hope of my children.”
But the families that were able to buy toys or gifts for their children on Saturday, January 6, were a minority on the island. Serguei and his wife did the math over and over again on their cell phone calculator before paying for some toys in a private store in the municipality of Diez de Octubre. “We have spent 60 thousand pesos (225 dollars at the exchange rate in the informal market) on toys for the boys.”
That Saturday, after visiting his father in prison, Richel and his brother Maikel went out to sell strings of garlic in the streets. Not even Melchior, Gaspar and Baltasar passed by his house.
