By Fabiana del Valle
HAVANA TIMES – When I was a child, my cousin would invite me to spend a few days at her house. After the initial excitement of the preparations and the first happy day, night would come, and away from my bed and my parents, terror would set in.
I would wake up crying and wouldn’t stop until my dad came to pick me up. I missed my home, my mother’s voice, my dad’s scent, my brother’s things. It seemed impossible to survive without them, without my routines, without those little things that were part of my bubble.
That’s why, when the moment came to turn my life around, I felt so much fear. Studying at the IPVCE Federico Engels pre university was a privilege only the outstanding students could achieve. I was one of them, but I didn’t want to go.
Yes, it was the best school, but it was a boarding school. I didn’t feel ready to live far away, make new friends, and live with a family different from mine—one that seemed large and terrifying to me.
So, I pretended to study for the entrance exams, hoping I would fail and thus find another path for my studies, one that wouldn’t take me far from home.
It’s not in me to fail intentionally. The exams were easy for me despite everything, and of course, I earned the scholarship my parents so badly wanted.
My first year was difficult. I lost too much weight, the things my mom gave me to last the week weren’t enough, and I barely went to the cafeteria. Rice with weevils, the slimy okra, and hard peas weren’t appetizing.
The worst part was getting used to the rules: the proper uniform, strict schedules, those demands that, for a teenager, seem absurd.
I was rebellious. I broke the rules but never missed class. My grades were good, and I made friends among students and teachers.
When I think of that place, I think of the people I lived with for three years: my group and those friends who endure through time.
I still remember the laugh of my History teacher, the masterful literature classes, Professor Calixto and his math, my dear Daima, Machin, the assistant principal who tolerated my bad behavior, and my beloved Magariño and his physics lessons.
I have a thousand anecdotes to share with my daughter, who now walks through those halls. The ones where I sat to write poems, where I read out loud to my best friend, the ones where I secretly kissed.
That school is now barely recognizable. My old classroom is a garbage dump, the building where I slept has no windows, the cafeteria, the sports areas, the cafeteria, everything is in ruins.
Nature has taken life inside the rubble of that place, which meant so much in the lives of many Pinar del Río teenagers.
I couldn’t stop the tears while walking with my daughter and taking pictures of the place. The silence is heavy in a place where sound once lived—the friends calling from one floor to another, the teacher scolding, the laughter. Images of post-apocalyptic worlds I’ve seen in movies or read in books came to my mind.
Today, visitors know a third of what the IPVCE used to be. Of the four units that made up the school, only one still functions. Yes, they keep it clean, with painted walls, tidy areas, well-maintained grass, but we, the oldest ones, the ones who lived its splendor, can only see an old woman with makeup, teetering on the edge of the abyss, while the rest fades into oblivion.
Read more from the diary of Fabiana del Valle here.
